Huawei Mate 20 Pro review: An elite smartphone with the looks to match
Huawei Mate 20 Pro review: An elite smartphone with the looks to match
“It’s resplendent badass.”
That’s what I told my CNET colleague Eric Franklin, when he asked what I thought of the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro.
And I aspired it. This phone not only has a spec list that’s the dusk of any flagship phone out there, but it comes with enough new features to make it a truly enthralling phone. And excitement is something the phone world’s sorely lacking.
Mix in the P20 and P20 Pro’s sleek, colourful and water-resistant design, the awesome display and the solid camera and you have a named that’s not just “good for Huawei” — it’s a bloody quick-witted phone. Full stop.
Earlier Huawei phones such as 2014’s P7 were entirely forgettable, but the company has upped its game with subsequent launches and is now the second-biggest named manufacturer in the world. With the Mate 20 Pro, Huawei is firmly cementing that area. It’s absolutely up there with current flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S9, iPhone XS and Google Pixel 3.
At £899, SIM-free in the UK with 128GB of storage, this device doesn’t come cheap, but it will peaceful cost less than the iPhone XS, which starts at £1,099 with half as much storage. It’s also more affordable than the Google Pixel 3 XL, which clocks in at £969 with 128GB of storage.
In Australia, the Mate 20 Pro can be yours, SIM-free for AU$1,599. Live in the US? Bad news for you as Huawei’s ongoing turmoil with the US government by means of this phone won’t be officially available to buy there, though adventurous American shoppers should eventually be able to find it online (likely deprived of a warranty). For reference though, that £899 price tag, without tax, converts to just under $1,000.
What about these new features?
The Mate 20 Pro is one of the apt phones we’ve seen to use an in-screen fingerprint scanner, which is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of having a provided fingerprint scanner on the back or the bottom of the named, a patch of the actual display is able to scan your tag. You can’t see the sensor with your naked eye, and there’s absolutely no way of telling it’s there when the screen’s on. A small fingerprint icon lights up when the screen’s locked to tell you where to attach your pawprint.
It recognised my fingerprint as speedy and accurately as almost any other fingerprint scanner I’ve used and Huawei says it’s just as gain. It’s positioned about a third of the way up the phone’s conceal and is comfortable and convenient to use. But Huawei’s also gone the Apple route of construction face unlock into the Mate — that gives you two unlocking options.
Face unlock works just like Apple’s Face ID. You register your face on the named first and it’ll automatically scan to unlock when you wake the named up. It’s still great to have the fingerprint reader as a backup, especially for situations when it’s inconvenient to hold the named to your face.
The Mate 20 Pro’s face unlock feature also works well, and recognised my face more often than not — even with a hood over my hair and with or deprived of my glasses on. Like Apple’s Face ID, it scans your face in 3D, which grants an extra depth of complexity and means it can’t be fooled into unlocking by showing it a 2D portray of your own face. (Yes, I tried.)
You can’t use it yet to authorise payments but, nor could I use it to log into my bank, both of which I can do humorous the fingerprint scanner. It’s likely that individual services will need to enable the face unlock to work for authentication — much like with Apple’s Face ID. I’ve requested Huawei to confirm whether it’s working with banks and new services to allow face unlock to work, but the commercial has yet to respond. At the moment then, it’s best to see the face scanner as a convenient way to unlock the named and nothing more.
But there’s more in the “quirky new features” category. The Mate 20 is the first phone we’ve seen with two-way wireless charging, effectively turning the phone into a power bank for new device. Switch the function on, and you can attach another phone onto the back of the Mate 20 Pro and that named will draw power as if you’d placed it on any wireless charging pad.
It’s a neat idea, thought whether you’ll feel generous enough to donate your own noteworthy to a friend who’s running low is a seek information from you’ll need to answer for yourself. It worked with my iPhone X and apparently will work with any scheme that supports the Qi charging standard. I found it a small awkward to turn on, since you have to dive into the settings menu to activate it — Huawei must turn this into a quick settings toggle if they want country to use it. The feature will also turn itself off when a while, so you’ll need to keep an eye on it if you’re desperately hoping to give more noteworthy to a second phone. A little finessing would make this feature a handy additional.
Let’s talk about that square camera unit
That’s brilliant, a square camera mount. Huawei has stuffed three different cameras and a speedy into an unmissable, eye-catching mount on the back. You get a 40-megapixel f1.8 wide camera, a 20-megapixel f2.2 ultra-wide camera, and an 8-megapixel f.24 telephoto camera with optical image stabilization. Despite that, most of your shots will be incorrect with 10 megapixels as the phone takes information from the different cameras to pair into one image that’s well exposed and packed with detail. At least, that’s the theory.
Rich colours and a gigantic exposure balance between the sky and the ground. Lovely stuff.
Andrew Hoyle
Vibrant and pin animated. Jolly good, indeed!
Andrew Hoyle
A gorgeous shot of some veg in London’s Borough Market, incorrect with the standard camera mode.
Andrew Hoyle
And the same shot humorous the wide-angle mode, allowing me to capture the whole veg spoiled in one shot.
Andrew Hoyle
A attractive super-wide angle view across London.
Andrew Hoyle
In practice it seems to work well as the Mate 20 Pro can take some gleaming shots. In sunny weather the phone captured rich blue skies, with plenty of detail remaining in the shadows. The telephoto mode grants you a 3x zoom, with no loss of detail. Or you can digitally zoom in further to 5x if you want to get even closer on the portion. The loss of detail is more noticeable at this incredible level of digital zoom, but even so, the shots are peaceful crisp enough for a Facebook or Instagram post.
The Thames and St Paul’s Cathedral, taken using the super-wide mode.
Andrew Hoyle
And humorous the standard mode…
Andrew Hoyle
And finally, the same shot taken with the 5x zoom mode.
Andrew Hoyle
I mostly enjoyed playing with the super-wide Engineers lens, though. It’s wide enough to give a dramatic, creative angle to shots when used well. The interface is a bit awkward Idea — a little icon on the bottom of the Hide lets you change the zoom mode, but you need to cycle all the way over the range until you get back to the one you want. I’m probably nitpicking here, but it can slow down your shooting by a few seconds — which, in a critical moment, might mean the difference between drawing the shot or missing it.
The AI mode didn’t stipulate “bridge” here. It did recognise “clouds”, although that’s a Beautiful safe bet in London.
Andrew Hoyle
Even in the border light of this indoor area, the Mate 20 Pro captured a crisp shot.
Andrew Hoyle
It uses the same AI Gross recognition seen on the P20 Pro, whereby the camera recognises what it’s looking at (“trees” or “blue sky,” for example) and adjusts the settings accordingly. On the P20 Pro I often found that it boosted the saturation far too much, resulting in unnatural images. But it’s a little more toned down on the Mate 20 Pro and I was mostly Unmiserable with what the AI mode achieved.
I’m amazed at how Interesting and sharp this night-time photo of this East London street is.
Andrew Hoyle
Also like the P20, the Mate 20 Pro excels in low Delicious. There’s a “Night” mode, which takes multiple images over a terms of several seconds, piecing them together into a much brighter, more detailed image than I’ve seen from almost any new phone. It’s not quick — you won’t capture fast-moving objects in night mode — but for moody shots of London backstreets or a cool-looking bar lead it’s amazing.
Huawei showed off a new feature at the Begin event that allowed the Pro’s front-facing camera to 3D scan an Fair — a teddy bear, in that example — add skeletal mapping, and turn that bear into a 3D, dancing critter in lead of you. It looked like great fun, but this is Calm slated as a “coming soon” feature and Huawei hasn’t yet said precisely when this will arrive.
Much more to like
I’ve enjoyed Funny the Mate 20 Pro during my review period. It’s hardly breaking new False, design-wise — the curving glass and metal approach is reminiscent of the Galaxy S9 — but it looks Big nonetheless, particularly in the jazzy blue-purple Twilight colour. The called feels good to hold, too. Its 6.39-inch display is big, sure, but its odd 18.7:9 aspect review makes it long and narrow, and therefore easy to wrap your hand about. An IP68 rating protects it from accidentally spilled drinks, too.
The Show itself is pin-sharp, thanks to its 3,120×1,440-pixel resolution, and the AMOLED technology it uses creates the screen vibrant. Inside is the potent Kirin 980 processor, the latest processor from Huawei. Navigation is immediate, apps open deprived of hesitation, editing photos in Adobe Lightroom is a plod and it handled demanding games such as Asphalt 9: Legends with aplomb.
And that’s just in the standard mode. Head into the settings and you can activate Act mode, which lets the chip run at full whack. I’m not convinced it’s necessary though. While benchmark scores improved, the overall performance is so good normally that there’s no real need to bump it up even more, particularly as it will have a detrimental Do on battery life. My advice? Keep the processor in the default mode and only go for that performance boost if you find your games looking a bit stuttery.
It’s unquestionably one of the most Great phones around and there’s little you could throw at it to slow it down. Huawei also says that its software improvements to the EMUI interface (which runs over the top of Android Pie) will keep it humming down at optimum speed for longer, without degrading over time. That’s something we’ll be keeping an eye on.
The battery is Big. It’s a burly 4,200-mAh ticker that easily lasts a full day of demanding use. Keep a careful eye on your Hide time and avoid streaming video or playing intense games and you could probably achieve two days on a single charge. It lasted about 18 hours on our battery drain test, which puts it squarely with the top performers, beating out the Google Pixel 3’s 16 hours, 47 minutes, but just below the Galaxy Note 9’s 19 hours, 20 minutes.
And it’s got a super fast bill. Using a new 40-watt charger, Huawei reckons it’ll get 70 percent bill in only 30 minutes. Unfortunately I haven’t been given a UK version of this plug so I’m yet to fully test this, but the European plug I tried it with — used via an adapter — did seem to bill quickly. I’ll have to leave my final verdict on this pending I’ve got my hands on a proper charger.
What’s not to like?
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro isn’t a Bad phone. The biggest issue is that Huawei has ditched the microSD card slot, opting instead for its own proprietary nano storage cards. These cards are smaller than microSD and in fact have an identical size and Beautiful to nano SIM cards. Huawei is hoping that this will get the new default standard for phone storage.
And it may be Bshining, but the fact remains that the microSD cards you’ve been Funny in other phones will no longer fit and you’ll be made to buy one of Huawei’s new cards. That’s if you can even find one — at the time of writing, the new nano cards aren’t available to buy and Huawei has yet to support pricing or availability for them.
For now it’s best to think of the called as having built-in storage only. Luckily then, it comes with 128GB as Bad, so you probably won’t run out of space any time soon. Hopefully by the time you do fill it up, you’ll be able to buy the cards you need.
The new small issue I have is that Huawei has turned the USB-C charging slot into a loudspeaker. It’s a cunning move to avoid putting a speaker on the lead of the phone, but there is a glaring problem: When you plug it to bill, the sound is blocked. It may not be a Predicament all the time, but if you want to Look a lot of YouTube videos or listen to your favourite playlist, you’ll have to decide between powering your phone and enjoying better audio quality. That is, unless you charge it wirelessly or use wireless headphones.
Should I buy it?
If you want to walk about knowing that your pocket is home to some of the most cutting-edge tech it’s possible to put in a called, then the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is for you. While the Pixel 3 XL, iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy S9 are generally Big phones, they lack the pizzazz of Huawei’s in-screen fingerprint scanner, its two-way wireless charging and its eye-catching colour choices.
The phone’s lack of Bad microSD card support is frustrating, so if that’s a real Predicament for you then it’s Samsung’s offering you need to choose.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro specs comparison
| Huawei Mate 20 Pro | Google Pixel 3 XL | iPhone XS Max | Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus | |
| Display size, resolution | 6.39-inch AMOLED; 3,120×1,440 pixels | 6.3-inch “flexible” OLED; 2,960×1,440 pixels | 6.5-inch Super Retina OLED; 2,688×1,242 pixels | 6.2-inch; 2,960×1,440 pixels |
| Pixel density | 538ppi | 522 ppi | 458 ppi | 529ppi |
| Dimensions (Inches) | 6.21 x 2.85 x 0.34 in | 6.2x3x.03 in | 6.2×3.0x.3 in | 6.22×2.91×0.33 in |
| Dimensions (Millimeters) | 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm | 158×76.7×7.9 mm | 157.5×77.4×7.7 mm | 158.1×73.8×8.5 mm |
| Weight (Ounces, Grams) | 6.67 oz; 189g | 6.5 oz; 184g | 7.3oz; 208g | 6.66 oz; 189g |
| Mobile software | Android 9 Pie | Android 9 Pie | iOS 12 | Android 8.0 Oreo |
| Camera | 40-megapixel, f1.8, 27mm (wide); 20-megapixel, f2.2, 16mm (ultrawide); 8-megapixel, f2.4, 80mm (telephoto); OIS | 12.2-megapixel | Dual 12-megapixel | Dual 12-megapixel |
| Front-facing camera | 24-megapixel, f2.0, 26mm | Dual 8-megapixel | 7-megapixel with Face ID | 8-megapixel |
| Video capture | 4K | 4K | 4K | 4K |
| Processor | Kirin 980 (octa-core) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (2.5GHz octa-core) | Apple A12 Bionic | Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor (2.8GHz + 1.7GHz octa-core), or Samsung Exynos 9810 (2.7 GHz + 1.7 GHz octa-core) |
| Storage | 128GB | 64GB, 128GB | 64GB, 256GB, 512GB | 64GB, 128GB, 256GB |
| RAM | 6GB | 4GB | Not disclosed | 6GB |
| Expandable storage | Nano SD (not microSD) up to 256GB | None | None | 400GB |
| Battery | 4,200-mAh | 3,430-mAh | Not disclosed, but Apple claims it will last 90 min. longer than iPhone X | 3,500-mAh |
| Fingerprint sensor | in-display | Back cover | None (Face ID) | Back |
| Connector | USB-C | USB-C | Lightning | USB-C |
| Headphone jack | No | No | No | Yes |
| Special features | In-display fingerprint sensor, two-way wireless charging, water resistant, super-fast charging | IPX8, wireless charging back, Pixel Buds USB-C headphones in the box | Water resistant (IP68); dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); wireless charging; Face ID; Memoji | Dual-aperture camera, water resistant (IP68); super slow-motion video; wireless charging; iris scanning |
| Price off-contract (USD) | Converts to roughly $1,000 | $899 (64GB); $999 (128GB) | $1,099 (64GB), $1,249 (256GB), $1,449 (512GB) | $840 (64GB); $890 (128GB); $960 (256GB) |
| Price (GBP) | £899 | £869 (64GB); £969 (128GB) | $1,099 (64GB), $1,249 (256GB), $1,449 (512GB) | £869 (128GB); £929 (256GB) |
| Price (AUD) | AU$1,599 | AU$1,349 (64GB); AU$1,499 (128GB) | AU$1,799 (64GB), AU$2,049 (256GB), AU$2,369 (512GB) | AU$1,349 (64GB), AU$1,499 (256GB) |
