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Introduction
We love fall and it's not only for the beauty of nature's colorful cloak. It is also the season for all the big fat makers in the industry to pull the wraps off their latest smartphones. And what a blast these couple of weeks have been! And there is still plenty more to see before the month of Techtober is over but today we're focusing on the new Mate 20 series, which is bound to leave a mark on the industry.
Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro premiered side by side at a special event in London. The Mate 20 Pro, which is in for a review today, employs all of Huawei's latest innovations such as the high-res AMOLED screen, the large-zoom triple-camera, and 40W fast charging, while the Mate 20 cuts a few corners towards achieving a more affordable price tag.
Just like last year, the Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 are intended for different markets. And we can make an educated guess that most of the regions that got the Mate 10 Pro in 2017 will once again get the Pro model and vice versa.
So, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the one boasting a curved 1440p AMOLED screen and the better triple camera with the largest optical zoom. It also enjoys a much faster 40W fast charging, in addition to the 15W wireless charging and there is even a reversed wireless charging support. The Pro is also IP68 water resistant, has 3D face unlock, stereo speakers, and an under-display fingerprint reader.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro specs
- Body: dual-glass with metal frame; IP68-rated for dust and water resistance
- Screen: 6.39" HDR OLED, 1440 x 3120 px resolution (539ppi); wide notch
- Chipset: Kirin 980 chipset, octa-core processor (2xA76 @2.6GHz + 2xA76 @1.92GHz +4xA55 @1.8GHz), Mali-G76 MP10 GPU
- Memory: 6GB RAM, 128GB storage (expandable via Nano Memory - hybrid slot)
- OS: Android 9 Pie with EMUI 9;
- Camera: 40MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.4 OIS telephoto (80mm) + 20MP f/2.2 ultra-wide (16mm); 4K video capture, 720@960fps slow-mo, Leica branding
- Camera features: 1/1.7" 40MP sensor, up to ISO 102,400, 5x optical zoom, OIS + EIS, Variable Aperture, Portrait Mode, can shoot long-exposure without a tripod
- Selfie cam: 24MP, f/2.0 Leica lens, Portrait Mode with live bokeh effects
- Battery: 4,200mAh; Super Charge 40W; 15W wireless charging; reverse wireless charging
- Security: Fingerprint reader (under display), 3D Face Unlock (IR camera and flood illuminator)
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5 + LE, NFC, USB Type-C
- Misc: IR blaster, stereo speakers
In contrast to the Mate 10 series, this time around the Mate 20 Pro is not only getting the premium OLED panel, but it's also the one with higher resolution. Last year the regular Mate 10 boasted a 1440p screen, while the Pro was limited to 1080p. Well, the Mate 20 lineup rights this wrong and the Mate 20 Pro is the one with the 1440p screen and the exceptionally high pixel density.
And there is one more thing - for some reason, Huawei decided to innovate in the field of removable storage too and has come up with the so-called Nano Memory Card. It has the shape of a nano-SIM and supposedly makes the hybrid-SIM tray smaller. The benefits are yet to outweigh the inconveniences, so the jury is still out on this. At least the Mate 20 Pro offers a way to expand its storage, while the Mate 10 Pro didn't have one.
And now let's cut to the chase, shall we?
Unboxing the Huawei Mate 20 Pro
We've always liked Huawei's bundles, and the Mate 20 Pro's did not disappoint. The black paper box contains a fat 40W charger, the enhanced USB-C cable needed for the 40W charging to work, and EarPods-like cable headphones.
You will also find a 3.5mm-to-USB-C adapter inside.
Usually, Huawei ships its flagships with a transparent silicone case but not all markets will be getting one in the box so yes, our reviewer's unit missed out on that as well.
Don't get this wrong - we appreciate the bundle as it is. But what sort of cost-cutting benefits does the removal of this simple case have? Anyway, we digress. Let's explore what the Mate 20 Pro looks and feels like on the next page.
Design
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is jam-packed with cutting-edge hardware, but its design isn't among the features to push the industry forward. The curved glass sandwich has been around for quite some time, but it's still among the top picks for a flagship.
Huawei did try to make it its own though. While the front is one bezel-less screen with a cutout, the back has a uniquely arranged camera setup. There is also this vinyl-like pattern on the glass, which does wonders for the otherwise compromised grip.
But first things first. And that curved screen is the instant eyecatcher.
Huawei Mate 20 vs Huawei Mate 20 Pro
The Mate 20 Pro packs a 6.39" AMOLED screen curved towards its longer sides, in Samsung Galaxy style. This year it is of a higher 1440p resolution and has a marvelous pixel density of 539ppi. The OLED panel is flexible and has a cutout on top of it, but it's beneath a solid and curved Gorilla Glass. It's not Samsung-made though - Huawei has switched to BOE for the Mate 20 Pro screens.
The cutout is large, a lot bigger than the Mate 20's dewdrop-like notch, but there is a reason for that. In addition to the selfie camera and the earpiece, which also doubles as a speaker, the Mate 20 Pro also has an infrared camera and flood illuminator for advanced face unlock.
Also nested on the notch, there are a couple of sensors and a tiny LED for notifications.
Huawei might have invested in more secure face recognition, but it did not ditch the fingerprint reader. Quite the opposite. It is still here and cutting edge, residing under the display. It's Huawei second generation in-display sensor, but you'd be forgiven for not remembering the Mate RS Porsche Design had one too.
Huawei Mate 20 vs Huawei Mate 20 Pro
Huawei claims the Mate 20 Pro's Dynamic Pressure Sensor is 30% quicker than the old one. And we found it indeed quick and reliable although it requires a bit more pressure on the glass than what we are used to with regular sensors. It's faster than any other UD sensor we've tested so far and is as fast as the first-generation Touch ID by Apple. Which means the tech is finally usable and if you want, you can rely solely on it for security.
The back of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, well, that's something everybody will remember and recognize in an instant.
Okay, we didn't help much with that picture either, but the new square camera setup has three cameras. The fourth circle contains the dual-LED flash. The design creates an unusual square camera island which makes it instantly recognizable.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Mate 10 Pro
The bigger change, however, are the cameras themselves. While the Pro model retains the 40MP main snapper and the 8MP OIS 80mm telephoto one from the P20 Pro, it has retired the monochrome camera. Instead, Huawei has added a new 20MP shooter with 16mm f/2.2 wide-angle lens.
Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro
Curiously, the regular Mate 20 has three cameras as well, but they are different. Its main camera is a 12MP one, aided by an 8MP 52mm telephoto cam and a 16MP wide-angle cam.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a lot of new cool color options. The gradient Twilight, the signature paint job for the P20 series, is here to stay, though Huawei has two new hues making the Mate 20 series special.
The company calls the Emerald Green and Midnight Blue hyper-optical - the rear glass has vinyl-like texture, which is a great grip booster and, even naked, the Pro felt quite secure in hand. Handling the hyper-optical Mate 20 Pro is a unique experience with a nice pinch of a retro vibe. Also, this grippy surface is more fingerprint resistant, and you can tell it immediately. Smudges are less likely to stick, and the whole thing is easier to clean.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro lacks an audio jack but is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance. The protection is a step above the IP67 of the Mate 10 Pro from last fall and this time around the Pro has also gained expandable storage to match the non-Pro model.
So, the Mate 20 Pro has a double-sided SIM slot and its bottom tray accepts one of those new NM cards or a nanoSIM.
You see, Huawei has created a new memory card standard and the Mate 20 phones are the first to introduce it - it's called Nano Memory Card and has the shape of a nanoSIM. This has immediate benefits for the phone manufacturer as it allows them to make a smaller card slot while still allowing memory expansion.
That's fine, but the consumers didn't really need a new memory card standard, especially one that can't go beyond 256GB as per Huawei's own specs.
These cards are so new that you would have a hard time finding one available for purchase. Huawei will be manufacturing the first ones, but they hope other memory card manufacturers will jump on board soon. And until they become mass market products, they will surely cost a lot more than the good old microSD cards.
So, if you want to expand the Mate 20 Pro storage you have to buy an expensive new memory card, whose availability is scarce at best. On top of your €1000 smartphone. Peachy!
And while we are on the subject of questionable decisions, guess where is the second loudspeaker? It's inside the USB port!
Well, that's probably a first. A loudspeaker inside the charging port. The good news is the port hole can be used as an amplifying chamber. Sure, plugging the cable has some impact on the loudness but there is a silver lining - the bottom speaker then becomes as loud as the otherwise inferior earpiece. So, this one did pan out! But, yes, there is a but...
There are two mics at the bottom of the Mate 20 Pro, but one of them is really close to the SIM tray and can be easily mistaken its ejection pinhole. We really hope Huawei has secured that mic against accidental punctures or you could lose both your mic and water resistance with just one foolish mistake.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro
Finishing our tour around the Mate 20 Pro, underneath that beautiful OLED screen lies a large 4,200 mAh battery with support for Huawei's latest 40W SuperCharge solution. We'll test this in a moment.
The Mate 20 Pro also supports 15W wireless charging, and it can even wirelessly charge other devices. We'd imagine the best-case scenario to use this is to lend power to your smartwatch that's running out of power. After all wireless charging is hardly very power-efficient so charging another phone would be too wasteful.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro spreads at 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm and weighs 189g. It's quite compact for its large 6.39" screen. The Mate 20 Pro is actually 2mm narrower than the Mate 10 Pro which has a smaller 6" display.
Now it's time for our lab tests!
Display
Huawei Mate 20 Pro packs a curved 6.39" AMOLED screen with a large notch at the top. The resolution is 3,120 x 1,440 pixels, which makes for flagship-grade 538ppi density. The aspect ratio is 19.5:9 - among the tallest the market has to offer so far.
The screen supports the large DCI-P3 color space, and it can display native HDR10 content.
According to the most recent reports, Huawei has opted out of Samsung's screens and chose BOE for its main OLED supplier, while LG is the backup one. And the subpixel arrangement is easily giving away that switch.
All Samsung OLED panels have Dimond PenTile subpixel arrangement, while the BOE's OLED matrix uses Triangular PenTile pattern also known as RGB-Delta. It has the green subpixel split in two, but other than this oddity, the panel is still PenTile, just with a different arrangement that was once very popular on the CRT monitors.
The screen of the Mate 20 Pro has two Color modes - Normal and Vivid. Each of those also has three sub-modes - Default, Warm, and Cold.
The Vivid option represents the DCI-P3 color space, while the Normal one switches to sRGB. Huawei hasn't specified this anywhere, so we had to find it the hard way - by testing the screen in our lab.
Anyway, the Mate 20 Pro comes set on Vivid by default and we suggest leaving it this way. The mode offers 508 nits of (manual) maximum brightness, but it can go as high as 660 nits in bright light if you leave it on auto. There is a minor light bleed on the pitch-black screen, but this is not unseen and nothing to worry about.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.002 | 508 | 254000 | |
| 0.003 | 657 | 219000 | |
| 0.347 | 491 | 1415 | |
| 0.554 | 778 | 1404 | |
| 0.314 | 433 | 1379 | |
| 0.468 | 667 | 1425 | |
| 0 | 440 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 623 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 412 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 582 | ∞ | |
| 0.328 | 477 | 1454 | |
| 0.481 | 695 | 1445 | |
| 0 | 367 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 658 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 376 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 631 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 679 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 660 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 653 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 442 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 620 | ∞ | |
| 0.401 | 380 | 948 | |
| 0.403 | 426 | 1057 | |
| 0 | 456 | ∞ | |
| 0.225 | 460 | 2044 | |
| 0.499 | 920 | 1844 | |
| 0 | 458 | ∞ | |
| 0.002 | 624 | 312000 | |
| 0.314 | 461 | 1468 | |
| 0.2 | 366 | 1830 | |
| 0.214 | 389 | 1818 | |
The average deltaE we measured for the screen on Vivid is 4.7 with a maximum deviation of 7.5, which is not the best accuracy, but fine enough. You can fix the bluish whites by switching to Warm color temperature, but the overall accuracy won't improve by much.
The color accuracy for the Normal (sRGB) mode is pretty much the same as for the Vivid (DCI-P3), and again, switching to the Warm setting won't do much in improving it.
The sunlight contrast on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is excellent, if not class-leading, but we expected nothing less from an AMOLED screen.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Apple iPhone XS
5.171 - Apple iPhone X
5.013 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
4.965 - OnePlus 5T
4.789 - Samsung Galaxy S8
4.768 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
4.658 - Samsung Galaxy S9
4.63 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
4.615 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
4.537 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
4.531 - Apple iPhone XS Max
4.516 - Sony Xperia XZ3
4.502 - Motorola Moto Z2 Play
4.459 - Oppo R11
4.454 - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
4.439 - OnePlus 3
4.424 - Samsung Galaxy S7
4.376 - OnePlus 6
4.321 - HTC One A9
4.274 - Oppo R15 Pro
4.251 - Samsung Galaxy Note7
4.247 - Samsung Galaxy A3
4.241 - Nokia 8
4.239 - Google Pixel 2 XL (pre-update)
4.234 - OnePlus 3T
4.232 - Google Pixel XL
4.164 - ZTE Axon 7
4.154 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
4.148 - Meizu Pro 7 Plus
4.147 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
4.124 - vivo V11
4.113 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro (normal)
4.096 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
4.09 - Huawei P20 Pro
4.087 - Xiaomi Mi 8
4.086 - Meizu 15
4.082 - Nokia 6 (2018)
4.052 - Google Pixel 2 (pre-update)
4.023 - LG V30
4.022 - Huawei Nexus 6P
4.019 - vivo NEX S
4.012 - Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro
3.998 - Vivo Xplay5 Elite
3.983 - OnePlus X
3.983 - LG G7 ThinQ (outdoor)
3.978 - Oppo R7s
3.964 - Apple iPhone 7
3.964 - Apple iPhone 8 (True Tone)
3.957 - Huawei P9 Plus
3.956 - Oppo Find X
3.954 - Meizu Pro 6 Plus
3.935 - Lenovo Moto Z
3.931 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
3.918 - OnePlus 5
3.914 - Samsung Galaxy C5
3.911 - Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
3.901 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.896 - Samsung Galaxy A5
3.895 - Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
3.879 - Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
3.873 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
3.865 - Samsung Galaxy A8
3.859 - Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018)
3.842 - Microsoft Lumia 950XL
3.837 - Samsung Galaxy A6+ (2018)
3.834 - Sony Xperia XZs
3.818 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
3.817 - Motorola Moto X (2014)
3.816 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
3.812 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
3.804 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
3.802 - Xiaomi Redmi Pro
3.798 - LG V20 Max auto
3.798 - Sony Xperia XZ
3.795 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
3.789 - Apple iPhone 6s
3.783 - Meizu Pro 5
3.781 - Microsoft Lumia 650
3.772 - Xiaomi Mi 6
3.767 - Sony Xperia XZ1
3.765 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
3.756 - Nokia 8 Sirocco
3.745 - Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact
3.729 - Apple iPhone 8 Plus (True Tone)
3.725 - Oppo F1 Plus
3.709 - Vivo X5Pro
3.706 - Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
3.688 - Huawei P20
3.683 - Apple iPhone SE
3.681 - Huawei Mate 9
3.68 - Samsung Galaxy A7
3.679 - Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
3.675 - Meizu PRO 6
3.659 - BlackBerry Priv
3.645 - Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
3.597 - Apple iPhone 7 Plus
3.588 - Sony Xperia XZ2
3.58 - LG G6
3.556 - Apple iPhone 6s Plus
3.53 - Motorola Moto Z Play
3.526 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) outdoor mode
3.523 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
3.523 - Acer Jade Primo
3.521 - Microsoft Lumia 950
3.512 - Oppo R7 Plus
3.499 - Nokia 7 plus
3.479 - nubia Z11
3.466 - Huawei P10 Plus
3.456 - HTC U Ultra
3.453 - Motorola Moto G6
3.448 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
3.445 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
3.445 - Samsung Galaxy J7
3.422 - Motorola Moto G6 Play
3.419 - Meizu MX5
3.416 - LG V20
3.402 - Samsung Galaxy A6 (2018)
3.397 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
3.393 - LG G7 ThinQ
3.39 - Huawei P10
3.379 - Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
3.378 - Oppo R9s
3.352 - Honor Play
3.349 - Honor 8 Pro
3.341 - Oppo F7
3.333 - Oppo R7
3.32 - Lenovo P2
3.316 - Archos Diamond Omega
3.305 - Honor 9
3.289 - Xiaomi Mi 5s
3.276 - Nokia 5
3.261 - Nokia 6 (Chinese version)
3.244 - Xiaomi Mi 5
3.24 - Nokia 6 (Global version)
3.238 - Oppo Realme 2 Pro
3.235 - Samsung Galaxy J2
3.235 - Sony Xperia X Performance
3.234 - Xiaomi Mi Note 2
3.228 - Motorola Moto X Play
3.222 - Oppo F3 Plus
3.218 - BlackBerry KEY2
3.212 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
3.206 - Huawei P9
3.195 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
3.19 - ZTE Nubia Z17
3.159 - Oppo R11s
3.153 - Lenovo Vibe Shot
3.113 - HTC U11 Life
3.108 - Motorola Moto X Force
3.105 - LG Nexus 5X
3.092 - HTC U11
3.089 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite
3.087 - HTC U12+
3.085 - Xiaomi Redmi S2 (Y2)
3.077 - Huawei Mate S
3.073 - Oppo F9
3.069 - Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
3.065 - Xiaomi Mi Max 3
3.061 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
3.059 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
3.051 - Apple iPhone 6 Plus
3.023 - Asus Zenfone 4 ZE554KL
3.019 - Sony Xperia XA1
3.012 - Motorola Moto X4
3.012 - Oppo Realme 2
3.006 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
2.966 - Huawei P20 Lite
2.952 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
2.951 - Huawei Mate 8
2.949 - Sony Xperia XA2
2.938 - Oppo Realme 1
2.932 - Xiaomi Redmi 4
2.92 - Xiaomi Redmi 3S
2.913 - Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
2.913 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.906 - LG G5
2.905 - Huawei Honor View 10
2.896 - Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
2.893 - Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
2.884 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium
2.877 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium (sRGB)
2.877 - Nokia 3.1
2.837 - Lenovo Moto M
2.813 - Nokia 7.1
2.804 - Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
2.803 - Sony Xperia Z5 compact
2.784 - Honor 10 (Vivid)
2.757 - Nokia 2
2.752 - Meizu MX6
2.751 - LG V10
2.744 - Huawei Mate 10 (normal)
2.742 - Motorola Moto G5S Plus
2.737 - Xiaomi Redmi 3
2.735 - Huawei Honor 7X
2.734 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
2.714 - Meizu M5
2.71 - Xiaomi Mi A2
2.696 - Sony Xperia M5
2.69 - Xiaomi Mi A1
2.689 - Huawei P9 Lite
2.679 - Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
2.679 - vivo V7+
2.671 - Vivo V3Max
2.659 - Xiaomi Mi Mix
2.658 - Huawei Mate 10 Lite
2.654 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Standard)
2.616 - Lenovo K6 Note
2.544 - Oppo F1
2.528 - Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
2.525 - Lenovo Vibe K5
2.459 - Meizu m3 max
2.447 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Auto)
2.417 - HTC 10 evo
2.407 - Huawei Honor 7
2.406 - Vivo V7
2.404 - Sony Xperia E5
2.386 - ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
2.382
Battery life
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is powered by a large 4,200 mAh battery. Being the more premium Mate from the new duo, it enjoys Huawei's new version of SuperCharge that goes up to 40W. The charger is rated 5V/2A, 9V/2A, or 10V/4A.
Unlike the regular SuperCharge, this one uses higher voltage and the battery does heat up. Huawei says the battery was TUV-certified for safety and users shouldn't have any worries.
So, the bundled cable and charger can fill a flat battery up to 74% in just 30 mins, 90% in 40 mins and 100% in 60 mins. That's not Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition fast, but it's among the fastest solutions you can get today and downright impressive. The obvious downside is that you need proprietary chargers and cables for that to work.
In our testing, the Mate 20 Pro lasted upwards of 15 hours looping videos and fourteen hours running our web browsing script. The 3G voice call test returned a 29h talk time. All three of these numbers are slightly better than what we got out of the P20 Pro. The overall Endurance rating ended up 85 hours, though. That's lower than what we expected after such an excellent job on the standalone tests, but the standby performance is just average and it took its tall.
If you turn the under-display fingerprint sensor off, you can get a few extra hours due to the improved standby performance but the difference is not that huge to make disabling the feature completely worth it.
Our endurance rating denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Huawei Mate 20 Pro for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Speakers
Huawei Mate 20 Pro enjoys the same stereo speakers we've previously heard on the P20 Pro and Mate 10 Pro, among other devices. And while Huawei failed to mention this, it's also the same setup the regular Mate 20 has.
Huawei hasn't upped its game when it comes to the speakers - it still uses the tiny and squeaky earpiece for a second speaker, and it still sounds rather cheap. Yes, it does the stereo effect, but the loudness of the speakers is mostly uneven, and you can tell. At some point, it might even become annoying.
Then there is the thing with the primary speaker being inside the USB port. While Huawei can argue the port is used as a chamber and amplifies the sound - it isn't louder than what we measured on the Mate 20. The sound does sound a bit deeper, but it's a minor difference.
Finally, when plugging a charger, the sound through the USB port does take a hit and it's as big as 50%. But then its loudness becomes more even with the earpiece's, so there is that.
So, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro speakers scored a Very Good mark in our loudness test, half a decibel shy of Excellent. The sound quality is about average though, far from the best in the industry. While playing some music, the audio was loud enough, but it's rather shallow and often squeaky.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 65.0 | 67.8 | 75.0 | Average | |
| 66.2 | 70.4 | 78.2 | Good | |
| 70.2 | 74.7 | 70.0 | Good | |
| 68.9 | 74.0 | 76.2 | Very Good | |
| 65.1 | 70.5 | 86.6 | Very Good | |
| 68.4 | 74.0 | 80.1 | Very Good | |
| 68.1 | 72.3 | 82.2 | Very Good | |
| 71.5 | 75.7 | 78.9 | Very Good | |
| 71.2 | 74.9 | 80.2 | Very Good | |
| 74.3 | 70.2 | 82.6 | Very Good | |
| 70.7 | 75.2 | 81.2 | Very Good | |
| 70.3 | 73.4 | 83.8 | Very Good | |
| 70.0 | 77.0 | 81.1 | Excellent | |
| 70.1 | 73.8 | 84.2 | Excellent | |
| 70.5 | 74.0 | 84.7 | Excellent | |
| 71.0 | 75.4 | 82.9 | Excellent | |
| 71.8 | 69.2 | 91.0 | Excellent | |
| 72.8 | 74.7 | 86.6 | Excellent | |
| 78.3 | 76.4 | 82.3 | Excellent | |
| 76.0 | 73.6 | 88.5 | Excellent | |
| 90.6 | 73.7 | 84.0 | Excellent |
Audio quality
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro delivered a perfectly accurate output when connected to an active external amplifier, which is what we’d expect from a flagship these days. Even considering the price point, however, the clarity of its output with headphones was impressive. Stereo crosstalk barely increased, which is a real rarity and the other readings were hardly affected either.
The area where the Mate 20 Pro doesn’t shine is loudness - it was above average without headphones and only average when we plugged those in. So, all in all, it's a very good, but not quite the perfect showing.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +0.02, -0.09 | -87.7 | 87.0 | 0.0024 | 0.012 | -87.8 | |
| +0.15, -0.07 | -92.1 | 92.0 | 0.0029 | 0.149 | -82.2 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -91.2 | 93.2 | 0.0024 | 0.0080 | -88.7 | |
| +0.38, -0.21 | -93.1 | 92.5 | 0.0049 | 0.233 | -61.7 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -91.0 | 93.4 | 0.0026 | 0.0082 | -87.6 | |
| +0.40, -0.20 | -92.9 | 91.2 | 0.0049 | 0.236 | -61.7 | |
| +0.01, -0.03 | -93.7 | 93.7 | 0.0017 | 0.0074 | -94.1 | |
| +0.03, -0.02 | -93.6 | 93.5 | 0.0033 | 0.046 | -93.2 | |
| +0.03, -0.07 | -93.4 | 93.9 | 0.0012 | 0.0063 | -89.3 | |
| +0.01, -0.58 | -92.2 | 93.5 | 0.0088 | 0.330 | -55.7 | |
| +0.02, -0.15 | -94.3 | 94.3 | 0.0021 | 0.0069 | -94.3 | |
| +0.18, -0.13 | -93.7 | 93.6 | 0.0024 | 0.104 | -52.7 | |
| +0.02, -0.01 | -93.2 | 93.1 | 0.0008 | 0.0069 | -94.2 | |
| +0.03, -0.02 | -92.9 | 92.9 | 0.0057 | 0.051 | -68.1 |
Huawei Mate 20 Pro frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Android Pie Android 8.1 Oreo and EMUI 8.2
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs Android 9 Pie under its thoroughly custom EMUI launcher, v9.0 in this instance. The Android purists are guaranteed not to like this combo, but Huawei has been known for its custom launcher for years and nobody should have expected vanilla Android anyway.
Huawei has cleaned up the general interface and the settings panel has been simplified by hiding rarely used settings under advanced in more categories. Huawei's built-in apps are also seeing updated navigation menus along the bottom of the screen to make them easier to reach.
EMUI 9.0 also brings GPU Turbo 2.0, works for quicker app starts, and there is a new Password vault. The Mate 20 Pro also supports app locking with face authorization.
EMUI 9 has a better Huawei Share - it can now do two more things wirelessly: share files with a PC and print documents. There is also a travel assistant by HiVision and in-house developed Digital balance app that tell you how much time you are spending on your phone and give you the option to limit yourself (the screen will go monochrome after the time is up).
But in spite of all the novelties and newer Android version, the EMUI looks just as before and anyone familiar should feel right at home.
The Mate 20 Pro has Huawei's second-generation under-display fingerprint scanner, but you'd be forgiven for not remembering the first one on the Mate RS Porsche Design. The reader is very easy to set up, although it requires a bit more pressure than regular readers. The accuracy is superb, while the recognition is quite fast, and the thing is pretty usable. It's not as fast as the latest conventional sensors, but about as quick as the first-generation Touch ID on the iPhones.
The Mate 20 Pro also supports 3D facial scanning for secure unlock. It's the real deal, though, not a camera-only solution as the Face Unlock on P20 and Mate 20. Huawei uses structured light like the iPhone X does and projects dots that help it read your face in three dimensions with "millimeter-level" accuracy. The Mate 20 Pro has everything needed for this 3D Face Unlock in its notch - IR camera and IR flood illuminator. You can set up only one face, though.
So, you can either embrace the notch, or you can opt to mask it with a black status bar that extends all the way down to the bottom edge of the notch.
But the notch is not the only thing that's iPhone-reminiscent. Huawei has pretty much borrowed iPhone's gesture navigation, too - swipe up for Home, swipe up and stop midway for Tasks, or swipe from the left or right edge of the screen for Back. Well, the iPhone does Back only from the left edge, so that's an upgrade, right?
Notch control • Without the notch • Gesture navigation
Out of the box, there is no app drawer on the EMUI 9 - it's a single tier interface like on the iPhone. However, if you miss Android's usual layout, you can enable it back in the Display settings.
Lockscreen • Covers • Homescreen • Homescreen styles • Digital Balance • Digital Balance
EMUI has Magazine lock screen, as usual, which rotates through a bunch of wallpapers (covers), so you see a different one every time you fire up the display.
Huawei's EMUI offers plenty of customization and features, smart rotation, and lift to wake. Themes are supported, too, and there is a lot to choose from.
Fingerprint • fingerprint enrolment • Face recognition • Themes
The notification shade is pretty much a standard affair, with the usual Huawei take on the graphics. There's a brightness slider and a row of toggles, and you pull down again for more toggles. Multitasking is pretty standard as well. Tap-holding the Recents key will let you activate the split screen mode. You could have a video playing on top of the two windows if for some reason you find that useful.
Notification area • Toggles • Recent apps • Split screen • Split screen
From the Phone Manager app, you can access shortcuts to storage cleanup, battery settings, blocked numbers, Virus scan powered by Avast, and mobile data usage.
Huawei's own Music app is here and offers a way to listen to stored MP3s. Huawei's Health app is also pre-installed. It offers Google Fit syncing and step counting. There's a file manager app and a note-taking app. There is an abundance of replacements for these in the Play Store, however.
There is an improved AI-powered gallery with EMUI 9. In addition to the automatic sorting with highlights, you will also get an automatic but editable Spotlight Reel.
Phone Manager • Music Player • Gallery • Albums • Huawei Health • Files
Kirin 980 powers the Mate 20 series
Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro are the first smartphones to utilize HiSicon's latest Kirin 980 chip. That the first chipset in an Android phone built on the 7nm manufacturing process promising plenty of power and efficiency gains over its predecessor and other 10nm chipsets.
The Kirin 980 uses an 8-core CPU design with 2x high-performance Cortex-A76 cores running at 2.6GHz and 2x Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 1.92GHz and 4x power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores that go up to 1.8GHz. The processor makes use of ARM's DynamIQ architecture, which is the evolution of big.LITTLE and allows any subset of cores (or all together) to work simultaneously depending on the workload.
Kirin 980 SoC has a Mali-G76 MP10 (ten-core) GPU, which was announced back in May 2018, and offers tremendous performance and efficiency gains compared to its predecessor Mali-G72 in the Kirin 970. According to the press release, the GPU outperforms the previous generation by 46% and improves the power efficiency nearly twice. It can also take advantage of the new clock-boosting technology that recognizes when a demanding game is running and provides optimal gaming performance.
EMUI 9 supports GPU Turbo 2.0, which is supported by six games in total for the time being. It allows all those games to run smoothly and steady at 60 fps at full resolution. GPU Turbo 2.0 is new, but Huawei is also working with game developers to enable it in even more popular games though we won't be holding our breath.
Huawei points out that the Kirin 980 outperforms the 10nm chips by 20% and it's 40% more power efficient overall.
The 7nm manufacturing process isn't its only claim to fame. The chipset is also the first to support 2133MHz LPDDR4X memory and incorporates a dedicated dual NPU chip. Huawei calls the latter "Dual-Brain Power" and can help recognize up to 4,500 images per minute, which is around 120% faster than last year's single NPU chip on the Kirin 970 SoC.
Other notable features include 6.9 billion transistors crammed inside a 1cm² die (1.6 times more than its predecessor), 1.4Gbps Cat 21 LTE modem and blazing fast WiFi speeds of up to 1,732Mbps peak download/upload speeds.
Finally, the chipset comes with a new Image Signal Processor, which delivers a 46% increase in data throughput and better multi-camera support. It promises an improved HDR color reproduction, Multi-pass noise reduction that removes artifacts without hurting with the image details and better motion tracking.
And now it's time to run some tests.
Benchmarks
Quite expectedly we start off with some GeekBench torture on the CPU. The Mate 20 Pro easily comes on top of the whole Android pile, when it comes to multi-core performance. It is bested only by Apple's most current. The Kirin 980 multi-core CPU performance also enjoys 40% improvement over the Kirin 970.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XS
11472 - Apple iPhone XR
11437 - Apple iPhone XS Max
11432 - Apple iPhone X
10215 - Huawei Mate 20
9793 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
9712 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
9026 - OnePlus 6
9011 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
9003 - HTC U12+
9001 - Razer Phone 2
8923 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
8883 - LG G7 ThinQ
8865 - Sony Xperia XZ3
8607 - Xiaomi Mi 8
8494 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
8349 - Google Pixel 3
8146 - Google Pixel 3 XL
8088 - Oppo Find X
8018 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
6783 - Huawei P20
6722 - Huawei P20 Pro
6679 - Huawei Mate 10
6625 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
5574
Its single-core result came just short of the Mongoose cores of the Galaxy Note9. The Apple cores are lightyears ahead as usual, but that's hardly relevant for the Android market, isn't it?
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XS
4823 - Apple iPhone XR
4818 - Apple iPhone XS Max
4777 - Apple iPhone X
4256 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
3771 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
3642 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
3291 - Huawei Mate 20
3284 - Sony Xperia XZ3
2486 - HTC U12+
2456 - OnePlus 6
2450 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
2438 - Xiaomi Mi 8
2431 - Razer Phone 2
2424 - LG G7 ThinQ
2395 - Google Pixel 3
2377 - Google Pixel 3 XL
2363 - Oppo Find X
2322 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
2199 - Huawei P20 Pro
1907 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
1902 - Huawei P20
1897 - Huawei Mate 10
1882 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
1595
So, the Kirin 980 once again introduces the fastest mobile processor intended for Android smartphones.
The Kirin 980 chipset has Mali-G76 10-core GPU in charge of graphics. The performance, while an improvement over the previous Kirin 970, was not that impressive.
In terms of sheer power the Mate 20 Pro is almost as fast as the Snapdragon 845, but almost. If we are to dig into numbers, the Adreno 630 is still 12% faster than the Mali inside the Kirin 980.
It is still a major improvement over the Kirin 970 of course and just as Huawei promised, the new GPU is over 40% faster than the old one.
And just so you know, Apple's latest GPU is of another universe, obviously.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XS Max
99 - Apple iPhone XS
98 - Apple iPhone XR
97 - Apple iPhone X
65 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
61 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
60 - HTC U12+
60 - Oppo Find X
60 - OnePlus 6
58 - Google Pixel 3
57 - LG G7 ThinQ
57 - Sony Xperia XZ3
56 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
53 - Huawei Mate 20
53 - Xiaomi Mi 8
53 - Razer Phone 2
51 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
47 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
45 - Google Pixel 3 XL
44 - Huawei P20 Pro
40 - Huawei Mate 10
38 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
38 - Huawei P20
36 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
14
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XS
60 - Apple iPhone XS Max
60 - Apple iPhone XR
60 - Apple iPhone X
37 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
35 - OnePlus 6
35 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
35 - Oppo Find X
35 - Google Pixel 3
35 - LG G7 ThinQ
35 - Razer Phone 2
35 - Sony Xperia XZ3
35 - HTC U12+
35 - Xiaomi Mi 8
33 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
29 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
28 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
28 - Huawei Mate 20
28 - Google Pixel 3 XL
28 - Huawei P20
23 - Huawei P20 Pro
23 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
22 - Huawei Mate 10
21 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
7.6
There are quite a few Android flagships to run on 1080p screens and this gives them a big edge over the 1440p crop where the Mate 20 Pro falls in. While the Mate 20 Pro does pretty well, it's nothing impressive really.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XR
60 - Apple iPhone XS Max
60 - Apple iPhone XS
60 - Google Pixel 3
55 - OnePlus 6
55 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
53 - Xiaomi Mi 8
50 - Oppo Find X
50 - Apple iPhone X
49 - Huawei Mate 20
47 - Huawei P20
39 - Huawei P20 Pro
37 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
35 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
34 - HTC U12+
33 - Razer Phone 2
33
31
30
27
25
24
24
23
13
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XR
58 - Apple iPhone XS
47 - Apple iPhone XS Max
47 - Google Pixel 3
33 - OnePlus 6
33 - Xiaomi Mi 8
33 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
31 - Apple iPhone X
28 - Oppo Find X
28 - Huawei Mate 20
28 - Huawei P20
23 - Razer Phone 2
22 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
21 - Huawei P20 Pro
21 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
20 - HTC U12+
20 - Sony Xperia XZ3
19 - LG G7 ThinQ
18 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
17 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
15 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
14 - Huawei Mate 10
13 - Google Pixel 3 XL
12 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
6.7
Still, the GPUs of Kirin chipsets were always miles behind the competition for years, so the fact that the Mate 20 Pro can now trade blows with the best out there is a win in itself.
The compound AnTuTu benchmark brought a lot of reasons for Huawei to smile as the Mate 20 Pro beats almost any other Android flagship out there.
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone XS Max
353210 - Apple iPhone XS
346379 - Oppo Find X
291218 - Razer Phone 2
285051 - Sony Xperia XZ3
284555 - Huawei Mate 20
273913 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
273913 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
265314 - OnePlus 6
264200 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
264044 - HTC U12+
263696 - LG G7 ThinQ
259393 - Google Pixel 3 XL
258244 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
248823 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
246660 - Google Pixel 3
233699 - Apple iPhone X
233100 - Xiaomi Mi 8
217298 - Huawei Mate 10
214037 - Huawei P20 Pro
209884 - Huawei P20
206906 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
136583
Huawei Mate 20 Pro and its Kirin 980 are worthy of a flagship status as far as performance is concerned. The chip offers the fastest processor on the Android market, as usual, while its GPU punch is close to what the most current Adreno by Qualcomm can do.
And while the Mali-G76 MP10 isn't the fastest GPU available, it is among the fastest - something we couldn't say for any previous Kirin chipset. Then there is GPU Turbo 2, and if a game is compatible with it, it will deliver smooth and consistent 60fps performance.
The Kirin 980 is manufactured by the high-end 7nm process, but if you expected it not to heat up - you'd be wrong. The chip does release a reasonable amount of heat and the Mate 20 Pro does have a few spots that get hot under pressure. The phone won't go as hot as the previous Mates though. Some throttling may occur after running consecutive benchmark tests but only then.
Huawei has delivered an all-around great chip once again with class-leading processor and competitive graphics core. It has better thermal control and less throttling than the previous Kirin 970, too. Overall, we thinк Huawei has done an excellent job this year.
An upgraded triple camera
Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro have triple-camera setups with dual-LED flash on their backs. Those four things are packed together into a square, which if the teasers are anything to go by, should become the Mate 20 series' signature design trait.
The new setup waves goodbye to the monochrome sensor. It was very helpful for boosting low-light performance before chipsets could do multi-frame image stacking for noise reduction, but now all they bring is slightly better artsy black and white shots and we can agree Huawei did the right thing by removing them. The setup is still Leica-branded, coming with the exclusive color filters if those happen to be your thing.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is equipped with the 40MP camera we saw first on the P20 Pro with f/1.8 lens. It spits 10MP photos by default as due to the Quad-bayer filter this is its native resolution, but if you feel like it - you can still opt to save the 40MP image. There's a bit more to be said about the inner workings of the 40MP camera, but it's a little too technical, so we covered it in its own article.
There is also an 8MP snapper with 80mm f/2.4 long-range lens and optical stabilization - once again lifted from the P20 Pro.
Finally, the monochrome camera has been replaced with ultra-wide-angle 16mm 20MP snapper behind a f/2.2 lens. This could still be the same 20MP sensor that was on the P20 Pro for monochrome purposes, but with added color filter and new lens, but we can't know for sure.
As an added bonus to the wide-angle camera, Huawei says everyone will be able to shoot some impressive macro shots as it can focus from as close as 2.5cm.
Huawei likes to mark its zoom as 3x optical and 5x hybrid, just like on the Pro. You will find 3x and 5x options in its camera app, while the wide-angle camera is called 0.6x. Well, if we have to be technically correct, we'd say the Mate 20 Pro offers a 5x magnification when you compare the focal lengths of the wide and tele ends(16-80mm in 35mm terms). The hybrid magnification adds a bit on top of that, so essentially it equates to an overall 8x magnification. This is hardly an important nuance, we just want to mention this to avoid any confusion. When presenting the camera samples below, we chose to name the cameras as Huawei does.
The camera app is enhanced by Huawei's AI just as before. There is Master AI 2.0, which can now recognize and tune settings for up to 1,500 different scenes. Huawei has made it less aggressive on the trees and skies, after the negative feedback they received for the P20 Pro where the Greenery and Blue Sky modes were over the top. We are happy with the presets used on the Mate 20 Pro but if you'd like to keep the Master AI turned off, the switch for that is hidden in the Camera app's Settings page.
Photo • Aperture • Pro • All modes • Monochrome • Light Painting
The camera app itself hasn't changed much since the P20 Pro. First off, you have a mode selector on the bottom. You swipe left or right to change modes, but you can't swipe on the viewfinder, just on the selector itself. Swiping up and down doesn't switch between front and rear camera either, you have a button for that (admittedly, it's at the bottom within easy reach). Basically, you're still wasting the viewfinder by not having gestures enabled on it, except for pinch to zoom.
Camera settings
As for zooming, a tap on the '1x' button in the viewfinder toggles consecutively the '3x' (80mm), 5x (135mm), and the 0.6x (16mm) cameras. The 5x mode is what Huawei refers to as hybrid zoom (as opposed to optical one). The camera tandem will work in conjunction to deliver a sharp and detailed image, quite successfully as you'll see.
There's a Pro mode here where you can adjust parameters yourself - ISO (50 to 3200), shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s), exposure compensation (-4 to +4EV in 1/3 stop increments), and white balance (presets and light temperature). You can also choose the metering mode (matrix, center-weighted and spot), and the focus mode (single, continuous and manual). If the phone thinks you messed up the exposure, an icon will pop up to warn you.
The monochrome mode is still available in spite of the Mate 20 Pro not having a B&W camera. It's in the 'More' section, where the extra modes are: Monochrome, Panorama, and HDR, among others. And while we're at it, what's with the manual HDR mode when everyone else has some sort of AutoHDR already enabled?
Since bokeh effects became all the rage, Huawei phones have had both a Portrait mode, and an Aperture mode. There's now more differentiation than ever between the two. In Aperture you can choose the simulated aperture in the range from f/0.95 to f/16. Post shot, you can change the aperture and the focus point within the Gallery.
In Portrait mode you can enable and disable the background blur (why disable it, though), but you can also choose the bokeh shapes - circles, hearts, swirl or discs - and those turned out really nice! You can also opt for simulated lighting, and you can even add some beautification on a scale from 0 to 10.
Portrait • Portrait Lighting • Portrait Blur • Portrait Beauty
The Mate 20 Pro records video up to 4K resolution at 30fps - there's still no 4K/60fps mode, though. You can, however, choose between h.264 and h.265.
There's super slow-mo recording as well, in what's become the industry-standard 720p/960fps, as well as 'regular' slow-mo in 720p/240 and 1080p/120fps. While the regular slow-mo clips are only limited in length by your free storage, the super slow-mo clips last precisely 10s - 6s of slow-mo and two seconds of regular speed action on both ends.
Image quality
While the 0.6x mode isn't the default one, we still thought it's the right place to start with the examining of the Mate 20 Pro's image quality and then zoom in from there.
There is plenty of resolved detail in the photos we took with the wide-angle camera. The color rendition is excellent, true to life, the noise levels are very low, and the dynamic range is often superb, probably due to the multi-stacking magic.
There is noticeable corner softness and quite visible chromatic aberrations, but it was to be expected with such a wide lens. Those don't ruin the picture and are quite hard to spot if you are not pixel peeping at 20MP.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 20MP wide-angle samples
The wide-angle cam can also do for macro shots, as Huawei has promised. These are quite good in quality and will do for the occasional shooting of flower petals, bugs, and other tiny peculiar things. Yes, chromatic aberration is still noticeable here and there, but it comes with the territory.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 20MP macro samples with wide-angle camera
Moving on to the regular photos. Those come from the 40MP sensor and after the phone works its magic on them it saves a 10MP image. There is one easy rule with the Mate 20 Pro - if it's not shot with the wide-angle camera, then it will be a 10MP photo. That's right, even the 8MP camera spits out 10MP images.
Anyway, the 1x photos which are captured during the day are as flagship-level as they come. There is plenty of detail, impressive dynamic range, lively and accurate colors, superb contrast, and, overall, very nice rendition. The images are one idea less sharp then what we used to get with the P20 Pro for some reason, but that isn't a bad thing. They still look excellent and some might even say this is the right way to have them.
So, the 10MP 1x photos are great looking and everybody should be happy with them.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP regular samples
The 80mm tele camera is only 8MP, but the 40MP one lends a hand and you will get a 10MP in the end. The '3x' shots turn out as great as the regular 1x ones - sharp and detailed, bringing your subjects closer. The color, contrast, and dynamic range are equally brilliant, but the noise levels have seen a minor spike.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP 3x optically zoomed samples
The hybrid 5x zoom is digital and you can tell right away. Huawei enhances the digital zoom by combining information from two of the snappers and the photos come up somewhat better than if you zoomed and cropped the 3x pixs by yourself. It's not a ground-breaking boost, but the benefit is still noticeable.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP 5x hybrid zoomed samples
Remember the overly aggressive Master AI on the Huawei P20 Pro? Good news, folks, version 2.0 has been reworked and it's not ruining the Greenery and Blue Skies scenes. In fact, if Blue Sky is automatically selected, or Greenery, the algorithm applies minor contrast boost and very slightly saturate the skies or the grass. But nothing over the top as on the P20 Pro.
Mater AI • Regular • Master AI • Regular
The AI also uses HDR when necessary, so you might want to try leaving the Master AI and see if you are happy with it.
Regular • HDR
Now, it's time to move to those low-light scenes, where the Huawei Mate 20 Pro should really shine. For the sake of consistency, we'd once again start from the wide-angle camera and move from there.
The 20MP camera has f/2.2 aperture and isn't optically stabilized, so the regular photos are rather disappointing. You can see what's on them, but they are blurry and the noise reduction has smeared a lot of the fine detail.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 20MP wide-angle low-light samples
This is where the Night mode comes in. It will produce some pretty stunning results, even if it has its limitations. It creates pseudo long exposures by stacking multiple frames gathering light along the way. We're talking three-, sometimes five-second-long hand-held exposures which would otherwise result in a blurry mess. Those are not always keepers and you still need to have a reasonably steady hand, but you'll be getting usable photos in situations you'd otherwise get none. The phone also does a remarkable job of retaining color where others would lose saturation.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 20MP wide-angle low-light samples with Night Mode
The 10MP low-light photos we took with the regular 1x camera are very impressive. It has bright f/1.7 aperture and even though it lacks optical stabilization, the shutter speed won't go lower than 1/20s, so blurred images are highly unlikely.
And the pictures are top-notch - plenty of detail, nice exposure excellent contrast, and some very nice-looking colors. If Master AI is enabled, it will rarely use the Night Mode when using the regular camera.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP regular low-light samples
One caveat of Night mode is that if subjects move, they will get blurred. That's to say, the algorithm will successfully cancel out camera shake, but there's little it can do against motion blur of your subjects. But let's say we don't mind the occasional ghosting if it means capturing stunning photos come nighttime. But yeah, it's hardly a good fit for group shots on a night out with friends.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP regular low-light samples with Night Mode
You can use the optical zoom at night, too, but don't expect as spectacular results when the light is really low. The telephoto camera has a dark f/2.4 aperture and while it benefits from optical stabilization, it can't match the regular shots.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP 3x zoomed samples
And while the 3x shots are pretty usable, we can't say the same for the 5x digitally zoomed ones.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP 5x hybrid zoomed samples
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro was unveiled in London, so we took it for a spin there and you can see for yourselves how it will behave as your primary camera on a vacation.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP low-light photos from London
And here are some photos shot with the Night Mode.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP Night Mode photos from London
Shootout - Mate 20 Pro vs. P20 Pro
The $1000 question is if the Mate 20 Pro camera is worth upgrading over the P20 Pro. You bet we took both devices for a spin and the photos are in.
If you expected some major improvement over the P20 Pro, we have to disappoint you. The 10MP photos we snapped with the Mate 20 Pro are similar in quality with the P20 Pro. There are minor differences and depending on your preferences, you may like the one or the other.
The P20 images are sharper. They don't have more detail than Mate 20, but the extra sharpening may be easily mistaken for more captured detail. You can permanently tweak the sharpness level from settings if you'd like to, but by default, the P20 has the sharper pictures.
We also noticed sometimes the P20 decided not to use frame-stacking. We could tell this by the tags in the EXIF. While the Mate 20 Pro samples are all HDR, the P20 Pro didn't use HDR for the pictures with the castle and the mountain. This resulted in extremely detailed photos, much better than the rest of the both P20 and Mate 20. And that's very odd as we'd expected this to work the other way around.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP daylight photos
Huawei P20 Pro 10MP daylight photos
The 3x optically zoomed samples are equally good in quality, but the P20's are once again sharper than the Mate's.
Mate 20 Pro 3x zoom • P20 Pro 3x zoom • Mate 20 Pro 3x zoom • P20 Pro 3x zoom
The 5x hybrid zoom photos of both phones are pretty indistinguishable from each other.
Mate 20 Pro 5x zoom • P20 Pro 5x zoom • Mate 20 Pro 5x zoom • P20 Pro 5x zoom
The low-light photos of the Mate 20 Pro haven't improved at all since the P20 Pro. They are a bit less sharp, but that's it. Detail, exposure, contrast, and colors - same on both phones.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP night photos
Huawei P20 Pro 10MP night photos
The pictures we shot with Night Mode can't be exactly compared, because of the difference in camera shake, but they still look identical to us.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP Night Mode photos
Huawei P20 Pro 10MP Night Mode photos
Of course, the P20 Pro lacks a wide-angle camera, so if that's what rocks your boat, the P20 Pro has is handicapped in this respect.
Portraits
Huawei Mate 20 Pro has three cameras on its back and would have been inexcusable if Portrait Mode wasn't present. The feature, however, has changed since the P20 Pro.
For starters, you can't choose the blur strength as you could before. Instead, you can use one of the few bokeh highlights shapes - circles, hears, swirl or discs.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP Portraits with different bokeh effects
The subject separation is very good and among the best, we've seen in a while. The different effects are also a departure from what we're used to seeing, and we found them cool and a breath of fresh air.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP Portraits with different bokeh effects
Then there are Portrait Lighting effects, which also have a very good subject separation, but weren't our cup of tea.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 10MP Portraits with different Lightning effects
Finally, in addition to those blur and/or lighting effects, you can also use various skin and face beautifications but we didn't dig deep there.
Aperture
The Mate 20 Pro also features the so-called Aperture Mode. It lets you do post-shot re-focusing and simulates apertures in the f/0.95-f/16 range. It is used for non-human subjects and does well with the subject isolation even with more complex shapes.
Selfies
The Mate 20 Pro feature a 24MP f/2.0 camera with fixed focus for selfies at the front, borrowed from the P20 series. It can do portraits with various effects as usual. Its performance on the P20 phones wasn't nearly as spectacular as the high pixel count might suggest, though, and we don't expect a major improvement on the Mate 20.
We'd trade half of those megapixels for autofocus any time, or, at least, for a focus sweetspot that's further from the phone, because as things stand right now, you need to shoot your face from pretty close for it to be in sharp focus. So as long as you stay within the camera's fixed focus sweet spot, the level of detail is quite amazing. Colors are faithfully represented, and dynamic range is good for a selfie camera.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 24MP selfies
There is AI HDR turned on by default for the selfies and we strongly recommend leaving it on. It does a splendid job in recovering what's lost from the highlights and makes for a massive improvement in the dynamic range.
AI HDR • no HDR
The front camera has the same Portrait mode as the main one, but the subject separation is far inferior. You can see ears and hear have gone missing on some of the shots. The cool blur effects have made it to those mode, too, which is nice.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 24MP Selfie Portraits with different bokeh effects
And you can, of course, use Portrait Lighting effects, if those are your thing.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro 24MP Selfie Portraits with different Lightning effects
Video recording
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro isn't introducing any new shooting modes over the P20 Pro, which means still no 4K at 60fps. You have a choice between the h.264 and h.265 codecs.
There is an always-on electronic stabilization available in every mode but the 1080p/60fps. The EIS won't work on the optically-stabilized telephoto camera either and footage from that is extremely jerky.
So, you can shoot cideo with each camera in any resolution and use the 0.6x, 1x, 3x, and 5x triggers as you prefer. Oddly, we found out that in 1080p at 60fps the 3x footage is not from the 3x camera, but is digitally zoomed from the normal one.
The 4K footage of either camera is average at best - it lacks sharpness big time. The resolved detail seems enough, but we've seen mid-rangers do better. The colors sometimes are washed out, but the contrast and the dynamic range are pretty decent.
The always-on electronic stabilization might be responsible for this softness, but we can't be sure as there is no way to disable it.
Oddly, the 4K videos we shot with the wide-angle camera have a frame rate of only 24-25fps instead of the regular 30fps.
But there is a silver lining - the closeup videos are amazing. The Mate 20 Pro has spectacular EIS and even videos shot at night look great. The recorded audio is stereo with 192kbps bitrate and thanks to the high bitrate you will get excellent audio even at a concert.
The 1080p footage looks sharper and these are among the better 1080p videos we've seen. The resolved detail is great, as are the colors, contrast, and the dynamic range. There is a drop in the quality when you switch to 3x and 5x, but the videos are still quite usable.
The 1080p videos at 60fps have a reduced field of view and don't benefit from electronic stabilization. Other than that, they are pretty much on par with the 30fps ones as far as picture quality is concerned.
Mate 20 Pro shoots 720p slow-mo videos at 960fps. While the regular slow-mo clips are only limited in length by your free storage, the super slow-mo clips last precisely 10s - 6s of slow-mo and two seconds of regular speed action on both ends. There is no smart detection, so it's likely to miss the important moment more often than not.
Finally, the Mate 20 Pro has some AI modes for the video. Two of them are blurred background and AI color. The first one is self-explanatory though the quality is rather poor.
The AI Color captures the whole scene in black and white, while leaving only a specific color(s) which can potentially produce some quite artsy videos.
As usual, we've provided samples straight out of the camera for you to download - 2160p@30fps wide-angle (10s, 27MB), 2160p@30fps normal (10s, 36MB), 2160p@30fps 3x zoom (10s, 32MB), 2160p@30fps 5x zoom (10s, 36MB), 1080p@30fps wide-angle (10s, 8MB), 1080p@30fps normal (11s, 17MB), 1080p@30fps 3x zoom (10s, 9MB), 1080p@30fps 5x zoom (10s, 9MB), 1080p@60fps wide-angle (12s, 30MB), and 1080p@60fps normal (10s, 28MB).
Final Thoughts
Huawei Mate 20 Pro is a massive improvement over the Mate 10 Pro, that's for sure. It has one very advanced camera, a bigger and better OLED screen, refined design, expandable storage, and the best Kirin chipset yet.
Indeed, the Mate 20 Pro is the bearer of the new Kirin 980, which has the fastest Android processor to date. But it also refines the triple camera introduced with the P20 Pro in a very meaningful way - and that makes it an excellent update over the P20, too.
Huawei did a wonderful job with the Mate 20 Pro and it's one of the best smartphones money can buy this Fall. Sure, the market is overly saturated already, but the Mate has something unique - the new triple camera with its new shooting modes - wide-angle and macro. And there is no better all-round imager on the market right now.
The 40W charging is another great addition, as well as the fast-wireless charging. The reverse wireless charging is a gimmick, yes, but it's one gimmick nobody else has.
The Competition
If you've stayed with us until the very end of this review, you are either curious about the Mate 20 Pro or you are seriously considering it. If it's the latter, then you probably have the budget for it. The Mate 20 Pro price is quite steep, equal to the iPhone XS Max, which makes it among the most expensive smartphones on the market.
Apple iPhone XS Max • Samsung Galaxy Note9 • Google Pixel 3 XL • Huawei P20 Pro
The iPhone XS Max is not a real competitor if you are a stickler for Android, but it has a lot of best-in-class features. While it can't match the Mate 20 Pro camera skills, nobody can, it can still offer better video recording over the Mate's. And its display, speakers quality, and chip performance are really hard to match.
Then there is the Samsung Galaxy Note9. It has a Super AMOLED Infinity display, free of notches, and the iconic S-Pen. The performance is equally great, but it can't match the rich camera experience. The Note9 camera is still among the best within the most current flagships. And the Note9 is about €200 cheaper than the Mate 20 Pro and doesn't require new memory cards, so there is that.
Note9 vs. Mate 20 Pro
Google Pixel 3 XL is as expensive as the Mate 20 Pro, but specs-wise it's a bit inferior. Google is a wizard when it comes to low-light photos and portraits with just one camera, though, and it probably snaps the best selfies out there. The vanilla Android and its fast updates are pretty valuable, too.
We feel it will all boil down to the triple camera in the end and whether it's worth its salt - and that would be up to you to decide. But if north of €1000 seems off to you, then the Huawei P20 Pro is an excellent alternative. It has an AMOLED screen, water-tight body, and quite fast Kirin 970 chip. Its triple-camera lacks the wide-angle snapper in favor of a monochrome one, but its daylight and low-light pictures are on par with the Mate 20 Pro's. The P20 Pro also has the same zoom capabilities and its videos are even a tad better. And now, about seven months since the P20 Pro launch, it costs almost half the Mate 20 Pro price and it deserves a serious consideration.
The Verdict
If you travel a lot and take a ton of photos, then look no further. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the ultimate companion for any journey - it can fully replace a whole bag of camera and lenses. It has a great screen, blazing-fast performance, and its large battery charges in a flash.
But the Mate is not only a camera, it is well equipped to handle any business, gaming, or social task you throw at it. And while it may have a few omissions, the Mate 20 Pro is still the most jam-packed with features smartphone this season. And it deserves to be on your wishlist.
Pros
- Top-notch AMOLED with superb brightness and sunlight contrast
- Kirin 980 has the fastest Android processor
- Great security options - face unlock and UD fingerprint scanner
- 40W wired and 15W wireless charging (reversed, too)
- Dependable battery
- The triple camera is the best all-round setup on a smartphone
Cons
- No audio port
- The stereo speakers are squeaky, one is in the USB port
- The selfie camera would benefit from autofocus
- Proprietary memory cards with extremely limited availability
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