Huawei P8 Max smartphone has been unveiled by the Chinese Electronics company Huawei. The company claims that its latest flagship phones come with cameras that are capable of creating “professional” looking photos and videos.
The firm said a mix of an advanced sensor and optical image stabilisation tech offered superior night photos and the ability to create “light painting” effects with real-time previews.
The Chinese company is pitching its P8 handsets as “premium” options. But one analyst said the firm still had a “mountain to climb”.
The Shenzhen-headquartered company impressed many reviewers with the design of a smartwatch unveiled at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress in February, which one tech blog described as “the surprise hit” of the trade fair.
However, Ben Wood, from the tech consultancy CCS Insight, said Western consumers still perceived it as being a “value-for-money brand”. “Huawei’s challenge is how to differentiate a great-looking device from the sea of similar smartphones,” he added.
“Apple’s vice-like grip on the high-end smartphone market has effectively locked out all rivals, with the possible exception of Samsung, which is having to make an eye-watering marketing investment to attract consumers to its new products.”
White-colour pixels
The new Android-powered phones, which were unveiled in London, come in two sizes – the basic P8 with a 5.2in screen (13.2cm) and the P8max with a larger than normal 6.8in (17.3cm) display.
Both feature a 13 megapixel rear camera whose image sensor includes pixels dedicated to measuring white light as well as the more common red, green and blue color pixels.
The firm says this delivers improved images in high contrast and low light situations. In addition, the handset features what the firms claims to be a “best-in-class” stabilisation component that minimises camera shake.
This allows its shutter to be kept open for longer, helping capture sharp images in dim light. It also permits the device to be put into light-painting mode while operated freehand, letting users draw inside a photo as it’s taken by quickly shining light from a small torch across their view.
Although this function is available to other smartphones, Huawei says it is unusual in being able to provide a live preview of what the shot look likes, making it easier to achieve the light-based doodles.
In addition, four P8 phone can be linked together to provide a multi-cam filming system, allowing users to record video footage containing changes in view.
