Huawei P20 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S9+

Introduction

1x, 2x... 5x. Zooming smartphone cameras are no longer a novelty - in fact a numbers race is forming. Asus' Zenfone Zoom couldn't make waves, but Huawei appears on the right track to do so with the P20 Pro and its 3x zoom camera. We figured we'd pit it against the Galaxy S9+ - the latest phone to come out with what's become the standard 2x zoom.

Zoom is only going to be part of it all, though. We'll be looking at how the two compare over a variety of shooting scenarios - day, night, portraits, selfies, portrait selfies. The P20 Pro appears to have the upper hand - higher resolution, more reach, an extra monochrome camera. The S9+ does stand out with the changeable f/1.5-f/2.4 aperture on its main cam.

We'll also examine video - the Galaxy's specsheet reads better in this department with a 4K/60fps mode and stabilized 4K/30fps, while the P20 Pro can only stabilize 1080p/30fps footage. Samsung's slow-mo implementation is also miles ahead, if you're into that sort of thing.

If you need to brush up on the numbers, this handy table below will help you, though a a quick trip to our comparison tool couldn't hurt either.

That's the basics dealt with, but we'll go a little deeper on the next page, comparing the camera architecture, hardware and app UI.