Huawei will release another version of P30 Pro (review), its last flagship to ship with Google Mobile Services, on May 15. The Huawei P30 Pro New Edition, as it is being called, showed up in promo offers on the company’s Germany website.
Due to the US-imposed trade sanctions, Huawei’s latest flagships like Mate 30-series and P40-series ship without Google apps and thus are at a massive disadvantage in countries outside China. To maintain relevance in such markets, Huawei has been refreshing and rehashing its GMS certified phones from 2019. The Honor 9X and Huawei P30 Pro Lite edition being two recent examples.
The question is how far can Huawei really go with modifications and changes while retaining enough of original P30 Pro to be entitled to Google apps and services.
What all can change in the Huawei P30 Pro new edition?
To launch a phone with Google’s blessings, a manufacturer needs GMS license and to obtain a Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) for the phone. The device also needs to pass several compatibility tests like Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), Google Mobile Services Test Suit (GTS), and Vendor Test Suite (VTS) that check for adherence to hardware, software, APIs and security guidelines.
Components that aren’t essential to these tests can be changed. So, theoretically, the Huawei P30 Pro new edition could ship with a new design, different component placements, new camera sensors, and different RAM and storage options.
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Could Huawei fit in the advanced camera hardware of the P40 Pro on the P30 Pro? Perhaps they could, but since the underlying chipset can’t change, this would require more development effort and might not yield similar results. Even when the Kirin 980 powering the P30 Pro is quite capable and can handle high-resolution cameras, a major camera update might be expecting too much.
Huawei earlier launched a new design P30 Pro in Blue and Lavender colors in the US. The P30 Pro new edition in Germany could just be bringing in similar design refinements.
