Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
steel partnership are part of every industry , from cars to fast food . But how many terminate up having much , if any , effect on masses ? In 2016 , Huawei and Leica sign a mint to reinvent smartphone photography , and in May 2022 , that multiyear partnership ended — bringing to a close an earned run average that merit to be celebrate .
Between them , Huawei and Leica created a series of superb cameras and drive forward massive advancement in roving picture taking . They also change the path I imagine about take photos with a phone . Leica is about to embark on a new photographic endeavor , and history shows it could be the commencement of something over-the-top .
Simple beginnings
Let ’s start with a short history lesson . TheP9 was the first Huawei smartphoneto feature Leica ’s stigmatisation on the back . The two 12 - megapixel cameras were codeveloped with the tv camera experts , and Leica had a hand in creating the software for the tv camera app , too . It immediately felt like a collaborationism . Something special — not a slow selling manoeuvre . Then follow theMate 9,theP10 , and the P10 Plus , fine-tune the formula before theMate 10 ProandP20 Proarrived in 2018 .
These two phones used Huawei ’s Neural Processing Unit ( NPU ) to contribute AI technology to the camera , with fit identification enhancing the Leica camera lenses and its tweaked software . Both also had black and white cameras , and in the case of the P20 Pro , a 3x optic zoom . After these two , Huawei and Leica worked together on theP30,P40 , andP50series , plus theMate 20,Mate 30 , andMate 40series . TheP50 Pocketarrived this year without a Leica camera , and the still unofficial Mate 50 is n’t expected have one to either .
The P30 Pro may have been the pinnacle of Huawei and Leica ’s partnership , but the P20 Pro and Mate 10 Pro were transformative and felt like the get-go of something special . The use of AI was groundbreaking and exciting , while the optic zoom and monochrome photographic camera — a lineament that helped link up it directly to Leica — set them aside from the rival . There were other good cameras around then , but none were as inspirational and creatively absolve as Huawei ’s .
Huawei P30 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
Not the first, but certainly the most collaborative
Huawei and Leica ’s partnership was n’t the first time we ’d seen a collaborationism between a speech sound Lord and a television camera expert . Nokia and Zeiss ( known as Carl Zeiss during the relationship ) team up up to produce some extremely regarded television camera phone . But it fall out at a metre when phones themselves were not slim or light , camera modules contained a unmarried tv camera , and AI was still mostly scientific discipline fable . Before that , Sony capitalized on its own television camera expertness with phones that wore the CyberShot brand name .
None were the same as Huawei and Leica . Around the prison term of the P20 Pro , it was plain that this was a very different kind of technical school industry partnership . Why ? Neither party treated it solely as a marketing exercise . Leica and Huawei took the cameras , the characteristic , the software , and the overall timber very seriously . Theoriginal press releaseconfirms how mystifying the partnership went , say it would “ span research and development , aim , co - engineering , user experience , merchandising , and retail statistical distribution . ”
In add-on to the wide - reaching scope on the technical side , the two companies also had a clear destination — to “ bid professional - level camera equipment pit with genuine peregrine easiness of purpose . ” This high - level of affair and understandably defined and passably doable end helped from the offset , letting Huawei ’s savvy of the smartphone concern and exploiter interface design intermingle in with Leica ’s deep intellect of and passion for photography .
Huawei P30 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
An inspiring formula
The results were ground - breaking . Huawei ’s Leica - equipped earpiece took lowlight photography to a new level , introduce us to spectacular bokeh effects , pioneered AI for scene recognition , and showed optical zoom on a smartphone could be done without enlarging the headphone itself . We take many of these features for grant today , and while some may not strictly be Huawei - first invention , Huawei and Leica were the first to make themusableandaccessibleto everyone .
If nothing else , it was a partnership that take inspiration and creativity . When I started regularly using Huawei and Leica camera , around the time of the Mate 10 Pro and P20 Pro , it was the first time I wasgoing out specifically to take photos . I ’d never been creatively boost by a product like that before , and looking back , I experience it ’s because of how well the partnership was working . Huawei and Leica were rescue on the promise of delivering pro - even equipment to the regular person , and possess access to it made me need to exploit it . I was n’t the only oneeither .
To take reward of the tv camera ’s ability , I had to get good at taking photograph . The difference was that I wanted to get in effect , and I want to see if the photographic camera really could inspire me artistically . I ’ve pose century , if not thousands , of photos I ’ve taken with all the Huawei and Leica camera phones to prove that they really did boost my creativity .
Huawei P30 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
I ’m by no way a great lensman , but it was these cameras that got me to the level I am today , where I consider about taking a photograph before I take it . Before the P20 Pro , I pointed the camera at something and pressed the clitoris . There ’s nothing wrong with that , but the delectation I glean from adopt photos is amplified many times over today , and I accredit that to Huawei and Leica ’s smartphone camera .
Today’s partnerships don’t come close
Today , the closest the fluid industriousness gets to a similar partnership is the one betweenOnePlus and Hasselblad , but so far , it has n’t delivered the goods . Hasselblad only work on the software side , and while there is a clear progression in what wallop Hasselblad ’s expertise has had on OnePlus ’s cameras , the ship’s company have stopped forgetful of greatness .
Somegimmicky featureshaven’t aid with convincing us there ’s real depth to the partnership . And now thatHasselblad is also working with Oppoon its smartphone camera , the camera maker may be overstretched and unable to give either firebrand the attention that made Huawei and Leica such a force to be compute with .
Vivo and Zeiss are a pair to watch , though . Zeiss ply both software program and computer hardware for Vivo ’s photographic camera , and Vivo itself has been innovate in the theater of simulacrum stabilization with its uncanny gimbal organization in phones ( such as theX70 ProandX80 Pro ) . For now , though , these partnerships have n’t had the same effect as Huawei ’s and Leica ’s did , but it may happen in the futurity .
Huawei P20 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
Leica’s mobile photography work continues
However , rather than any of these team - ups going on torival Huawei and Leica , it ’s potential Leica itself will once more determine the legal community for camera telephone with its newly announced partnership with Huawei rival Xiaomi . rumor relate the couple to a flagship photographic camera phone refer theXiaomi 12 Ultradue in the coming calendar month . To really quicken our appetite , there’sa familiar - sounding statementfrom Xiaomi ’s CEO Lei Jun in the prescribed press release regarding the young pot :
“ During the cooperation , from optic design to tuning esthetical predilection , the groundbreaking technologies , product philosophies and imaging preference of both parties have experienced unprecedented in - deepness hit and fusion . ”
Leica ’s CEO , Matthias Harsch , adds :
Huawei P20 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
“ We are convinced that the first jointly developed imaging flagship smartphone makes the pioneering progress of both caller visible . We will provide consumers in the field of mobile photography exceptional image timbre , definitive Leica aesthetics , nonsensitive creativity , and will open a novel era of wandering imaging . ”
The law of similarity in the mission financial statement to the one Leica share with Huawei in 2016 does paint a picture it could be the beginning of another rich , collaborative , and exciting partnership . Xiaomi ’s camera have always been seemly , but have never quite reached the level where they truly inspire — much like Huawei ’s cameras before it work with Leica .
Together , Huawei and Leica delivered multiple awful camera telephone set by coalesce the right ironware with cutting - edge software , as well as by sharing an intricate understanding of picture taking as an art configuration . Just as authoritative , there was common regard for each other ’s fields of expertness .
Huawei P20 ProAndy Boxall/Digital Trends
We ’re regularly spoiled by incredible tv camera earphone today , but I ’ve yet to descend across one that really fit just how special the early Huawei and Leica cameras were . I ’m going to miss seeing Leica ’s name on the back of a Huawei phone , but I ’m really mesmerized to see where it goes with Xiaomi .
