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After spending two hours consuming streamed YouTube content in HD quality, over an hour on WhatsApp and another five hours on other applications, we still finished the day with 30 percent battery left. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the first phone in a long time we have not had to charge at least once during the day to keep it going. Huawei is clearly aware of its battery superiority and has installed the Mate 20 Pro with a new feature it is dubbing "wireless reverse charging".
Such an addition is not only incredibly innovative by the Chinese tech giant, but it is truly useful. During our testing of the device we went out for a meal with friends; one of them realised his phone was only sitting on 18 percent battery with much of the day still to go. So for the entirety of our starter, main course and dessert his device was charging on the Mate 20 Pro. Huawei has delivered a truly revolutionary feature here that is actually practical and not just a gimmick to show off when you first pick up the device. Huawei Mate 20 Pro is powered by the firm's own Kirin processor that is built on a 7-nanometre process.
Ahead of the flagship's debut, Huawei insisted the chipset was more capable than Qualcomm's Snapdragon present in a number of Android handsets that debuted this year. Opening applications is blisteringly quick and during our testing the device never seemed close to breaking a sweat even when under the most intensive of loads. What's more, we have to credit the phone for consistently remembering to pick up where we left off in our applications.
Unless the software was designed to shut off after being closed, such as a mobile banking app for instance, we always found the Mate 20 Pro was able to pick up exactly where we left off. The latest version of Google's operating system, Android 9 Pie, is pre-installed on the hardware.
However, Huawei have once again opted to cover it with an EMUI skin that will certainly take time to adjust to, even for the most esteemed Android aficionados. The software has a number of niggles that we personally would like to see addressed in the future. However, if you tap the app window button on the Mate 20 Pro, the phone will automatically fling the software you were just using off to the right hand side, placing a different one front and centre.
This meant if we hit the Android multitasking button and wanted to go back into the app we were just using, we were transported into another entirely. Such a change appears to be a move from Huawei to help you jump into multiple apps at an instant, but ultimately it is more annoying and strange than functional. If you choose to have your apps located in a drawer, you need to have an app drawer icon present on your home screen to access it rather than simply swiping up for instance.
Additionally Huawei has once again crammed the software with a ton of bloatware apps that simply do not hold a candle to their Google counterparts. While this would not be so much of a problem if Huawei simply let you uninstall the software you do not need, instead it forbids you from removing some of its proprietary apps.
That means if you prefer Google's clock app for instance, you are forced to have two pieces of clock software sitting in your drawer. While such a complaint may seem trivial, when this is the case for a score of other apps, it quickly becomes frustrating. Deleting pointless tools such as Huawei's "Mirror" app that essentially provides a worse way to take selfies than on the phone's own camera software is also incredibly tedious.
In terms of software, Huawei should not only allow users to precisely pick and choose what applications they want installed, but they should also understand their hardware would run even better if it was not filled with pointless software. It is worth noting Huawei's EMUI skin has come a long way since its debut, but it still needs noticeable improvements to catch up to lighter Android skins such as Oxygen OS in terms of intuitiveness and functions. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro's notch is the most justified on any Android device thanks to the front-facing camera array that allows for face unlocking.
This flagship delivers the best compromise of fast and secure recognition on any phone running Google's software. While the Mate 20 Pro is still outclassed by the iPhone here, it does launch a valiant challenge to Apple's latest and greatest. Audio on the Mate 20 Pro sounds great thanks to the stereo speaker system present that has become pretty much standard on most leading flagships.
The placement of the rear speaker inside the USB-C ports means we never accidentally covered it with our hands.
However, it is worth noting the audio from the Mate 20 Pro sounded slightly more tinny than we would like and did not get as loud as rival devices on the market such as the Google Pixel 3 XL. Huawei Mate 20 Pro offers by far the most flexible camera system on the market thanks to its triple-array of snappers that are each incredibly capable.
The device comes with a megapixel main sensor that is joined by a megapixel wide-angle and 8-megapixel telephoto lens respectively. The main sensor produces incredible photos with vast levels of detail retained, but it just misses out on ousting the Pixel 3 from its smartphone camera throne. Overall the Mate 20 Pro is not able to deal with HDR shots quite as effortlessly as Google's offering; for the most part instances saw the sun slightly more blown out on the Huawei.
The wide-angle sensor present allows for much more to be crammed into a shot and is a saving grace when you are struggling to fit a subject into a frame on the standard lens. Unlike the telephoto tools present on a number of other flagships, we found ourselves using the wide-angle lens with regularity.
While the wide-angle system does mean you need to compromise slightly on the quality of your shots as the megapixel sensor is certainly not as capable as the megapixel main lens, the shot differentiation it provides is certainly worth the trade-off. The wide sensor also doubles as as macro lens that allows you to get incredibly close to subjects with immense clarity.
Add to all of that a telephoto system capable of delivering a 3-times optical zoom and you have the best combination of cameras on a smartphone right now.
Colours in photos can be slightly exaggerated on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, but overall this is a camera system that consistently delivers laudable shots. Artificial intelligence AI plays a big part in the camera system and is presented as a "master AI" toggle in the application's settings. This means the device should switch to a wide-angle lens by itself if it detects the subject is not fitting into the main lens, or moving to the macro system when you get incredibly close to an object. During our testing we found the AI worked extremely well and once it identified an object and adjusted its settings accordingly, colour and focus was not drastically altered.
We found Huawei's AI was extremely helpful for subtly tweaking or photos to make them look more pleasing. Such a move seems geared towards social media sharing, but it can easily be turned off if the user would rather have a more true to life photo. But ultimately the megapixel sensor smoothes subject skin over far too much to be appealing, especially in low-light conditions.
During our usage selfies lacked detail and were far too soft, most notably when using the device's HDR mode. That is not to say the Mate 20 Pro's front camera is unusable, but it certainly does not live up to its tantalising spec sheet. Video on the Mate 20 Pro is a class act, but it certainly doesn't oust the iPhone Xs from its video throne. The Chinese flagship can record 4K video in up to 30 frames-per-second and we found video to be sharp and colours were colder than on rivals such as the Galaxy S9. Stabilisation is great and during our testing the microphone did a decent job at picking out our voice in a busy environment.
However, the admission of 4K at frames-per-second will be a deal-breaker for some that enjoy buttery smooth video. While storage can be expanded by up to GB, Huawei has introduced its own NanoMemory cards for the device, meaning microSD cannot be used here. The short answer is yes, if your only scale is what other current phones have to offer. But the other versions in the Mate 20 line — like the 7. Where the P20 Pro had a main camera, 3x zoom telephoto and monochrome lens, the Mate 20 Pro kept the former two and added a color ultra-wide lens.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro review, features, price and release date: The Mate Mobile Phone - Blue Plus Free Huawei Band 3 Pro Fitness Tracker. The Huawei Mate 20 exists in the shadow of its more desirable sibling, the Mate 20 Pro. That doesn't mean it's not worth your time though, and.
At That makes its 6. One of the biggest braggable points, of course, is the Kirin processor, which is debuting on the Mate 20 Pro and its sibling devices.
These specs are about on par with other flagship smartphones, though the Kirin is speedier than Snapdragon which first appeared in a phone earlier in March. The first is something phone fans have been eager to try out: an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The top tier of the smartphone market requires differentiation, and Huawei chose to let its cameras do the talking.
When every new phone raises the bar a bit higher, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has just enough premium features to stand out from the crowd. In the end, though, it has been Huawei to grab the accolade, with the Mate 20 Pro's fingerprint sensor completely hidden in its screen. Introduction, design and screen Battery and camera Software and performance Verdict and competition. While the cameras look the same on the outside, there are some differences inside. Instead the back of the device looks more gunmetal grey and is tantalisingly sleek.
The Mate 20 Pro dimensions are still several millimeters smaller than beastly flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, but it is one of the larger phones on the market. As a result, using the Mate 20 Pro one-handed went out the door during our testing. The thinner edges made it difficult to type or swipe around one-handed, and the sleek front-and-back surfaces combined with the very tall ratio In other words, it feels like a pricey phone that sacrificed ease-of-use for a little extra screen space, which is great for whoever is fine with two-handing their device.
To be fair, there are a couple settings to help, but the most useful just shrinks the screen space to put it within reach of your fingers, wasting a good portion of that big, beautiful display. The phone itself comes in five colors, three of which have the standard glossy surface that makes it trivial to slide the phone over slick tables the slightly-protruding camera block notwithstanding.
These include a standard Black, a cream-colored Pink Gold and the signature Huawei blue-fading-to-purple Twilight. The last two hues, Emerald Green and Midnight Blue, have something else: an ever-so-slightly textured back.