Huawei has kicked off 2019 as strong as it finished 2018 with the launch of the Huawei P30 Pro, which takes what made the Mate 20 Pro such a great device and steps things up a notch. The P30 Pro has already retaken the crown on DxOMark and brings Android Pie and EMUI 9 goodness to the fold. The device is an absolute powerhouse and Huawei packs a ton of features that could be overwhelming when it comes to setting up your device. We take a look at the first ten things to do when unwrapping your brand new Huawei P30 Pro.
Set up your fingerprint
The Huawei P30 Pro comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor, departing from the embedded traditional sensor found on the P20. The move to an in-display sensor mirrors the move that was first seen in the Mate 20 Pro in order to push the screen to the edge and reduce the bezels. As with the Mate 20 Pro, the sensor is slightly slower than the sensor in the P20 but is on-par with the likes of the OnePlus 6T.
- Go to Settings > Security and Privacy
- Select Fingerprint ID
- Enter your PIN, pattern or password. If you haven’t set one, you will be asked to register one first.
- Select New in-screen fingerprint and follow the instructions.
- Tap Enrol Fingerprint
- Rotate your finger on the sensor to capture the edges of your fingerprint.
- Once complete, tap Done.
Install SystemUI Tuner
Because of the move to minimal bezels and the notch, it reduces the amount of space in the status bar. The facial recognition sensors are also stored in the notch beside the front-facing cameras so the notch is one of the larger ones we’ve seen. This means that with the battery, clock, and connectivity icons, there isn’t much space left for notifications. Turn on NFC and you won’t see any notifications at all. There is a way to tune the status bar to remove icons that you don’t necessarily need to see, such as the NFC icon, by installing an app called SystemUI Tuner.
- Download SystemUI Tuner from the Google Play Store.
- Follow the prompts in the app to enable the commands via ADB.
You can also manually remove icons via ADB, which you can find the commands here.
Phone Clone
Huawei bundles in a native facility that allows you to literally clone any Android or iOS phone to help with moving to the P30 Pro. It’ll transfer contacts, media, messages, and even apps including launcher settings if migrating to the same launcher. Make sure you set up the P30 Pro as the new device while indicating the old phone you’re coming from is, in fact, your old device.
- Go to Settings >System
- Tap on Phone Clone
Install a Launcher
Huawei ships its EMUI software with theP30 Pro and while it is a far departure from stock Android, it does offer some added features. However, EMUI may not be to your liking and, as is the beauty of Android, you can install a custom third-party launcher on the P30 Pro and there’s plenty to chose from. We’ve put together some of the best Android launchers for your P30 Pro.
Configure motion control
Huawei has baked in a number of gestures that improve the usability of the P30 Pro with shortcuts, such as using your knuckles to take a screenshot.
- Go to Settings
- Head to Smart Assistance and Motion Control
- Turn on the gestures you wish to enable.
Manage App Launch settings
The P30 Pro has amazing battery life and that is in part thanks to Huawei’s aggressive background resource management. Unfortunately, a casualty of this appears to be the suppression of notifications since the apps cannot self-launch in the background as designed. Turning off automatic app management will help improve this, but battery life will take a small hit.
- Go to Settings > Battery > App Launch
- Uncheck Manage all automatically
- You can control and select different options for apps that you’d prefer to not be able to run in the background.
- Experiment with these settings to find the sweet spot.
Disable HiSense
Huawei embeds its own artificial intelligence software with the P30 Pro that doesn’t prove much use outside of China. The embedded gestures can be quite annoying but it is easy to disable.
- Ensure you have ADB setup on your computer.
- Enable USB Debugging on your device
- Verify your device is listed with command “adb devices”
- Type “adb Shell”
- Type “pm list packages”, this will show you all packages installed.
- Type “pm uninstall -k –user 0 com.huawei.search”
- The word “Success” will appear.
Turn on Dark Mode
MIUI comes with its own dark mode, ahead of the rumored native Android Q system-wide setting. This will change the UI to use dark colors, which not only helps battery life but is easier on the eyes.
- Go to Settings > Battery
- Tap Darken interface colors.
- Enjoy the dark interface throughout.
Change the Nav Bar layout
The Huawei P30 Pro comes out of the box with the standard softkey arrangement of back, home, and multitasking. Huawei offers the ability to change the Nav Bar
- Go to Settings > System Navigation
- Select Three-key navigation
- You can now change the arrangement of keys
There’s an additional key that when selected on the far right of the Nav Bar can be used to quickly pull down the notification shade at the click of a button, which is a neat feature.
Check for updates
It’s always a good idea to keep your device up to date for the latest security patches and improvements.
- Settings
- System > Software update
Roundup
Hopefully, these tips will help you customize the Huawei P30 Pro experience to your liking and also work around some of the nuances that EMUI ship natively out of the box. If you have any tips that aren’t covered in the tips above, be sure to drop them in the comments below.
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