March 26th is the date we had all waited to see what Chinese device maker Huawei had been cooking for months since it unveiled its last premium device, the Huawei Mate 20 series, last year and that jaw-dropping foldable Mate X back in February.
And, true to form, Huawei did not disappoint.
At the launch event in Paris, the company announced its two newest flagship smartphones, the Huawei P30 and the Huawei P30 Pro and a bevy of accessories ranging from wireless earbuds to a 40 watt power bank most of us wish to have.
While we cannot confirm if those accessories will make it to the Kenyan market, even though there is a high likelihood that the new Huawei watches will do so over time, we can confirm that the company is bringing the two smartphones soon. How soon? This month, actually.
The Huawei P30 Pro’s quad-camera arrangement which incorporates a 20-megapixel SuperSpectrum image sensor, a 20-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, an 8-megapixel Periscope lens and a Time of Flight camera and a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, has won plaudits from early reviewers of the device [check this out].
In addition to the P30 and the P30 Pro, Huawei had confirmed to us, before the March 26th launch event, that it would also be bringing another member of the P30 family that didn’t enjoy airtime in Paris: the Huawei P30 Lite.
Sharing a similar design aesthetic as the standard P30 but going instead with the mid-range Kirin 710 that can be found on the Huawei Y9 2019 (while the P30 and P30 Pro maintain the tried and tested Kirin 980 chipset), the P30 Lite is expected to go for at least half of the asking price of the Huawei P30.
This is something we expected as it has become more of a tradition for Huawei for its high-end P and Mate series devices and Huawei noted, in a release mid-last month that the Lite devices, “enrich and supplement” their well-endowed counterparts. It is a key part of the Chinese company’s world dominance plans.
Last year, Huawei is said to have sold over 200 million smartphones, beating iPhone-maker Apple to become the second top smartphone maker in the world. In the first half of 2018, over half of the 95 million smartphones the company had shipped belonged to its Nova budget lineup (refer to our newsletter). The new P30 Lite will also be available under the Nova brand as the Huawei Nova 4e, the name it will be selling under in markets across Asia and Europe.
We do not have any pricing information of the 3 devices as of now.
UPDATE: We have a date. 10th April 2019, it is!
