Huawei finally unveiled the Huawei Mate 20 series at the launch event in London on October 16 and it was by far the most thrilling and action-packed event which saw four perfect montages of masterpieces launch together with the best-in-class features, design elements, and technology.
The second global smartphone manufacturer Huawei launched Huawei Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 RS, and Mate 20 X as the successor to the previous Mate 10 series and it is more advanced than ever and in fact, it has burst all the high-end smartphones in terms of technology and performance it offers including Google Pixel 3 which was launched on October 9. The first thing that comes in my mind about the launch is new Kirin 980 AI octa-core SoC which is the first production-ready 7nm process chipset made by Huawei which has boosted the performance of the Mate 20 series smartphones to a whole new level. Also, it is backed up with Mali-G76 MP10 GPU 2.0 technology that offers double the performance than ordinary GPUs.
Design
Huawei has always been at the pinnacle when it comes to design and the Chinese OEM hasn’t disappointed people this time too. All four of Huawei Mate 20 series smartphone have an edge-to-edge display ranging between 6.53-inch (standard) to 6.39-inch and 7.2-inch Super AMOLED displays which is flat in the standard model whilst the rest three have majestic curved edges forged into the side bezel with elegance and finesse.
Similar to the Mate 10 series, Porsche Design has actively participated in one of the smartphone i.e. Huawei Mate 20 RS which is at the pinnacle of design with glass strip over the rear camera assembly that flows from top to bottom while the other two sides are clad in best-in-class leather that makes it easier to hold such a ginormous smartphone roaring with rich energy from its new 7nm SoC.
Camera Matrix
Out of the numerous segments where Mate 20 series shines, the camera is one of them. The smartphones have particularly designed rear camera setup arranged in 2×2 which creates a three-dimensional effect to the images while it looks unique when compared to any smartphone with triple rear camera setup and yes, there aren’t many.
The triple lens is arranged in a 2×2 square with dual-LED dual-tone flash that elevates the picture quality in low-light. What’s fantastic is that the Mate 20 Pro (Mate 20 RS, and Mate 20 X) have a main 40MP sensor along with an 8MP telephoto camera and 20MP ultra-wide-angle camera that allows it to capture crisp images with 5x optical zoom accompanied with OIS and EIS which mimics professional DSLR cameras without any doubt. On the other hand, the standard Mate 20 sports a 12MP main wide lens, 16MP ultra-wide lens, and an 8MP telephoto lens with 2x zoom which might not seem on par with the Pro models but it is surely a slightly toned-down version of these Pro models and definitely comes with all the cool camera features.
The highlights of the front notch on Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 RS is the new 3D Face Unlock that works similar to Apple’s FaceID. It takes 3,000 data points and authenticates users in 0.6s using the IR camera mounted within the notch accompanied with 3D depth-sensing camera system that allows authentication even in the low-light.
SoC & Performance
As said, the new Mate 20 series smartphones are the first one to get HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC manufactured using a 7nm process which is known to raise the performance bar almost double the original 10nm process. It includes fitting in 6.9billion transistors within a fingernail-sized chip that makes it 75 percent powerful than 10nm Kirin 970, 46 percent powerful GPU and of course, the new NPU setup with Kirin 980 provides 226 percent more power than the previous version.
According to Huawei, Kirin 980 is the first chipset to use Cortex-A76 high-performance cores. Huawei has excelled the three-tier core architecture by placing four small cores, two large cores, and finally, two ultra-large cores accompanied with sophisticated AI technology that allows the SoC to allocate resources as per the demand of the task which gives unprecedented efficiency to the system.
Mate 20 Series of smartphones brings 4.5G LTE Cat. 21 that reckons the download speeds by up to 1.4Gbps while it also supports the fastest Wi-Fi connection speed tested to download a 2GB file in a mere 10 seconds. It also features L1+L5 GPS positioning technology that gives it an upper hand in terms of GPS accuracy which was showcased at the event as well.
Battery Life
Huawei has extended the battery capacity and life of the new Mate 20 series with larger battery sizes and capabilities. First of all, the Mate 20 gets a 4,000mAh Li-Po battery with fast charging capability that takes 30 minutes to charge the battery at 58 percent. The Mate 20 Pro gets a larger 4,200mAh battery accompanied with Huawei SuperCharge 40W tested to outperform most of the smartphones by charging the humongous battery up to 70 percent in just 30 minutes and it is certified by TUV Rheinland.
The Mate 20 X is a gaming-oriented smartphone with ginormous 5,000 mAh Li-Po battery. It has a graphene film with Vapour Chamber (VC) technology that takes the heat from the system and routes it out of the smartphone throttling the core temperature allowing the user to play for longer duration without worrying if the phone gets overheated since it won’t. All the Pro models have received the 40W Huawei SuperCharge technology followed by 15W wireless Quick Charge which is considered as the fastest wireless solution. But the most exciting technology is the Wireless Reverse Charge which enables the user to charge the phone by taking it closer to another electronic device.
Prices & Availability
Huawei Mate 20 series release marks the date of release of the new EMUI 9.0 -based Android Pie 9.0 which is the smartest OS of all. It has AI self-learning algorithms that provide proper resource allocation, proper battery optimization, among others features. The smartphone has heartbeat sensor along with object identification system that works similar to Google lens.
The Huawei Mate 20 features 4GB RAM with 128GB internal storage that can be further expanded to 256GB using Huawei’s proprietary NM memory card and it has a price tag of EUR 799 ($918)while the larger 6GB/128GB variant comes at a price tag of EUR849 ($976).
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a 6GB+128GB configuration that will have an MSRP of EUR1049 ($1,206). The Mate 20 X 6GB+128GB variant will be out on October 26 and will be available at EUR899 ($1,033). Finally, the Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS 8GB+256GB fetches a staggering EUR1695 ($1,948) price tag while the larger 8GB+512GB will cross the 2 grand marks with the price tag of EUR2095 ($2,408) and will be available from November 16.
