Having launched the excellent P20 Pro earlier this year, Huawei has returned with a new flagship to end 2018 on a high note. The new Mate 20 Pro is a flagship phone in every respect. It’s got a super-attractive design, a powerful SoC, triple cameras, and a laundry list of features which I’ll try to explain to my fullest abilities in this review.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Specifications

The Mate 20 Pro is aiming to outdo the top phones of 2018, and I think it has enough power to lock horns with the best phones out there. Here, take a look:

Looks pretty promising, right? Well, before I get into the technical mumbo jumbo, let me show you the goodies that come with the phone in the box:

  • Mate 20 Pro smartphone
  • Type-A to Type-C Charging cable
  • SuperCharge supported 40W Power Adapter
  • SIM ejector tool
  • In-ear earphones
  • USB-C to headphone jack dongle
  • Manuals and leaflets
  • Clear case

The Mate 20 Pro, as you can see, comes with everything that we expect from a flagship phone. In fact, I am glad that it comes with a fast charge supported power adapter unlike Apple, which is rightfully being criticized for not bundling it with the latest iPhones. More on the SuperCharge capable power adapter later, but for now, I’d like to point out that the included earphones in the box, though they look like Apple Earpods, sound really nice.

The Mate 20 Pro is easily the best looking phone among the recent group of big-name Android releases. I tried, but it’s hard to find flaws with its design. So, I am inclined to say that it’s a well crafted phone. I’ve been using the Twilight variant of the Mate 20 Pro, and thought it lacks the ‘Hyper Optical Pattern’ on the back like the Emerald Green variant, it’s distinctive in its own way.

The Mate 20 Pro is the only smartphone in India with a camera module that looks like Porsche Spyder’s Matrix headlights. It gives the phone a unique identity that instantly makes it more appealing, which explains why Huawei is very open and proud about its partnership with the automobile manufacturer. Mate 20 Pro’s camera module

Huawei used to go for a utilitarian design for its Mate series in the past. However, I am glad that it managed to step up a level, with this impressive external design. The Mate 20 Pro has a glass sandwich design with aluminum on the sides. That, as we all know, is a recipe for a flagship smartphone design, and Huawei has absolutely nailed it. Heck, you don’t even have to hold the device in hand to know that it’s a premium phone. The design speaks for itself.

I would also like to point out that the Mate 20 Pro is one of the world’s first smartphone to use a Nano Memory card. So, the SIM card tray that’s placed at the bottom of the phone right next to the USB Type-C port, only accepts a Nano card. I’ll talk more about the Nano memory card later in the review.

The IP68 certification for water and dust resistance was a notable omission from the P20 Pro earlier this year, and I am glad that the you don’t have  to make that sacrifice here with the Mate 20 Pro.

The display is another aspect of the Mate 20 Pro which I have absolutely have no complaints about. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a 6.39-inch curved OLED panel with curved edges on both the sides. Yes, it has both a notch and a small chin, but they go well with the fit and finish of the device, so I didn’t even bother hiding the notch.

The Mate 20 Pro is also one of the few devices that actually justifies the presence of a notch. Much like Apple’s FaceID tech found on the iPhone X and above, the Mate 20 Pro’s notch houses a dedicated hardware for 3D face unlock, complete with a Dot Projector, Flood Illuminator, etc. It’s fast, secure and accurate, so what’s there to complain about?

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera

This is usually the part where I talk about a phone’s performance before jumping into the camera. But I decided to switch things up a bit because the cameras are such a huge part of this phone.

You can choose to shoot 40MP pictures if you want, but I’d suggest you go with the 10MP shots for the highest quality and smaller file sizes. The primary f/1.8 lens can capture a lot of light in the scene and helps you take some stunning photos. Here’s are some samples that I took in broad daylight:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera Samples: Selfies

The 24 MP, f/2.0 selfie camera, however, is not something that impressed me. No, it’s not bad by any means, but it’s not the best selfie camera that I’ve used on a flagship phone. The selfies turned out a little too soft for my liking. That’s really not the kind of selfies I am into. It also fails to capture details on the person’s face:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera Samples: Wide-Angle Lens

The Mate 20 Pro also has a wide-angle lens with which you can capture some really nice landscape photos. I sadly didn’t find the time to visit a good location to showcase the phone’s prowess, but here are a couple of photos that I tried shooting with the wide-angle lens:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera Samples: Telephoto Lens

There’s also a telephoto lens which lets you zoom into a shot without losing too much detail. This, in my opinion, works really well on the Mate 20 Pro. The stabilization automatically kicks in to compensate for my caffeine induced shaky hands. Here, check out these awesome shots:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera Samples: Night Mode

Now, let’s talk about the Night Mode. The Mate 20 Pro’s Night mode lets you take photos with long exposure time (up to 5 seconds) to compensate for the lack of light. The phone does have OIS, but you might want to use a tripod or some kind of a stabilizer to eliminate hand shake while taking these photos. Because who wants a blurry image, right?

The first image was taken using the Auto mode, whereas the second image was shot using the phone’s Night Mode. As you can see, the difference is almost negligible for me to point out. But here are a couple of examples of what the Mate 20 Pro’s Night Mode can do when it wants to work:

See the difference? That’s almost as good as what the Pixel 3’s Night Sight would produce, which is something that not a lot of phones can match up to.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera Samples: Video

The Mate 20 Pro let’s you record videos at up to 4K resolution at 30 FPS. 4K videos are not supported by OIS, but you’ll get EIS (electronic image stabilization), so the footage is very much usable. You can also shoot 1080p videos at either 30 or 60 FPS. With 1080p at 30 FPS, you’ll get both EIS & AIS (AI Stabilization), while 1080p at 60 FPS has no stabilization whatsoever, which is definitely a bummer considering the kind of videos you an record with other flagship phones.

Thanks to the Kirin 980 SoC, you can get real-time effects such as selective coloring, background blur, etc. on videos. We managed to showcase these features in a video titled “5 Amazing Mate 20 Pro Features in Action!”, which you can watch right here:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera: Final Words

After taking some time to capture a lot of photos, I can confidently say that the Mate 20 Pro is a ‘cameraphone‘ in its true sense. It manages to do a lot of things that most flagship smartphones struggle with. Yes, it misses the mark sometimes, but you’ll manage to capture presentable photos in most cases, which is truly awesome.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Performance

The Mate 20 Pro is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 980, manufactured by Huawei’s in-house chip team. It has 2 cores that runs at 2.6 GHz, 2 cores at 1.92 GHz, and 4 cores running at 1.8 Ghz, making up for a total of 8 cores. It’s a 64-bit high-performance SoC, fabricated on a 7nm process. So, it’s lightning fast, and also very power efficient at the same time.

As always, it’s customary to add benchmark results, so here are some raw numbers. On Geekbench, the Mate 20 Pro produced an impressive 3,339 on the single core score, and 9,880 on the multi-core score. Mate 20 Pro Geekbench results

Note: Antutu benchmark app seems to be having some trouble working on the Mate 20 Pro during my testing, so I’ll update this review with appropriate screenshots and numbers as and when I get it to work properly.

At no point did I find the Mate 20 Pro lagging or struggling to load something during my review period. This obviously may change overtime. But for now, I’d like to say that the Kirin 980 is truly a flagship-level chip, and the Mate 20 Pro is really a solid performer.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Battery

The Mate 20 Pro packs a 4,200 mAh battery, and it has a preposterously long life. There have been instances when I’ve ended by day with more than 40 percent juice left in the tank. That’s really impressive. I mean, ending my days with barely anything left in the tank in one thing, and having enough battery life to keep the phone powered for normal usage for even the next day is another. Mate 20 Pro Fast Charging

Of course, you’ll have to be in a position to own another phone that supports wireless charging or have friends with such phones, in order to use the Mate 20 Pro as a charger. But, hey, it’s always nice to have such a handy feature.

The EMUI software on the Mate 20 Pro, in my opinion, hasn’t really changed much since the last time I used it while checking out the P20 Pro. That being said, though, it’s definitely better than the EMUI that I remember from a couple of years ago, when it was merely an iOS rip-off. Really, the EMUI 9, based on Android 9 Pie, is really the best version of EMUI till date. But there’s definitely room for a lot of room for improvements.

Yes, there’s plenty to like about EMUI 9, but I do have my fair share of peeves. I can’t do anything with the notifications on the lock screen other than just clearing them. The settings page, although Huawei says it’s less cluttered, is still a huge mess. I find myself spending more time finding a particular settings rather than using it. These annoyances, though they’re not deal breakers, leaves a lot to be desired from Huawei’s software.

In terms of connectivity, the Mate 20 Pro has 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band MIMO Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) as well as Bluetooth 5.0. The phone has a USB Type-C port for charging and data syncing. And since there’s no 3.5 mm headphone jack, you have to use the same USB Type-C port for listening to music as well. Don’t worry, you get a dongle inside the box as we saw earlier.

Well, if you manage to sit through the entire review, then you’ll realize that I have covered pretty much everything about the Mate 20 Pro. If not, then here’s a list of pros and cons to help you get a better understanding of the phone:

  • Impeccable design & build quality
  • Beautiful OLED display
  • Great set of cameras
  • IP68 rating
  • Epic battery life
  • Lightning fast 40W charging

Cons

  • 4K video capped to 30fps
  • Minor EMUI annoyances
  • No headphone jack

Huawei Mate 20 Pro: An Elite Phone For Elite Users

From being barely a blip on the radar to launching some highly successful phones across the globe, Huawei is currently enjoying its hottest run in the market. It’s truly a testament of how far the company has come. They have launched some amazing phones over the past couple of years including the P20 Pro. And if there’s a flagship that’s truly capable of showing what the company can do in the future, then it’s got to be the Mate 20 Pro.