Review: Huawei Mate 20 Pro

If you are looking for one of the very best smartphones out there on the market right now, look no further. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro wins on all aspects. Be it the design, the build quality, the in-screen fingerprint sensor, the triple cameras, the huge battery, security features, performance… and the list goes on.
The Mate 20 Pro comes with a 6.39-inch curved OLED display with 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The Mate 20 Pro also brings a new feature to Android devices — a 3D face detection system, which is similar to the Face ID on the iPhone. The display on the Mate 20 Pro is one of the best on the market in terms of daylight visibility, and production of colours that are not overly saturated.
The display also comes with a mode called Eye Comfort, which adjusts the white balance to match the surrounding light temperature in a bid to make whites look natural regardless of the time of day, and it works pretty well. You also get an in-screen fingerprint sensor. It is a bit slower than conventional fingerprint sensors, but does the job quite well.
The Mate 20 Pro also comes with face unlock feature that is simply awesome. Huawei’s face unlock is significantly faster than any competing brands on the market right now. The face unlock module also comes with its very own infrared projector, thus making it work really well even in dark conditions.
On the back of the device, you get a triple camera module. The rear body of the phone also features a twilight gradient with a gradient shift from blue to black. The Mate 20 Pro does not come with a headphone jack. However, it does come with an IP68 rating for water-resistance.
The Mate 20 Pro also supports reverse charging, which means you can charge other mobile devices by using the Mate 20 Pro as the primary power source. It also has the ability to charge other Qi-enabled phones by pressing them to the back of the Mate 20 Pro. These are some cool features that make the Mate 20 Pro really special.
Under the hood, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs the Kirin 980 chipset, which offers a dual NPU (neural processing unit). It is a chip designed specifically for AI workloads. The chipset has been built using the 7nm architecture, which improves efficiency and offers better processing and graphics abilities without battery drain. You also get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space, which can be expanded further by using the new Nano Memory card technology, which Huawei hopes will become an industry standard very soon.
Let’s talk about the biggest feature of the Mate 20 Pro – its triple camera setup. At the rear of the device, you get a triple camera setup that packs in a 40-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel telephoto camera for zooming and a new 20-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera. According to Huawei, since the quality of the 40-megapixel sensor was already top notch, there was no need for a monochrome camera. So, we get an ultra-wide one replacing it.
The camera app offers the P20 Pro’s already incredible Night Mode and you also get a bunch of other options including the new Macro Mode for close-up shots. The camera takes outstanding images – whether it is under good lighting conditions or low light conditions. Video quality is amazing and the other photography modes such as the Night Mode, Macro Mode, Aperture Mode, and so on, churn out outstanding picture quality.
The Mate 20 Pro also accompanies the biggest battery among flagships available right now on the market. It packs in a whopping 4200mAh battery that offers almost two day’s worth of battery life on a single charge. The Mate 20 Pro also supports wireless charging. The phone is powered by the Android 9 Pie operating system with Huawei’s very own EMUI 9 running on top of it.
From the excellent design, the outstanding cameras, and performance, to the incredible battery life, there’s a lot to love about the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. The improvements and special features that have been stuffed into this phone, makes it possibly the best Android phone out there on the market.
Price: AED 3299