The smartphone experience on the HUAWEI P60 Pro

As always, I started by evaluating the user experience offered by the HUAWEI P60 Pro as a mobile phone. While the absence of 5G connectivity makes it ideal for people who are afraid of 5G networks :), I was happy to see that I could enjoy very good signal reception everywhere I’ve traveled with it. Mostly, it was in densely populated urban areas. My phone calls were of excellent quality, even when answering calls using the speaker. And the noise cancellation worked well, so most outside noises didn’t lower the audio quality during phone calls.

Call quality is excellent

The smartphone’s Wi-Fi 6 capabilities slightly compensate for the lack of 5G connectivity. I enjoyed the super-fast Wi-Fi on the HUAWEI P60 Pro. Later in this review, I’ll provide details on the actual speeds it reached. Audio quality, in general, was satisfying on this device. The smartphone’s speakers are loud and deliver plenty of bass. Listening to music on it is a pleasant experience, as is watching YouTube videos.

The speakers are loud and clear

Watching movies is another positive experience thanks to the phone’s high-quality OLED display. The screen looks great, is fast and responsive, and offers excellent visibility, even when using your HUAWEI P60 Pro outdoors. By default, HDR is turned on, and both the resolution and the refresh rate are set to be adaptive. They are changed based on how you use the phone to provide the best balance between excellent visual quality and battery life.

The OLED display is great for watching video

Gaming works well on the HUAWEI P60 Pro, even though it is not on par with this year’s flagships. The phone can run any game you want, with excellent visual quality and frame rates. However, there are two issues to consider: because of the large camera bump on the back, holding this phone in landscape mode for long periods can become uncomfortable, and the number of games you can access is more limited than on Android smartphones from other brands, because of the US sanctions imposed on HUAWEI. Luckily, the company’s AppGallery is seeing quite a bit of growth, and more titles are becoming available each month.

Mobile gaming works well

Battery life and fast charging are strengths of the HUAWEI P60 Pro. In normal use, this smartphone can last up to a day and a half on a single charge. You can expect up to two days of autonomy if you’re a light user. Furthermore, you’ll be very happy with how fast this phone charges using its bundled 88 Watts charger. The battery charged from 0% to 45% in ten minutes, and in 31 minutes, it reached 100% - an excellent result. The likes of Samsung and Apple should take note!

HUAWEI P60 Pro charges fully in about 30 minutes

The overall performance is at the flagship level, even though the phone uses an older chip than its competitors. This smartphone is always fast and snappy, no matter what you want to do on it and which apps or games you’re running. Only processing Night mode pictures takes a bit longer. But more on that in the next section of this review.

HUAWEI P60 Pro feels snappy

Lastly, unlocking the HUAWEI P60 Pro is fast and accurate, both when using the fingerprint reader and face unlock.

The fingerprint reader works well

HUAWEI P60 Pro is a great smartphone with an elegant design, excellent build quality, and solid performance. In addition, its display looks great, the autonomy you get is good, and the battery charges very fast.

The camera experience on the HUAWEI P60 Pro

HUAWEI P60 Pro has a 48-megapixel main camera with a variable aperture from f/1.4 to f/4.0. According to the manufacturer, it is the brightest camera ever on a smartphone. The image quality is excellent, both in daylight and during the night. It’s also perfect for professional photographers who want to fiddle with different aperture settings. They can be easily adjusted from the Camera app when using its Pro mode. Speaking of which, the Camera app has been redesigned for single-hand use. For the most part, it is user-friendly, even if you’re not a professional photographer.

Setting the variable aperture from f/1.4 to f/4.0

Thanks to the large sensor, the main camera on the HUAWEI P60 Pro can absorb more light than regular smartphones are able to. This translates into beautiful and sharp photographs, with a lot of detail, reduced noise, and excellent dynamic range. The colors are natural and feel accurate both during the day and at night, and the contrast is excellent.

When using the Night mode on the HUAWEI P60 Pro, you notice it takes a few seconds to process your pictures. Therefore, you can’t take several pictures immediately one after the other. Instead, you have to wait a bit between them. This aspect may irritate some users. However, the results you get are great.

The 3.5x optical zoom is equally impressive, as it lets you get very close to your subject and enjoy excellent image quality. HUAWEI P60 Pro also offers a Super Macro mode, which is useful for people who enjoy macro photography, as I do. 🙂

Super Macro works great

Unfortunately, the 13 Megapixel ultrawide lens has not received the same optimization for night photography as the main camera, and it also lacks optical image stabilization. Therefore, the shots you take with it will have less detail. And you can’t record 4K videos at 60 fps, only at 30 fps. I believe these limitations should not have been present on a flagship smartphone like the HUAWEI P60 Pro.

On the upside, the selfie camera can adjust the focal length between different levels and record videos at 4K resolution, in 30 or 60 fps. It generally delivers great results, especially during the day. However, during the night, the selfie camera can suffer from poor edge detection. And for the best results, enabling Night mode and using the flash is a good idea.

Taking selfies on the HUAWEI P60 Pro is fun

If you want a clearer image of the picture quality delivered by HUAWEI P60 Pro, browse the gallery below. I’ve included pictures taken in different lighting conditions and at different zoom levels.

You can also record videos on the HUAWEI P60 Pro in 4K resolution at 30 or 60 fps. Again, the quality is excellent, and the optical image stabilization does a great job on the lenses on which it is present. Here’s a sample where I filmed a forest during a hiking trip in 4K at 60 fps. I especially liked how easy it was to zoom in and out and how the transitions were handled.

Night videos also look great, including when filming subjects that move. I recorded another sample, again in 4K resolution and at 60 fps:

Except for the ultrawide lens on the back, this smartphone delivers excellent picture quality and solid video recording capabilities, with optical image stabilization in 4K resolution and 60 fps. In addition, HUAWEI’s Ultra Lighting XMAGE Camera system on the back delivers excellent night photography and high-quality video. While it may have a few weaknesses, HUAWEI P60 Pro is one of the best smartphones for photography and video recording in 2023.

EMUI 13.1, AppGallery, and bundled apps

In the European markets, HUAWEI P60 Pro comes with EMUI 13.1.0 preinstalled. This is the company’s user interface, which is based on Android 12. It looks similar to other Android smartphones today, so you won’t have to worry about learning a new operating system, navigation, or notification system. However, one key difference is that HUAWEI smartphones and tablets don’t have Google’s Mobile Services preinstalled.

EMUI 13.1.0 is similar to other Android implementations

EMUI 13.1.0 comes with HUAWEI’s services and apps that try to meet your needs as much as possible. The official app store is AppGallery. It has grown a lot in recent years. It now includes many popular apps like Google Chrome, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook. You also find popular mobile gaming titles like FIFA, PUBG, or Call of Duty. Thanks to this growth and HUAWEI’s focus on extending its apps and games ecosystem, AppGallery has won Best Alternative App Store of the Year at the Mobile Games Awards 2023 gala in London.

While the number of available apps and games is surprisingly high, this doesn’t mean that everyone will find everything they need. For example, I could set up my HUAWEI P60 Pro to use all my regular apps, but I couldn’t get it to work with Android Auto. Because of that, I couldn’t enjoy my car’s head unit for GPS navigation, which was an important downside. Another one was that I couldn’t make Clash Royale work. It’s the only mobile game that I play regularly. Other than that, I was happy with the apps and games I had access to, and there was no other task where HUAWEI P60 Pro couldn’t deliver what I needed.

Some of the apps preinstalled on the HUAWEI P60 Pro

And speaking of apps, when you set up your smartphone, you can end up with a lot of bloatware by accepting all the apps suggested for installation. However, if you uncheck them all, as I did, you get a smartphone with almost no bloatware, which is great.

Don't accept all the suggested apps

Except for HUAWEI’s apps for things like Maps, Books, Files, or managing NFC payments, you get only these few other apps:

• Bing - Microsoft’s search engine is used by default across HUAWEI’s smartphones.
• Cloud - HUAWEI’s cloud backup system offers 5 GB of storage space for free. You can save documents, sync files, or sync settings across your HUAWEI devices.
• Docs - a simple mobile app that allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, which get stored and synchronized using HUAWEI’s Cloud.
• MeeTime - an app that allows you to make voice and video calls over Wi-Fi or using mobile data.
• Member Center - a portal that gives you access to HUAWEI’s latest news and offers.
• My HUAWEI - get in touch with other users of HUAWEI devices in your region and access support options when needed.
• Office - Microsoft’s famous app is preinstalled on HUAWEI devices, allowing you to open documents that were created using Microsoft Office or similar products.
• Snapchat - the popular multimedia instant messaging app is also preinstalled. You can easily uninstall it if you don’t want to use it.
• Smart Remote - allows you to turn your HUAWEI P60 Pro into a remote control for all kinds of devices, from TVs to air conditioners, projectors, or DVD players.
• Translator - another Microsoft app that is helpful when you need to translate text from one language to another.
• Weather - we all need a good weather forecast, right?

Even though EMUI 13.1.0 is based on an older version of Android than the one available on similar flagships, the operating system is familiar, easy to use, and works well. Also, the AppGallery does a good job of giving you access to the apps and games you need. Users who don’t have specific needs, like connecting their smartphones to their car through Android Auto, should be satisfied with the apps and services available for HUAWEI P60 Pro.

Performance in benchmarks

By now, you know how the HUAWEI P60 Pro looks and what it’s like using it, both from a hardware and software perspective. To get a better idea of its power, I also ran some benchmarks:

The first one I ran was Geekbench, a benchmark that measures the processor’s performance both on single-core and multi-core. The HUAWEI P60 Pro performed well, similar to last year’s flagship devices. For example, its Single-Core score was 1456 points, almost identical to that of a Google Pixel 7 Pro. The Multi-Core score was 4354 points, which places it above a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4.

HUAWEI P60 Pro - The results you get in Geekbench 6

Next, I installed PCMark for Android, which simulates a wider range of tasks (browsing, text editing, etc.). In the Work 3.0 test, HUAWEI P60 Pro scored 11552 points, 12% lower than what you get from a Samsung Galaxy S23+. However, the score remains high, proving that this smartphone is great for all kinds of mobile productivity tasks.

HUAWEI P60 Pro - The results you get in PCMark

To evaluate the potential for gaming performance, I ran 3DMark. In the standard Wild Life test, the smartphone maxed out and proved too powerful. However, in the Wild Life Extreme test, it scored 2754 points, which is much better than what you get with the Samsung Galaxy S22 line-up equipped with Exynos processors, which is sold in Europe and other regions.

HUAWEI P60 Pro - The results you get in 3DMark

The GFXBench scores were very good but lower than what you would get from this year’s flagship smartphones equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors. Even so, HUAWEI P60 Pro remains a solid choice for mobile gaming.

HUAWEI P60 Pro - The results you get in GFXBench

I used the Battery Life 3.0 test from the PCMark suite to see how long the battery lasts. It ran for 16 hours and 54 minutes of continuous use. Again, this is a good result, but it doesn’t beat the energy efficiency of similar smartphones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors.

How long the battery lasts in PCMark

Lastly, I ran Ookla’s Speedtest to measure the speeds you get on this smartphone when using a Wi-Fi 6 router and a 1 Gbps internet connection. I was impressed to see a download speed of 904.14 Mbps, the fastest I’ve ever enjoyed on a smartphone.

The speed you get on Wi-Fi 6

HUAWEI P60 Pro has solid hardware similar to what you find on flagship smartphones from 2022. Unfortunately, the company doesn’t have access to this year’s latest and greatest hardware because of the US ban on 5G chipsets. This limitation lowers the appeal of this smartphone when compared to other 2023 flagships, even though it performs very well no matter what you want to do on it.

Do you like the HUAWEI P60 Pro?

You have arrived at the end of this lengthy review. Thank you for reading thus far. I hope you liked it and now have a solid perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the HUAWEI P60 Pro. I’d be happy if my article helps you understand whether this smartphone is a good fit for you. If you have any questions about the phone or any feedback about this review, don’t hesitate to comment using the options available below.