Going hands-on with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro
Is the fantastic P20 Pro about to be dethroned by its Mate?
GOING PRO
Huawei has had quite a year. The P20 Pro, with all its triple camera trickery, remains our favourite smartphone of 2018, so we’ve naturally had the arrival of the Mate 20 series marked in our calendars for a while. And what a phone the pricier of the pair is. Three is still the magic number in the photography department, but the Mate 20 Pro has a slightly different take on them to its predecessor. Chuck in premium flourishes like an in-display fingerprint sensor, a bolstering of the phone’s AI skills, and a totally new wireless charging trick, and there are plenty of reasons to consider laying down the big bucks.
ISN’T IT LOVELY?
The Mate 20 Pro isn’t breaking any new ground in terms of flagship blower design, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t lovely. Glass back? Check. Aluminum sides? Check? Rather large notch to accommodate 3D face scanning tech? Check. Curved glass sides so nice you never want to put the thing down? Oh yes. Although there is a bit of chin at the bottom, it’s not enough to harm the phone’s visual appeal.
CHOICES CHOICES
You can opt for the glossy option in a variety of colours, or a back featuring what Huawei has dubbed the Hyper Optical Pattern. Scratching your phone with your fingernail is ordinarily a bad idea, but do it here and you get a sound similar to when you scratch a record. When you’ve stopped doing that, you’ll notice that that cameras have been totally rearranged. All three, as well as the dual tone flash, now sit in a square formation in the upper middle of the back panel.
FASTER FINGERPRINTS
There’s no rear fingerprint sensor like you’ll find on the cheaper Mate 20, because here it’s baked into the screen. Remember the scanner on Huawei’s ever-so-slightly ridiculous Porsche Design Mate RS? Yeah, like that, but apparently now 20% faster. It’s a little finicky to set up, but works well once enabled.
A TOP-NOTCH DISPLAY
The Mate 20 Pro sports a 6.39in curved 2K+ OLED with a 19:5:9 ratio. It’s absolutely beautiful: big, bright and boasting the best blacks, with the display spilling over the phone’s sides. And the notch? Well, you’re either with the notch or against it. We’re so used to them now that they hardly feel worth mentioning, but the Mate 20 Pro’s is certainly more of a presence than the tiny ‘dewdrop’ notch you’ll find on the Mate 20. That’s the price you pay for a phone that can do more. We didn’t get to do much beyond a bit of app-hopping and a couple of YouTube videos, but you can rest assured that this is a screen right up there with the best of ‘em.
SPEEDY SOFTWARE
The Mate 20 series is the first to run EMUI 9.0, Huawei’s take on the Android Pie UI. The new skin brings with it a host of tweaks that streamline the experience, while you’ll find fewer menus to get lost in. As you’d expect from a 2018 flagship, AI also plays a central role in almost everything you do with the phone, with Huawei touting a 134% improvement in the Mate 20 Pro. We’ll need a review unit in our hands before we can make any definitive statements about performance, but with an all new Kirin 980 under the hood, the Mate 20 Pro really does feel super speedy.
PROJECT YOURSELF
Wireless PC projection is now possible, making the Mate 20 Pro a great tool to have in your pocket if you’re giving a presentation at work. It worked well in the short demo we observed. Anyone familiar with the iPhone X’s gesture-based navigation will feel right at home with the Mate 20 Pro’s equivalent. It’s simply a far more satisfying way of using your phone, and we like how dragging the lower left side of the display brings up Google Assistant.
THREE CHEERS
How do you follow the P20 Pro’s pack-leading camera? Well, there’s still three of them, but the former’s monochrome lens has been replaced with a 20MP ultra wide angle camera that’s designed to give both your macro and wide shots a sizeable boost. Black and white lovers shouldn’t feel disheartened though; the software is perfectly capable of producing that effect on its own. The rest of the arsenal is made up of a wide angle 40MP f/1.8 main lens and an 8MP telephoto with OIS.
ULTRA-WIDE SNAPPER
We’re going to have to take the Mate 20 Pro for several winter evening strolls before we can assess how its low-light performance stacks up against that of the P20 Pro, but close-ups (we’re talking centimetres) and background-swallowing wide scenes with that ultra wide snapper are the star of the show here, and the phone elegantly cycles between its various lenses.
YOU ARE A TOURIST
A few AI features stood out too. The Mate 20 Pro now recognises landmarks in 15 different countries, as well as 10m artworks, so culture vultures will have many opportunities to wave their phone around. Then there are the AI-assisted video features, the snazziest of which removes all colour from the scene other than the people in shot. It didn’t work instantly every time, but the cinematic results are great when it does. Finally, a 24MP camera sits on the front of the device, so you can rest assured that those slightly alien-like ‘beauty’ selfies will look super sharp.
SHARING IS CARING
A big ol’ 4200mAh battery should comfortably see you through a solid day of heavy use. The lack of wireless charging support was a cross against the P20 Pro’s otherwise glowing recommendation. Not only does the glass-backed Mate 20 Pro fix that, but the phone itself also doubles up as a wireless charger, allowing you to share juice with any Qi-enabled device by placing them back to back. We have no idea how much you’ll actually use this feature, but it could make you popular on long trips.
HUAWEI MATE 20 PRO EARLY VERDICT
You wouldn’t bet against the Mate 20 Pro being this year’s Android champion, even with stiff competition from the likes of Samsung and Google itself. It’s a gorgeous phone to behold, made more desirable by the curved edges and in-display fingerprint scanner. And with the crazy powerful Kirin 980 making its debut beneath that eye-catching exterior, you’ll struggle to slow it down. We’ve come to expect a great array of cameras from Huawei, and its latest flagship isn’t letting the side down here. It’s going to be fun to see what that new ultra wide lens is really capable of when we can test it properly. Look out for that full review in the coming weeks.
