REVIEW: Huawei Mate 20 Pro - Your Best Buddy
LAHORE - If you want to hold the future in your hand, the latest Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the best option – with the most powerful chipset in any Android smartphone and an AI-powered camera with much more innovation.
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The Mate 20 Pro is a far cry from the aluminium phones that almost feel like bricks. Instead, it feels like a piece of jewellery, with a large screen and a notch on top coupled with a front facing camera, an earpiece and a bunch of sensors. Additionally, the Mate 20 Pro's narrow bezel gives a nice premium feel.
On the back, there's a triple camera setup in the square shape (Matrix Camera setup) along with a dual LED flash.
The phone weighs 189 grams with dimensions of 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm.
The Huawei Mate 20 is more than just a pretty handheld because it also features water-and-dust resistance (IP68 rating).
The phone has a volume rocker and power button on the right, Hybrid SIM tray on the bottom of the device along with USB Type-C port which is also home for speaker and pair of a microphone; a mic and an IR blaster on the top.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is equipped with a 3D 6.39-inch AMOLED display, which gives 1440x3120 pixels resolution, 19.5:9 ratio with curved edges and notch on top which is slightly smaller than on P20 Pro.
The OLED display delivers crisp visuals and popping colours for day to day usage, with a pixel density of 538 PPI (Pixels per inch) densities.
Mate 20 Pro's display has also an integrated ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor from Qualcomm.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is powered by the company’s densest and highest performing system on chip (SoC) to date—the Kirin 980. Manufactured with the advanced 7nm process incorporating the powerful Cortex-A76-based CPU and Mali-G76 GPU, the SoC — Octa-core (2x2.6 GHz Cortex-A76 & 2x1.92 GHz Cortex-A76 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) — offers improved performance and an unprecedented smooth user experience.
The SoC is coupled with 6GB RAM and 128GB Internal storage expandable up to 256GB (uses SIM 2) with Huawei's Nano-Memory Card.
To power the SoC, there's a 4,200mAh battery which supports Fast charging40W (70% in 30 min), Qi wireless fast charging 15W and Reverse wireless charging.
The Kirin 980 is the world's first 7nm process Cortex-A76 architecture chipset (integrates 6.9 billion transistors in an area of less than 1 square centimetre) coupled with dual NPU (Neutral-Network Processor Unit). Moreover, the chipset is the pioneer to run (4.5G) LTE Cat.21 network connectivity.
The highlight of the new Kirin 980 is not the faster CPU or more powerful GPU (Mali-G76), but the brand-new dual Neural-Network Processor Unit (NPU), which provides hardware acceleration to machine learning tasks. These tasks include image recognition, voice recognition, and natural language processing.
By adopting the advanced and flexible CPU and GPU multi-core architecture, task and operation speed of the device has been greatly increased. One of the dual-NPU offers vast AI computing and the other focuses on specific tasks to create massive efficiencies and a drastically improved user experience.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro comes with EMUI 9.0 based on Android 9.0 (P) out of the box. EMUI 9.0 is all about AI integration and self-algorithms and users can enjoy all productivity and entertainment features easily and conveniently with a few simple taps and swipes.
Huawei designed the new OS on nature and uses the simple, enhanced interference for a smooth user experience.
EMUI 9.0 incorporates a unified, ergonomic design and a streamlined settings menu. The new gesture navigation support allows users to effortlessly interact with their devices using just taps and swipes.
Huawei also introduces new AI features that enable the smartphone to perform or enhance a range of tasks from object identification to food calorie counting. Using 3D Live Object Modeling, consumers can even create a fun digital avatar to dance or interact with.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro becomes your computer, all it takes is one tap to establish a connection between a smartphone and a PC for easy and fast file sharing.
The new Huawei Share 3.0 feature allows users to connect their Mate's to the TV screen and can also share files between smartphones and PC.
Huawei has also introduced a new generation processing engine for the Mate 20 series, the Kirin 980. This should allow faster, more complex algorithms to be applied with dual-core NPU. It also enables the camera to recognise ‘4500’ objects per minute (food, animals, beach, snow etc), which is helpful for ensuring that the correct camera settings, processing parameters and adjust the colour profile accordingly. Focusing is achieved through laser, depth, contrast and phase detection.
AI and neural networking are applied to improve the quality of the fake bokeh mode, and object recognition for automatic scene selection also relies on some AI magic. Finally, motion detection is being used to reduce motion blur in low light conditions.
So whether it's dancing to a fast song or quickly running in front of the camera, the Kirin 980 can focus on the joints and lines of the human body in real time. The powerful object detection capabilities can also accurately identify a variety of objects. In comparison to the Kirin 970, the Kirin 980 is an impressive leap from image recognition to object detection. The Kirin 980 sets the foundation for future AI capabilities by providing complete framework support and rich tool keys for App developers.
Other than in-display fingerprint scanner, the Mate 20 Pro also comes with Face unlock that uses 3D depth sensing camera projection over 30000 points.
The Face Unlock on the device is pretty responsive on the responsive even in low light conditions all thanks to its AI-powered 3D 24MP front-facing camera.
Users face ID can also be used to securely access a private screen containing locked APPs and personal data.
Huawei earlier this year had introduced the world's first triple camera smartphone - P20 Pro - following the steps of previous technology the company has also introduced the Leica AI-powered triple camera setup which the company called 'Matrix Camera.'
The triple setup contains the 40 MP main RGB lens captures great details in everyday photos, while the 8 MP telephoto lens will focus on distant shots and the whole new 20 MP Leica Ultra Wide Angle Lens is perfect for the landscape photos and macro shots.
The 40MP camera sensor handles both RGB and monochrome modes in photography, while the 20MP Ultra wide lens, capture an imposingly wide perspective even from the confines of tight spaces.
Through 3X and 5X hybrid zoom users along with the close-in view on any subject can also capture a much wider view.
The company introduced artificial intelligence (AI) into its camera last year with the Kirin 970 processor in Mate 10 Pro and has now doubled-down with a dual-core Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on the Kirin 980 that further helps with imaging.
In our test, the camera is pretty responsive in recognising and detecting the scene, light and objects.
For example, it can detect background, object and secondary object in one picture and apply AI to each of them individually.
The camera application has also some new features based on NPU for focus and bokeh effect.
The effects include changing the shape of lights in the background using circles, hearts, swirls, and discs.
The lighting effects include stage lighting, blinds, stained glass, and a photo booth.
The camera application also includes Huawei's AI-powered HiVision which identify landmarks, artworks, QR code reader and language translation.
Huawei's stated that it's using technology provided by Microsoft for image recognition as well as translation.
Users can record the 4K video at 30fps and slow-motion 120fps, and 960fps. In our review, the recorded footage doesn't include any flickering of lights when shooting in indoor light.
The video also features an AI Portrait Color video mode which isolates human subjects and desaturates the colours in the background. AI Spotlight Reel identifies clips with a shared theme and auto-generates a montage, made entirely of highlights.
The front 24-MP RGB camera has the bonus of a flood illuminator and IR camera next to it, for unlocking the phone 30 percent faster than the Mate 20 Pro.
The phone has the best low light photography and videography from all the phones in the market.
In our review test, the smartphone is capable enough to run all the high-end available on Google Play store or Huawei App Gallery without any lag, we have tried the high-end games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), the game runs smoothly on the high graphics setting but we feel some minor heat issue from the device, however overall 3D rendering during gameplay experience is pretty amazing and the phone does not lag on any point.
There were no visible lag or performance hits while carrying out day to day tasks like opening/closing applications and multitasking a few tasks in the background.
The smartphone comes with 40W Huawei SuperCharge power brick that juices up the battery to 70% in just time span of 30 minutes, moreover, the device has the wireless reverse charging technology, which means you can charge other smartphones (that supports wireless charging) by just placing the device on your 'Mate'.
With a 4,200mAh battery, this phone provides a pretty decent battery life. It provides enough power to easily get through a day with moderate to heavy usage.
The price of the smartphone in Pakistan likely to be between Rs140,000 to Rs150,000 and will be launched by the end of next month.
If you are a globetrotter and want to spice up your journey with tons of photos, then look no further. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is your ultimate travelling companion - which replaces a whole bag of camera and lenses. It has a great screen, blazing-fast performance, and its large battery charges in a flash of a second.
But this phone is not all about the camera; it is also fully equipped to handle any business, gaming, or social task you throw at it. Being the smartest gadget of this season, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro should be on your wishlist. Try as you won't regret it!
Key Features
- Body: Dual glass body with an aluminum frame, curved Corning Gorilla Glass, IP68 rating for dust and water resistance
- Screen: 6.39-inch AMOLED screen, 1440x3120p resolution (538ppi)
- Chipset: 7nm Kirin 980 chipset, Octa-core (2x2.6 GHz Cortex-A76 & 2x1.92 GHz Cortex-A76 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55), Mali-G76 MP10 GPU
- Memory: 6GB RAM, 128GB storage
- OS: Android 9.0 Pie with EMUI 9.0
- Triple Camera: 40 MP, f/1.8, 27mm (wide), 1/1.7", PDAF/Laser AF
20 MP, f/2.2, 16mm (ultrawide), 1/2.7", PDAF/Laser AF
8 MP, f/2.4, 80mm (telephoto), 1/4", 5x optical zoom, OIS, PDAF/Laser AF - Camera features: Leica optics, dual-LED dual-tone flash, panorama, HDR
- Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, 1080p230fps (gyro-EIS),720p@960fps
- Front Cam: 24MP, f/2.0 lens, 26mm (wide)
- Battery:4,200mAh; supports Fast charging, Fast battery charging 40W (70% in 30 min), Qi wireless fast charging 15W, Reverse wireless charging
- Security: Face ID, Fingerprint (under display)
- Connectivity: LTE Cat.18, Dual-LTE SIM, IR blaster, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2 + LE, NFC, USB Type-C
Unboxing
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Box Contents
- Sim Injecting Pin
- Silicon Case
- Huawei 40W SuperCharge
- Type-C USB Cable
- Type-C Headphones
- Type-C to 3.5mm Converter
Design
The Mate 20 Pro is a far cry from the aluminium phones that almost feel like bricks. Instead, it feels like a piece of jewellery, with a large screen and a notch on top coupled with a front facing camera, an earpiece and a bunch of sensors. Additionally, the Mate 20 Pro's narrow bezel gives a nice premium feel.
On the back, there's a triple camera setup in the square shape (Matrix Camera setup) along with a dual LED flash.
The phone weighs 189 grams with dimensions of 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm.
The Huawei Mate 20 is more than just a pretty handheld because it also features water-and-dust resistance (IP68 rating).
The phone has a volume rocker and power button on the right, Hybrid SIM tray on the bottom of the device along with USB Type-C port which is also home for speaker and pair of a microphone; a mic and an IR blaster on the top.
Display
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is equipped with a 3D 6.39-inch AMOLED display, which gives 1440x3120 pixels resolution, 19.5:9 ratio with curved edges and notch on top which is slightly smaller than on P20 Pro.
The OLED display delivers crisp visuals and popping colours for day to day usage, with a pixel density of 538 PPI (Pixels per inch) densities.
Mate 20 Pro's display has also an integrated ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor from Qualcomm.
Hardware
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is powered by the company’s densest and highest performing system on chip (SoC) to date—the Kirin 980. Manufactured with the advanced 7nm process incorporating the powerful Cortex-A76-based CPU and Mali-G76 GPU, the SoC — Octa-core (2x2.6 GHz Cortex-A76 & 2x1.92 GHz Cortex-A76 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) — offers improved performance and an unprecedented smooth user experience.
The SoC is coupled with 6GB RAM and 128GB Internal storage expandable up to 256GB (uses SIM 2) with Huawei's Nano-Memory Card.
To power the SoC, there's a 4,200mAh battery which supports Fast charging40W (70% in 30 min), Qi wireless fast charging 15W and Reverse wireless charging.
Kirin 980 Chipset
The Kirin 980 is the world's first 7nm process Cortex-A76 architecture chipset (integrates 6.9 billion transistors in an area of less than 1 square centimetre) coupled with dual NPU (Neutral-Network Processor Unit). Moreover, the chipset is the pioneer to run (4.5G) LTE Cat.21 network connectivity.
The highlight of the new Kirin 980 is not the faster CPU or more powerful GPU (Mali-G76), but the brand-new dual Neural-Network Processor Unit (NPU), which provides hardware acceleration to machine learning tasks. These tasks include image recognition, voice recognition, and natural language processing.
By adopting the advanced and flexible CPU and GPU multi-core architecture, task and operation speed of the device has been greatly increased. One of the dual-NPU offers vast AI computing and the other focuses on specific tasks to create massive efficiencies and a drastically improved user experience.
EMUI 9.0
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro comes with EMUI 9.0 based on Android 9.0 (P) out of the box. EMUI 9.0 is all about AI integration and self-algorithms and users can enjoy all productivity and entertainment features easily and conveniently with a few simple taps and swipes.
Huawei designed the new OS on nature and uses the simple, enhanced interference for a smooth user experience.
EMUI 9.0 incorporates a unified, ergonomic design and a streamlined settings menu. The new gesture navigation support allows users to effortlessly interact with their devices using just taps and swipes.
Huawei also introduces new AI features that enable the smartphone to perform or enhance a range of tasks from object identification to food calorie counting. Using 3D Live Object Modeling, consumers can even create a fun digital avatar to dance or interact with.
Pocket-Computer
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro becomes your computer, all it takes is one tap to establish a connection between a smartphone and a PC for easy and fast file sharing.
The new Huawei Share 3.0 feature allows users to connect their Mate's to the TV screen and can also share files between smartphones and PC.
AI
Huawei has also introduced a new generation processing engine for the Mate 20 series, the Kirin 980. This should allow faster, more complex algorithms to be applied with dual-core NPU. It also enables the camera to recognise ‘4500’ objects per minute (food, animals, beach, snow etc), which is helpful for ensuring that the correct camera settings, processing parameters and adjust the colour profile accordingly. Focusing is achieved through laser, depth, contrast and phase detection.
AI and neural networking are applied to improve the quality of the fake bokeh mode, and object recognition for automatic scene selection also relies on some AI magic. Finally, motion detection is being used to reduce motion blur in low light conditions.
So whether it's dancing to a fast song or quickly running in front of the camera, the Kirin 980 can focus on the joints and lines of the human body in real time. The powerful object detection capabilities can also accurately identify a variety of objects. In comparison to the Kirin 970, the Kirin 980 is an impressive leap from image recognition to object detection. The Kirin 980 sets the foundation for future AI capabilities by providing complete framework support and rich tool keys for App developers.
Face Unlock
Other than in-display fingerprint scanner, the Mate 20 Pro also comes with Face unlock that uses 3D depth sensing camera projection over 30000 points.
The Face Unlock on the device is pretty responsive on the responsive even in low light conditions all thanks to its AI-powered 3D 24MP front-facing camera.
Users face ID can also be used to securely access a private screen containing locked APPs and personal data.
Camera
Huawei earlier this year had introduced the world's first triple camera smartphone - P20 Pro - following the steps of previous technology the company has also introduced the Leica AI-powered triple camera setup which the company called 'Matrix Camera.'
The triple setup contains the 40 MP main RGB lens captures great details in everyday photos, while the 8 MP telephoto lens will focus on distant shots and the whole new 20 MP Leica Ultra Wide Angle Lens is perfect for the landscape photos and macro shots.
The 40MP camera sensor handles both RGB and monochrome modes in photography, while the 20MP Ultra wide lens, capture an imposingly wide perspective even from the confines of tight spaces.
Through 3X and 5X hybrid zoom users along with the close-in view on any subject can also capture a much wider view.
The company introduced artificial intelligence (AI) into its camera last year with the Kirin 970 processor in Mate 10 Pro and has now doubled-down with a dual-core Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on the Kirin 980 that further helps with imaging.
In our test, the camera is pretty responsive in recognising and detecting the scene, light and objects.
For example, it can detect background, object and secondary object in one picture and apply AI to each of them individually.
The camera application has also some new features based on NPU for focus and bokeh effect.
The effects include changing the shape of lights in the background using circles, hearts, swirls, and discs.
The lighting effects include stage lighting, blinds, stained glass, and a photo booth.
The camera application also includes Huawei's AI-powered HiVision which identify landmarks, artworks, QR code reader and language translation.
Huawei's stated that it's using technology provided by Microsoft for image recognition as well as translation.
Users can record the 4K video at 30fps and slow-motion 120fps, and 960fps. In our review, the recorded footage doesn't include any flickering of lights when shooting in indoor light.
The video also features an AI Portrait Color video mode which isolates human subjects and desaturates the colours in the background. AI Spotlight Reel identifies clips with a shared theme and auto-generates a montage, made entirely of highlights.
The front 24-MP RGB camera has the bonus of a flood illuminator and IR camera next to it, for unlocking the phone 30 percent faster than the Mate 20 Pro.
The phone has the best low light photography and videography from all the phones in the market.
Battery and Performance
In our review test, the smartphone is capable enough to run all the high-end available on Google Play store or Huawei App Gallery without any lag, we have tried the high-end games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), the game runs smoothly on the high graphics setting but we feel some minor heat issue from the device, however overall 3D rendering during gameplay experience is pretty amazing and the phone does not lag on any point.
There were no visible lag or performance hits while carrying out day to day tasks like opening/closing applications and multitasking a few tasks in the background.
The smartphone comes with 40W Huawei SuperCharge power brick that juices up the battery to 70% in just time span of 30 minutes, moreover, the device has the wireless reverse charging technology, which means you can charge other smartphones (that supports wireless charging) by just placing the device on your 'Mate'.
With a 4,200mAh battery, this phone provides a pretty decent battery life. It provides enough power to easily get through a day with moderate to heavy usage.
Pricing and Availability
The price of the smartphone in Pakistan likely to be between Rs140,000 to Rs150,000 and will be launched by the end of next month.
Verdict
If you are a globetrotter and want to spice up your journey with tons of photos, then look no further. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is your ultimate travelling companion - which replaces a whole bag of camera and lenses. It has a great screen, blazing-fast performance, and its large battery charges in a flash of a second.
But this phone is not all about the camera; it is also fully equipped to handle any business, gaming, or social task you throw at it. Being the smartest gadget of this season, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro should be on your wishlist. Try as you won't regret it!
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