We've seen many great camera phones at MWC 2019, from the penta-lens camera beast Nokia 9 PureView to the foldable Huawei Mate X, but we were particularly impressed by a handset from a company you may not associate with smartphones - Hisense.
Hisense is known for larger electronics like its TVs or fridges, instead of phones, but when we got hands-on with the new Hisense U30 handset we found the camera was one of the best we've used.
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On paper the Hisense U30's camera has pretty impressive specs – its dual-lens rear array consists of a 48MP main sensor and a 5MP depth-sensor lens, and on the front it has a 'punch-hole' style 20MP snapper.
The rear camera was incredibly quick to focus on objects and environments, even when we put it through its paces by pointing it at different objects in quick succession, and took pictures of close and distant objects with great detail.
We tried out a host of features the camera provides, including an intuitive panorama mode and a beauty mode effective enough to make even us look good.
We weren't able to test out the image recognition mode, which supposedly recognises text or objects through the camera (or in an image), but all the other camera modes worked flawlessly.
We did notice the shutter speed was a little slower than would be ideal, as a few moments passed between us pressing the shutter and the image being captured, and there was a small delay before we could take another picture while the first saved. However these wait times would only be an issue under very particular circumstances.
The front selfie-cam was great to use too, taking high-quality pictures with a noticably quick shutter speed.
The cameras weren't the only impressive thing about the Hisense U30 – its gold-trimmed blue leather design, O-Infinity display using the same tech as Hisense's TVs, and sizable 4,500mAh battery all make it an intriguing device.
Release information about the device is dubious, however – we were told the release date would be "summer" in Europe and "before summer" in China.
Similarly the Hisense U30 price is said to be somewhere between €200 (around $230, £170, AU$320) and €400 (roughly $450, £340, AU$640) – which is a pretty massive range. Presumably we'll find out more later in the year.
