Huawei P30 Pro vs. iPhone 11 Pro Max camera shootout: iPhone takes the crown

The iPhone is king of smartphone cameras again. 

At first, I was skeptical. When I got my iPhone 11 Pro Max a few weeks ago, the camera was buggy, slowish, and — at first glance — appeared to be no match to Huawei's excellent cameraphone in several key departments, such as zoom and low-lit photography. 

With an unprecedented onslaught of software updates, Apple slowly but surely fixed the bugs on the iPhone camera. It got faster, it stopped blacking out, and it gained Apple's secretive new Deep Fusion tech, though only in iOS beta at that point.

Since I found the Huawei P30 Pro to have the most versatile and overall best camera around, I decided it was time for a side-by-side comparison to see whether Apple was able to catch up with Huawei's camera. And while a TL;DR will never do justice to this type of text, the short answer is yes. The camera on the iPhone 11 Pro Max is better, in many important aspects, than the one on the Huawei P30 Pro. 

A few notes before I dig in. 

• Huawei also has the newer Mate 30 Pro. but it doesn't have the periscope telephoto lens  and it doesn't have Google services, so it's not a very interesting device to users in the U.S. and Europe. 

• For the test, I walked around with both phones with me and took shots from a very similar position and either at the same time or just seconds apart. For the most part, I've left the settings on default. 

• I've used beta software on the iPhone, but the experience has been consistent across several recent betas, so it's fair to assume that the final version of iOS 13.2 will be very similar to the current beta.

Daylight

Starting with a colorful, daylight shot, we immediately see one of the recurring differences between these two devices' cameras. Huawei oversaturates photos to make them more attractive at first glance, but ultimately resulting in loss of detail. The iPhone, on the other hand, takes photos with more natural colors. 

The iPhone also does a fair bit of post-processing, but in a more reserved, smarter way. As a result, the iPhone's photo is sharper and has colors which are more true to life and better detail.

Wide shots

This is a draw. The P30 Pro's 20-megapixel wide camera captures more detail, but the iPhone's photo has far superior dynamic range. Generally, both phone's wide sensors work best in the daylight, and should only be used when you really need them. The main sensors will always do a better job in terms of photo quality. 

HDR

For some mysterious reason, Huawei keeps HDR as a separate, hidden option in the camera settings. And even though a Huawei rep told me that the camera AI will turn it on when necessary — as it does on the iPhone — the results I've gotten on the iPhone were clearly better. In the example above, you'd want both the foliage in the bottom and the sky above to have a nice dynamic range, and the iPhone does it way better. In the photo taken with the Huawei the sky looks dull and pale compared to the iPhone's photo (and what my eyes saw). 

Portraits

The iPhone has always been best in class when it comes to bokeh portrait shots, but it wasn't always great in poorly lit, indoor shots. Here we have a testament of just how much Apple has improved its cameras. In this example, the iPhone got the colors and the skin tone right, with Huawei's photo looking dull and overly green in comparison. Both phones struggle with the bokeh effect a bit, with Huawei doing a slightly better job of blurring the correct parts of the photo. I wonder what the iPhone's Deep Fusion tech has done to improve the photo; it's hard to say as there's no way of turning it on or off. 

Bokeh

OK, that's portrait bokeh. How about getting a bokeh effect on other things, like flowers? Huawei won't do bokeh on anything but people in Portrait mode; you have to switch to the (very similar) Aperture mode. On the other hand, the iPhone will sometimes struggle until it isolates the object in focus, but when it does, it does a great job of separating it from the blurry background. Huawei's photo fails at properly isolating the flower. 

Still nature

Here's one where the Huawei wins, with a brighter, more colorful photo. Sometimes, in indoors shots, the way Huawei's camera is tuned will get you a more attractive photo, even if it's oversaturated compared to the one taken with the iPhone. 

Food

The roles reverse in this photo of my favorite food. The iPhone took a sharper photo with more texture, detail and true-to-life colors.  

Zoom

Comparisons of the telephoto lenses on these two phones are tough to do as both the hardware and the software is very different; plus, it's hard to tell when the zoom is digital and when it's optical. 

This photo was taken with a 2x zoom setting on both phones. The iPhone overdid the sharpening just a bit, but to its credit captured a lot more detail. The P30 Pro's photo's colors are way off, which makes the iPhone a clear winner. 

Bigger zoom

The Huawei P30 Pro can do 5x optical zoom; the iPhone 11 Pro Max only goes to 2x, and the differences are huge when you zoom in a lot. In this photo of a cat, taken with a 10x zoom setting (meaning both photos are a mix a bit of optical and digital zoom), Huawei is just plain better in every regard. 

Darkness part one

This is where things get really interesting. When it first came out, the Huawei P30 Pro took incredible low-light shots that only the Pixel 3 could (sometimes) match. Can the iPhone's Night Mode beat Huawei? The answer is yes, but it's more complicated than that. 

As I've seen in so many examples, the iPhone's photo has a warmer tone that's also more true to life. It's also brighter and a bit softer, resulting in loss of some detail. 

Darkness part two

I've found that the iPhone excels in evening shots when the subject is lit by a local light source, like a street lamp. The P30 Pro did a better job with evenly lit scenes. 

In the example above, the photo taken with the iPhone is brighter and just looks a lot more natural than the Huawei's severely over-sharpened photo. 

Darkness without Night Mode

The situation changes drastically when you turn off night mode on both phones. Then, Huawei will often take a brighter, sharper photo. There's a caveat, though. If you turn off Night Mode on the iPhone, it will capture the photo immediately; the Huawei will take a second or three, depending on the light. In a way, Huawei's cheating here by always forcing a "night mode" of sorts, so I wouldn't take this result to heart. 

Note that in near-total darkness — meaning those situations in which you shouldn't really be taking photos but sometimes you must — Huawei wins, both with Night Mode and without it. The photos won't be great but they will be something; the iPhone's photos will be horribly noisy and, mostly, unusable. 

Selfies

The iPhone consistently took better selfies in Portrait mode, and it shows in the example above. The subject's face is well isolated from the background (note that you can change the bokeh strength on both phones) and the skin tone is accurate. Surprisingly, I'd expect the Huawei P30 Pro's photo to be more detailed given its 32-megapixel selfie camera, but in most cases, it wasn't. 

Dark selfies

In low light, the iPhone won't produce very good selfies unless you turn the faux-flash on (which makes the phone's screen light up, illuminating your face). The Huawei P30 Pro will do a better job, though you can't expect miracles.

Video

Video is a completely different ball game. The iPhone 11 Pro Max can take 4K video at 60fps, whereas the Huawei P30 Pro maxes out at 4K at 30fps. The iPhone also works better in low light and has superior image stabilization, which you can clearly see in the short examples above (Huawei is on top, iPhone is below). 

There are many other aspects of videography on these devices, such as slow motion video, but generally, the iPhone simply takes better, smoother videos, and this will be apparent in most cases. Apple's phone is a clear winner here. 

Notes on general performance 

Initially, my iPhone 11 Pro Max's camera was considerably slower to start up and to switch from rear to front camera than on any other phone I've had, including the P30 Pro. It also sometimes froze with a black screen which wouldn't budge until I restarted the app. In the beta versions I've used for this test, iOS 13.2, Public beta 3 and 4, those problems were gone, and the camera app's speed was comparable to the speed of the camera app on the P30 Pro. I still get a bit of a hiccup or a slowdown here and there, but the iPhone's camera now works as it always did on iPhones: quickly and reliably. 

Conclusion

The initial bugginess of the iPhone 11 Pro Max's camera aside, I find it hard to believe just how much it has progressed since the iPhone XS. The wide camera performs as good as it does on the P30 Pro — it's not perfect but it's a good option to have. Low light photos are among the best around. Bokeh, portrait shots, selfies — they're all consistently great.

The only times when I found the iPhone lagging behind the Huawei were extremes, such as super macro mode (which the iPhone doesn't have), photos taken with 10x zoom or photos taken in total darkness. Kudos to Huawei for still winning in those situations, but as an everyday shooter, the iPhone 11 Pro Max is better by a considerable margin.