Huawei P30 Pro will outflank the Samsung Galaxy S10 with an all-new quadruple camera

The Huawei P30 Pro will have a rear-mounted quadruple camera set-up, according to images included in a listing for a protective case for the as-yet unannounced handset. The third-party cases join the Samsung Galaxy S10 cases that already appeared on the website of online retailer Mobile Fun.

The latter indicated that Samsung is planning to only include three lens on its flagship phone – less than its latest mid-range offering, Galaxy A9.

We're still months from the purported Huawei P30 Pro release date, so it's worth taking these leaks with a very healthy pinch of salt. That said, a rear-mounted quadruple camera set-up would make a lot of sense for the P20 Pro successor.

• Huawei P20 Pro review
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro review

The latter debuted a triple-camera system that combined a 40-megapixel RGB f/1.8, 20-megapixel black-and-white f/1.6, and a 8-megapixel f/2.4 sensor.

This camera set-up allowed Huawei to offer 3x optical zoom, artificial bokeh-style blur to the background of portrait-style shots, as well as hugely-improved performance in tough low-light conditions.

Adding an additional lens could offer Huawei more opportunities for innovation. In fact, this is something that Huawei European Head Walter Ji has previously hinted.

"Next year we will definitely see more innovation in the camera, and now we have three, imagine four for next year," Mr Ji said in an interview with Android Pit following the launch of the flagship Huawei P20 Pro.

Huawei P30 Pro looks set to keep the same vertical alignment as its predecessor, with all four lens stacked above an LED flash, with a secondary flash sitting alongside the quadruple set-up. Meanwhile, Huawei P30 is said to feature three rear cameras.

Interestingly, Huawei will seemingly adopt a waterdrop-style notch design for its as-yet unannounced smartphone range. 

This is dramatically different from the so-called "hole-punch" display design that Huawei recently used on its latest mid-range handset, the Huawei Nova 4. The latter manages to squeeze more screen real estate into the same physical footprint by allowing the display to bleed to the very edge of the handset and replacing the front-facing camera behind the panel, peering out through a small circular cut-out.

This approach will be impossible with the Huawei P30 range because it will use an OLED display and only rival Samsung currently has the ability to create this type of cut-out in an OLED panel.

As for the show-stopping quadruple camera system, Huawei will purportedly not looking to be chasing megapixels with its new handsets, instead opting for a 38-megapixel camera with a larger sensor as its primary shooter in the set-up.

In terms of raw numbers, this actually falls short of many of the rival 48-megapixel camera phones launching at the moment – including Honor View 20 and Huawei Nova 4. In fact, this is even lower than the 40MP Huawei P20 Pro.

However, the larger sensor will purportedly allow Huawei to greatly improve the quality of images from its rear-mounted camera, especially in low-light.