Huawei P60 Pro vs Pixel 8 Pro

I recently got my hands on a Huawei P60 Pro and compared it to what has been my favorite photography camera phone so far, the Google Pixel 8 Pro. Overall I came away pretty disappointed with the Huawei but there are a couple of scenarios where it really shines. I also threw a few comparisons in with the iPhone 15 Pro for good measure.

WIDE LENS
All photos are cropped to all be the same size but they are all at least 1:1.

The Google Pixel 8 Pro in 48MP mode is by far the best image here. It has the most detail and the least noise. The high megapixel P60 Pro images are no improvement at all over the 12MP images. In fact, if you turn off “AI”, the image is down right horrendously bad.

P60 Pro 12MP

Pixel 8 Pro 12 MP

Pixel 8 Pro 48MP

P60 pro 48MP AI off

P60 pro 48MP AI on

ZOOM LENS
All photos cropped to at least 1:1. Sized to match.
The P60 Pro photo is massively over sharpened and not usable at all. For the Pixel 8 Pro, the 12MP image is fine but the 48MP google image is the best image out of the three.

Pixel 8 Pro 48MP

Pixel 8 Pro 12 MP

P60 Pro 12 MP

STARS
All photos cropped to 100%
The iPhone 15 pro does some REALLY bad stuff with the stars when it applies it’s noise reduction algorithm. (see top-left of photo). It also has the most incorrect colors in the sky. Still if you do NOT crop in, it's a very usable photo.

iPhone 15 Pro

Pixel 8 Pro
The pixel 8 pro has the best photo, best colors, and least amount of noise. It does require the longest shutter speed, though, of over 4 minutes.

P60 Pro
The p60 pro isn’t bad. It does however show fewer stars than the google and more noise but it’s definitely acceptable. The nice thing about the p60 pro is that it only requires a 20 second exposure.

DARK LANDSCAPE
This photo was taken in almost complete darkness with just a very little bit of light coming from the house.

iPhone 15 Pro

The iphone does an okay but not great job. The colors are incorrect and dull and there is a slight loss of details in the trees in the distance.

Pixel 8 Pro

The Pixel 8 Pro far and away takes the best photo here. There is an incredible amount of sharpness and detail considering this scene was extremely dark. The colors are also rendered the best. Note: this requires a 4 minute exposure.

Hauwei P60 Pro

The Hauwei P60 Pro is horrible here. Although it has slightly better colors than the iphone, it’s no where near as good as the pixels. In addition, the trees in the distance are almost completely wiped out from the p60’s overly aggressive noise reduction. This is a good place to talk a bit about this. The p60 has a habit of doing this over aggressive noise correction in dark scenes and when it goes wrong, it goes REALLY wrong. It made the use of the p60 to be very unpredictable and unreliable in such scenes.

INDOOR DARK SHOT
Here is where the P60 Pro is absolutely incredible. Both of these shots are normal shutter speed shots (not long exposure). The Huawei takes a beautiful photo. I did no editing to this photo. This is straight from the camera. If you take photos indoors where it’s dark and need to freeze the action, the P60 Pro camera phone is FAR AND AWAY, the one to get.

P60 Pro 12 MP - Night Mode Off

Pixel 8 Pro - Night Mode Off

This is the google with approximately the same shutter speed (1/25, i think it was). Note that I could do a long exposure here and get something closer to the P60 but it’s still not as good and any long exposure would totally mess up any movement that might be in your shot.

Another place the Huawei really shines is with portrait shots. The phone uses it's natural bokeh much more than other phones and as such has much less of a tendency to incorrectly blur edges of the subject, such as fine hairs. In a single word the portraits from this phone are stunning. 

Although the pixel 8 takes great portraits as well, it tends to really cut out fine hairs and such when it adds artificial blue. My best luck with the Google Pixel 8 has been to turn off portrait mode and zoom in to about 2x, get close and take the shot. This work pretty well for the pixel but it's still not at the same level as the Huawei.

P60 Pro

I don't have any samples to show, but the p60 pro also is great for macro photography. You have the option of using the main wide lens or the zoom lens. When you use the zoom lens, you don't have to be as close and the results are stunning.
Overall, I'll be sticking with my Pixel but the p60 pro does have some serious areas where it's just plain magic. Hopefully future versions, correct the areas where it's not so strong. If Huawei can do that, Google better watch out.
-JP



~ Full images below from which the crops in the review were taken ~
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