21 Oct 2025
The Huawei P80 Pro emerges as a flagship smartphone, distinguished by what is acclaimed as the best camera system in smartphone history. This review thoroughly examines its design, display, battery, performance, and software to determine its value, particularly within the Iranian market.
This review evaluates the Huawei P80 Pro to ascertain its value and features, with a specific focus on its suitability for the Iranian market.
The Huawei P80 Pro features a sleek design with a glass front and back and an aluminum frame. Its gold-colored back cover, which is mirror-like, is prone to fingerprints, and the device weighs 230g, classifying it as a heavy flagship phone.
A significantly large, triangular camera module protrudes from the back, housing four lenses, a flash, and an additional sensor. This prominent protrusion contributes to the phone's top-heavy feel but can be leveraged for a more comfortable grip, and its visibility can be reduced with a protective case.
The phone includes a Type-C port, SIM card tray, speaker, and microphone on the bottom edge, while the right edge contains the power button, volume controls, and an integrated fingerprint sensor. It is protected by IP68 and IP69 certifications, indicating resistance to water, dust, water jets, and high-temperature water.
The P80 Pro is equipped with an 8.0-inch HDR display that supports a billion colors and boasts 3000 nits of brightness. The screen features minimal bezels, occupying almost 90% of the front panel.
The display offers excellent image quality, color saturation, and deep blacks, aligning with flagship standards. However, its auto-mode brightness does not match some other flagships, and the curved glass edges increase susceptibility to breakage and repair costs.
The phone is powered by a 517 mAh battery, which, despite its capacity, experiences non-optimal consumption, making it challenging to last a full day with normal use.
Exceptional charging performance compensates for the battery's consumption issues, featuring a 100W wired adapter in the box and unparalleled 80W wireless charging. The device can achieve a full charge in under 45 minutes and reach 85% in half an hour, alongside 20W reverse charging support.
Security is handled by a responsive fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button, providing quick and efficient access.
The Huawei P80 Pro's camera system is its standout feature, delivering photography quality that largely surpasses competitor flagships like iPhone and Samsung, positioning it as an industry leader in still image capture with few rivals.
The 50-megapixel main sensor captures flawless photos with excellent detail, dynamic range, and minimal noise in diverse lighting conditions, from bright outdoors to low-light indoor environments. Features like Snapshot enhance clarity for moving subjects, and a 'leaving shot' option is also available.
Portrait photos exhibit superb subject-background separation, accurate color reproduction, and clean lighting. Night mode photos maintain impressive detail and dynamic range with minimal noise, showing only slight, non-distracting color exaggeration.
A 40-megapixel ultra-wide sensor produces high-quality wide-angle photos with excellent dynamic range and color accuracy, though minor color distortion may appear at the edges with critical subjects. This lens uniquely offers an adjustable aperture (F1.8 to F4), providing professional-grade control over focus and light metering.
The phone features two specialized telephoto sensors, offering 3.7x and 9.4x optical zoom, with a distinct clicking sound upon switching. While the camera app defaults to a 7x zoom, achieving higher optical magnifications requires selecting the 9.4x sensor. These sensors deliver incredibly clean optical zoom, extending up to 100x digital zoom.
The telephoto sensors enable surprisingly detailed macro photography, capturing subjects effectively from as close as 12 centimeters, which provides unique capabilities not typically seen in smartphones.
A shift sensor mechanism activates when the camera app is open, providing stabilization for both photography and video by compensating for hand movements.
Video recording is supported at 60 frames per second across all lenses, yielding good quality. However, the video performance does not significantly outperform Samsung or iPhone, and some subtle vibration can be present in recordings, potentially affecting sharpness and exposure.
A 13-megapixel selfie sensor delivers excellent self-portraits with accurate color rendition, clean dynamics, and detailed facial feature capture, even in direct light. It also supports 4K60 selfie videos.
The proprietary Huawei Kirin 920 processor performs comparably to mid-range chipsets rather than top-tier flagships. It allows for high-end gaming but experiences significant performance drops and overheating after 30-40 minutes of heavy use, impacting gaming and camera performance.
The EMUI 15 user interface is described as transparent, clean, and highly customizable, offering features like icon changes, themes, wallpapers, and app shortcuts similar to 3D Touch.
A significant limitation is the absence of native Google services due to sanctions, requiring users to rely on workarounds like JBox to access apps such as YouTube and Gmail. This workaround adds complexity and can result in slower access compared to other smartphones.
The phone is expected to receive software updates for approximately three years, though an exact duration is not officially stated.
The stereo speakers provide decent sound quality at half volume, but sound control can become confusing at higher volumes, indicating they are adequate but not top-tier.
The Huawei P80 Pro is a distinctive and heavy phone with an exceptional camera system and rapid charging, though it faces challenges with screen brightness, fragile curved glass, and mid-range processor performance that can lead to overheating. Its primary hurdle remains the lack of native Google services, making it best suited for dedicated Huawei enthusiasts who prioritize photography and are comfortable with workarounds for Google apps.
This phone's camera package is unparalleled, both front and back, making it unique except for its video capabilities, which have counterparts.
| Feature | Description | Insight |
|---|---|---|
| Design & Build | Sleek glass front/back with aluminum frame; heavy (230g) due to large, protruding camera module. IP68/IP69 certified. | Premium yet weighty design with robust durability, though camera protrusion is notable. |
| Display | 8.0-inch HDR, billion-color display with 3000 nits peak brightness and minimal bezels. | Exceptional image quality and vibrant colors; however, curved edges pose a breakage risk, and auto-brightness is not class-leading. |
| Camera System (Photography) | Unparalleled 50MP main, 40MP ultrawide, dual telephoto (3.7x & 9.4x optical) with adjustable aperture, unique macro capabilities. | Sets new benchmarks in smartphone photography, delivering flawless, detailed, and dynamic still images, surpassing many rivals. |
| Camera System (Videography) | 4K60 video recording across all lenses with sensor shift stabilization. | Good video quality, but not significantly superior to iPhone/Samsung; exhibits minor vibration issues affecting sharpness. |
| Processor | Proprietary Kirin 920 processor. | Offers mid-range performance, not flagship-tier; suffers from significant performance drops and overheating during extended heavy use like gaming. |
| Battery & Charging | 517mAh battery with sub-optimal consumption. Features 100W wired and 80W wireless charging. | Battery life is average, but industry-leading fast charging (full in <45 mins) comprehensively mitigates consumption issues. |
| Software & Ecosystem | EMUI 15 user interface. | Clean and customizable UI, but the critical absence of native Google Mobile Services necessitates workarounds (e.g., JBox), impacting user experience. |
