Smartphones should be thin and have a large screen… That was the ruling mantra of smartphone manufacturers that did not allow true camera zooms on their products. Until Huawei and Leica decided to redesign an old idea…

Some 15 years ago, Konica Minolta has produced extra sleek compact camera which had no protruding lens. It was called Dimage X1, and it had a wonderful idea of a periscore zoom lens with a focal length of 7.7 to 23.1 mm (equivalent to 37 to 111 mm in 35 mm format).

^{Periscope-style camera zoom mechanism}

Actually, it was OPPO as the first manufacturer which announced real zoom on their smartphones, but they did not deliver it on time. Now Huawei, in cooperation with Leica, comes with it’s first real smartphone camera zoom in a model P30. New flagship model will also come with stronger low-light capabilities, and will be launched in Paris, on March 26th — in just five days!

Ah, Paris… that romantic smell of tear gas, the excitement of possible losing eye on weekends, burning banks down the Champs-Élysées… perfect environment for testing the new smartphone shooting viral videos of fighting with the police, bringing down the government and promoting activism.

But what if you can’t wait to see the quality before that? Would you like to know how the pic from this phone looks like?

Two days ago, Parker Walbeck put up a video shot on “unreleased smartphone camera that will soon be revealed” — so keep an eye at his channel…

Duration: 3:24

And while we have composing this text, another player just went in — ZTE! But the story of their model with sliding camera, next time. In the meantime you can decide is Huawei P30 Pro…

…a smartphone with the real camera zoom
or
a real camera with a phone option?

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