Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

Huawei P20 Pro teardown reveals a triple camera OIS surprise

In a surprise discover, it appears that all three of the stunning new Huawei P20 Pro’s rear camera sensors may have optical image stabilisation (OIS).

That’s the big takeaway from iFixit’s teardown of the 6.1-inch handset, which we described as “a photographer’s dream” in our recent review.

Related: Huawei P20 Pro

Strangely though, up until now Huawei has only said that the phone’s 8-megapixel image sensor has OIS, with its 40-megapixel telephoto sensor and 20-megapixel monochrome sensor said to be using Artificial Intelligence Stabilisation (AIS) instead.

It seems like a strange omission to make, with the Chinese company appearing to undersell the P20 Pro’s image-capturing capabilities.

“Officially, only the little 8 MP telephoto cam gets hardware OIS — the others, saith Huawei, rely on Kirin’s Neural Processing Unit for things like predictive focus, settings for over 19 different scenes, and filter effects like bokeh,” iFixit notes in its teardown.

“That said, this sure looks like OIS hardware to us—three OIS hardwares, to be exact. Are you holding out on us, Huawei?”

The handset got an overall repairability score of four out of 10.

While many of its components are modular, and therefore pretty straightforward to replace, the phone’s held together by a lot of adhesive, and the glass front and back make it potentially twice as susceptible to breakage.

What do you consider to be the best smartphone on the market right now? Share your thoughts on Twitter @TrustedReviews.

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up to our newsletter

Get the best of Trusted Reviews delivered right to your inbox.

This is a test error message with some extra words