Huawei has broke news today at its highly anticipated London event. Given the company’s growing reputation over the years, it seems like its phones are just getting better. With the launch comes the Mate 20 series on top of the Mate 20 Lite released a month ago. Better yet, they do sound pretty impressive.
Huawei has emphasized on own HiSilicon Kirin 980 AI chipset which is fabricated on a 7nm process. The Kirin 980 is 20 percent faster than its predecessor the Kirin 970, which is claimed to be better performing and more power efficient than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor. Note that it’s still an AI processor, whose capabilities isn’t just limited to assisting the camera, but will help prevent degrading performance of the phone over time. The Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro rock the company’s latest processor, which on paper will translate to speedy performance across the board.
The Huawei Mate 20 sports a 6.53-inch LCD display in Full HD+ resolution. This screen size shouldn’t come as a surprise given the P20’s 5.8-inch display. As it is a full screen device, the Mate 20 has a tiny “dewdrop” notch to bring more screen real estate. This display goes up to 820 nits of brightness, with what Huawei claims to be a Full RGBW screen technology.
The Mate 20 Pro on the other hand features an iPhone X-esque display notch which carries not only the selfie camera but also front facing sensors for Huawei’s 3D face unlock which we will talk through later. The OLED display measures at 6.4-inches in QHD+ resolution. It also comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor as opposed to the Mate 20’s rear fingerprint sensor. The in-display fingerprint sensor has the ability to detect pressure to prevent accidental screen unlocks.
The Mate 20 comes with 4 or 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage while the Mate 20 Pro has 6 or 8GB of RAM with 128 or 256GB of storage respectively. With expandable storage comes the debut of the NM card instead of the micro SD standard.
Huawei claims that the square setup of tri-rear cameras is inspired by sports cars. The Mate 20’s setup consists of a 12MP f/1.8 primary sensor, a 16MP f/2.2 wide angle lens and an 8MP telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture. The Mate 20 Pro on the other hand takes optics up a notch with a 40MP f/1.8 primary sensor for all that detail, a 20MP ultra-wide sensor. Huawei has opted to add another NPU to the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro compared to their predecessors, which can now recognize 1,500 scenes for image capturing.
The standard Mate 20 handset carries a 24MP front facing shooter, which is the same one seen on the Mate 20 Pro. The latter however, features a 24MP RGB sensor, a flood illuminator, a TOF proximity sensor plus an IR camera alongside the selfie camera. The combination of these sensors will enable more accurate face unlocking with 30 percent faster speed.
A 4,000mAh battery powers the Huawei Mate 20 and a 4,200mAh for the Mate 20 Pro. Huawei’s own Supercharge is available on the latter, in which 30 minutes brings a 70 percent charge. It features fast wireless charging of 15W, which is claimed to be twice as fast as Apple’s iPhone X. The Mate 20 Pro has a bonus feature – the ability to wirelessly charge other devices, in which Huawei cheekily teases it with an image of the phone charging the iPhone X wirelessly.
The Huawei Mate 20 series will run Android 9.0 out of the box, skinned with Huawei’s own EMUI 9.0. Both phones will be available in Pink Gold, Midnight Blue, Emerald Green, Twilight and Black color options. The Mate 20 will start at €799 and the Mate 20 Pro at €1,049. There will also be a Porsche Design Mate 20 just like its predecessor, with a high spec-ed 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS will start at €1,695.