Huawei Mate 20 Pro Initial Review: This camera is really a phone, too

An extremely promising smartphone

The Huawei P20 Pro was a bold statement for a smartphone, featuring the world’s first triple camera system, also it helped Huawei stand out earlier in the day this year. Fast forward half a year, and the business’s next flagship looks to create on the success of the P20 Pro. The Mate 20 Pro brings an updated triple camera system, but additionally a range of features we’re more likely to see on flagships next year.

Concerning this initial review

While we wait for the ultimate software update, which is likely to address a number of the software problems and camera processing we’ve seen with this particular weeks-old B113 update, we wanted to share our initial impressions. Features such as battery life, camera, performance and software will probably change so we’ll be leaving them out of this initial review, and instead concentrating on the areas that are unlikely to change such as for example hardware and design. Needless to say, the triple camera is among the things that makes the Mate 20 Pro stand out so we’ll be looking at our experience up to now, with the caveat that final camera performance might change.

Moving pictures

Huawei Mate 20 Pro 5 Things

Along with our first impressions below, Alex has shared his five what to know about the Mate 20 Pro following a week with the device. You can examine out that video above. You’ll also find MrMobile’s impressions of the Mate 20 Pro in the bottom of this initial review.

Simply gorgeous

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Hardware

The Mate 20 Pro is the smaller of Huawei’s Mate-series flagships. The regular Mate 20 supplies a 6. 53-inch LCD display with 18. 7: 9 aspect ratio, while the Mate 20 Pro gives you a 6. 39-inch curved OLED display with 19. 5: 9 aspect ratio. Quite surprisingly, gleam third device for select markets – the monster Mate 20 X includes a 7. 2-inch AMOLED display with 18. 7: 9 aspect ratio. Smaller and much more comfortable in the hand, the Mate 20 Pro also brings a new feature to Android devices — a 3D face detection system that’s similar to Face ID on the iPhone (more on that below).

The display houses the brand new in-display fingerprint sensor, that is significantly much better than the one in the Porsche Design Mate RS earlier in the day this year. Before you get excited, however , you have to know about a few quirks. We’ve all grown so familiar with one-touch capacitive sensors that the in-display sensor does require some adjustment — it’s just a little slower. That’s largely right down to the way it works; you will need to press firmly on the display in the precise center and when you just make an effort to tap it, you’ll trigger a failed read. Having said that, it does work really well more often than not and it’s an indicator of what to come from all smartphones in the very forseeable future.

Fortuitously, you won’t have to use the fingerprint sensor more often than not as Huawei’s face unlock is that good . I’ve used the iPhone X for the past year, and the iPhone XS for recent weeks, and Huawei’s face unlock is significantly faster than Apple’s Face ID. It features its own infra-red projector, meaning it is effective even in dark conditions and, unlike the iPhone, it works whenever your phone is in landscape mode. For the past fourteen days, I’ve found the facial skin detection unlocks the phone before you try to register your fingerprint and combined, they represent one of the most complete biometric solutions on a smartphone.

Turn the Mate 20 Pro over and you will get a familiar, yet unique experience. The Mate 20 Pro includes a very similar twilight gradient because the Morpho Aurora P20 Pro with a gradient shift from blue to black. Let me just say this — that is an incredibly beautiful smartphone, particularly when the color shifts depending on the way the light hits it.

The twilight gradient shifts in the light and makes for probably one of the most beautiful smartphones ever.

The design has been slightly updated from the P20 Pro with the help of a matching gradient pattern to the metal trim, and the symmetry and curves ensure it is incredibly ergonomic and comfortable to use. Gleam new Hyper Optic Patterned version of the Mate 20 which drops the gradient for a subtle patterned etched into the surface. This version provides extra grip and in addition detracts from fingerprints, but I think the twilight version is the one you’ll want to buy.

All you could want

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Battery and Charging

If you’ve used Huawei’s Mate series before, you’ll be acquainted with the premise of the Mate 20 Pro’s battery; a big cell and computer software optimizations bring about excellent battery life. Because of nature of pre-release computer software, I’ve experienced screen-on times ranging from three hours to six, but Alex averages around six hours of screen-on time.

Using the camera heavily proves to be quite taxing on the battery, too, and on days when I’ve taken lots of photos and videos, I’ve found it could drain considerably faster, but only one time in nearly two weeks have I had to top it up before the end of your day. More often than not, the battery lasts for at the very least a day . 5, if not more.

It’s fast and efficient and I wish every phone had Huawei’s 40W supercharging.

The Mate 20 Pro adds Qi wireless charging, making it a piece of cake to top up over night. I’ve been utilizing the Pixel Stand to charge it over night and it works just as well as you’d are expecting. And in the event you forget, the in-box Supercharge 2 . 0 adapter adds 40 watt charging. Through comparison, the standard Mate 20 and previous Mate devices offer 22W charging, but this updated SuperCharger can truly add up to 70% battery in only 30 minutes. It’s fast, efficient and I wish every phone had it.

Triple the cameras, triple the fun

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Camera

Since the P20 Pro was announced, I used it as my daily driver — until it met an untimely death in a river — for just one reason: its amazing triple camera. The P20 Pro made taking photos fun again, and the Mate 20 Pro does this but with one key difference; it drops the monochrome sensor in favor of a a regular sensor with an ultra-wide lens, and it’s really proven to be a fantastic decision.

This implies you have the excellent standard and zoomed shots of the P20 Pro but with the addition of an incredible ultra-wide option. Both Alex and I agree that the ultra-wide is the better we’ve ever seen in a smartphone, since it has autofocus meaning it’s more versatile and you can utilize it to just take macro shots.

I have never had anywhere near this much fun with a smartphone camera

I used the Mate 20 Pro camera during the period of a few days in London, in addition to at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin last week-end, and I could safely say I’ve never really had this much fun with a smartphone camera. Between the ultra-wide camera — which the computer software reports as 0. 6x focal length — and the 5x hybrid zoom, there’s so much you can certainly do with it as you can see from the four images below (0. 6x, 1x, 3x and 5x zoom):

Or concentrating on the race track it self:

The ultra-wide camera can take some simply breathtaking images even though we’ve seen some problems with the software processing across every one of the cameras, we will reserve our final judgement on the camera before final computer software update.

The camera brings the wonderful handheld long exposure mode from the P20 Pro but it’s now supported across all the cameras, included the 3X and 5X zoom modes offering a large amount of versatility. For the ultra-wide angle camera, it provides an excellent counter to the fact the lens does not let in as much light as the main sensor, so that it isn’t quite as capable in full-auto mode.

There are a few software quirks in the camera at this time, including the phone being slow to switch between your three lenses, and going for a noticeable timeframe for the camera to stabilize in the 3x and 5x zoom modes. However , we’re reserving final judgement before upcoming update which is likely to solve several issues and improve efficiency. In the meantime, here is some more pictures we’ve taken on the Mate 20 Pro:

A very promising start

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Initial Conclusion

It’s hard to pass full judgement on a phone when we’re looking forward to a computer software update which will fix a number of the quirks we’ve noticed, so we’re not necessarily digging in to the software at this time. However , I’ll say that EMUI 9 is vastly improved and, having just used a Pixel 3 for a couple of weeks, it offers an extremely familiar experience. It takes the very best of Android 9 Pie, and brings a few changes.

To enhance the full-display experience, Huawei has added a fresh gesture navigation that is slick and well-animated, but requires a little work. Rather than the three button nav at the bottom of the screen, the gesture nav enables you to swipe in from either side to return, swipe up from underneath to go back home and swipe up and hold from the bottom to gain access to recent apps. However , I am using the regular three button nav (with the addition of a button to easily drop the notification drawer) due to the fact the gesture nav isn’t quite as polished as I’d like. It breaks the picture-in-picture on YouTube and doesn’t enable you to swipe directly into access the hamburger menu in apps, and they are two features I use usually. The option will there be if you’d like to use it, but I’ll be sticking with the standard navigation for the near future.

Over all, our first couple of weeks with the Mate 20 Pro have been very promising, Huawei has taken probably one of the most exciting cameras on a smartphone, and improved it, while also offering a selection of features we weren’t expecting on a flagship until next year. We’ll await the final computer software to give you our final verdict but I’ll say this – the Mate 20 Pro is really a very promising phone, and potentially one of the better phones of 2018.

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