Huawei Mate 20 Pro review

27 October 2018
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.

Sort by:

Born slow...drain fast hahahaha

    TheGoldenMellifluous, 28 Oct 2018Well , 85 hours ER (ofc with UD-display on) with 4200 mAh ?... moreYeah it went well with the standalone battery life tests, the only thing that let it down is the 180 hours standby time vs 200+ hours of other flagships. Does anyone really need that much standby battery life though? I can't even think of a time I've been longer than a couple days without being able to charge my phone. I think people are making this out to be a lot bigger deal than it really is.

      r33fd, 28 Oct 2018Are you for real dude ? Learn how to read an article bef... moreYeah Kirin 980 GPU performance is a bit disappointing but CPU is great. As I don't do much gaming on my phone, that's fine with me..

        TheGoldenMellifluous, 28 Oct 2018Well , 85 hours ER (ofc with UD-display on) with 4200 mAh ?... moreIf you compare calls/browsing/video playback times, its also wonder. But it got way better times in those.

          TheGoldenMellifluous, 28 Oct 2018Well , 85 hours ER (ofc with UD-display on) with 4200 mAh ?... morebattery last all day anyway and after 15 min. of charge you have another day covered...rinse and repeat...
          also XZ3 doesn't have half of tech that Mate 20 pro have so standby performance is better because of that.

            • a
            • anon555
            • x@H
            • 28 Oct 2018

            SHAME you didn't benchmark test the phone with the performance mode turned on. Really shame. This beast can get north of 300,000 on antutu and 10,000 on Geekbench. Check other, more aware reviewers

              Anonymous, 28 Oct 2018So, sometimes the shots are not on pair with p20 Pro, I... moreActually its pretty shocking whats going on, supposed DxO score is about 116-119 or anywhere out of touch of competition(feels so similar to 1020's Nothing comes close and more than you can see...), no matter if its about details/colors/hdr or some bokeh and other special modes mate20pro come with, its pretty understandable with how much work they put into it over competition - be it camera sensor size/technology, NPU or camera settings. And they deliver that also with what users want - all possible fov with lenses, low and high resolution at once, mics recording deep sounds, almost unlimited shutter speed with raw and new modes similar to what was done by others years before(like spherical, sound&shot, virtual tour, AR camera...).
              The only thing I miss from them is colors like that of triple layer sony sensor, what can be seen the most when comparing colors in extreme low light, but it may not be long until they acquire something similar.

                • a
                • anon555
                • x@H
                • 28 Oct 2018

                SHAME you didn't benchmark test the phone with the performance mode turned on. Really shame. This beast can get north of 300,000 on antutu and 10,000 on Geekbench. Check other, more aware reviewers

                  • r
                  • r33fd
                  • ajQ
                  • 28 Oct 2018

                  ZloiYuri, 28 Oct 2018Bigger screen resolution eill affect frame rate, my uneduca... moreAre you for real dude ?

                  Learn how to read an article before calling other people names !

                  Simply compare it with S9 snapdragon or look at the off screen tests. Does not matter the resolution. The gpu is simply slower, admittedly not by much, but still, not a great show for an SoC that's suppose to compete with next year chips.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • sxr
                    • 28 Oct 2018

                    "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."

                    I beg to disagree. I don't know how the Mate 20 Pro could even BEGIN to replace an interchangeable lens camera (dSLR or mirrorless) in low light; more so when the interchangeable lens camera is complemented with a bag of lenses.

                    The photos from the Mate 20 Pro look very good compared to other smartphone cameras, and would be perfect for mobile phone/phablet screens and nothing else. But in a 24" or larger 4K monitor? HORRIBLE! Please, gsmarena, don't tell me it looks acceptable or anywhere near good in low light compared to a real interchangeable lens camera when viewed in larger 4K monitors because, ALL YOUR SAMPLES in this review look like GARBAGE. Overprocessed, oversmooth watercolor paintings devoid of fine detail in my 28" 4K monitor. I can't imagine such a misleading statement to justify the Mate 20 Pro's exorbitant price. Yes, the Mate 20 PRO may cost more than a dSLR body but seriously, the quality is NOWHERE near a dSLR. Please, don't mislead your readers even if the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is a generous sponsor/advertiser on your site. And if you really believe it can replace a dSLR/interchangeable lens camera with a bag of lenses, please show us a comparison in low light one from Mate 20 PRO and another from say a Canon entry level dSLR with a Canon 24mm F/1.4 used at F/1.4 aperture. Please show us, please before claiming it can replace an interchangeable lens camera with a bag of lenses.

                      best android phone in 2018...

                        • C
                        • C
                        • 6tA
                        • 28 Oct 2018

                        A pity that dual-band GPS does not get credited in the verdict.
                        None of the competitors offer that (except Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro).

                          Where can I get the wallpaper from the introduction?

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • LQX
                            • 28 Oct 2018

                            TheGoldenMellifluous, 28 Oct 2018Well , 85 hours ER (ofc with UD-display on) with 4200 mAh ?... moreThat is why Huawei is the only Chinese brand that has been using QHD. They can't manage battery well.
                            Vivo was the first QHD, before LG G3 and now only uses Full HD.

                              • P
                              • Peewee
                              • LQX
                              • 28 Oct 2018

                              Nick Tagataka, 28 Oct 2018First of all let's be real here, no reviewers are saying No... moreWell, because on YouTube you see the most stupid battery tests possible.

                              It is dumb to left the phones recording 1080p videos for 1h, 2h of YouTube and 3h of any game. Who does that in real world?
                              People take casual photos, use social networks, send/receive messages, write and read email, read news, make calls, listen to music.

                              Why do I say those tests are dumb?

                              - Phones have different screen resolution, when you use YouTube you can easily notice that QHD and 4K will use much more battery than Full HD.

                              - Many youtubers set 30 or 50% brightness, but forget the fact the 30% of A might be 200 nits while 30% of B might be 250.

                              - Some phones by default even when being 18:9 they make games go full screen, some phones do not.

                              - Phones record videos with different bitrate values, higher bitrate requires more processing power. For example most flagships record 4K30 between 42 - 47 Mbps. HTC and Sony use more than 52Mbps while Huawei P20 Pro has 24Mbps. Higher bitrate will spend more energy.

                              - Some phones while running apps like benchmark or game can keep up the maximum FPS with just little oscillation in frame rates, other phones cannot. This is going to affect quality of graphic and have less impact on battery endurance.

                              - Phones without waterproofing lose heat easier. Phones with glass back lose heat slower than metal or plastic.


                              Two options : they don't know all this or just don't want let you know all this.

                                Well , 85 hours ER (ofc with UD-display on) with 4200 mAh ? That's quite below average for that gargantuar capacity battery of Mate 20 Pro if i had tell the truth . I wonder , how on earth it get lost compared to XZ3 with 3330 mAh (90hr ER) , despite both using QHD+ (though different aspect ratio) similar screen area based on 16:9 projection , and similar pixel per inch density .... Sure , the web browsing time , 3G talk time and video playback is considerable , but how it only get 85hr ? Still , Mate 20 Pro is a great phone from Huawei .

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • fI}
                                  • 28 Oct 2018

                                  Anonymous, 28 Oct 2018"But the notch is not the only thing that's iPhone-reminisc... moreCopy from Xiaomi. Period.

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • LQX
                                    • 28 Oct 2018

                                    Josh, 28 Oct 2018Because they are always obsessed with Artificial numbers! E... moreDo not trust youtubers...

                                    Of course they will praise. They want to get units as soon as possible to publish their videos.
                                    There are YouTubers that get many stuff for free. Not only the phones but speakers, headphones, laptops...
                                    Most people use Samsung, Apple, Huawei and Xioami.. If they point the bad things about these products they will lose viewers.

                                    We all know iPhones have poor battery life. Some videos out there are edited to make people think they can go full day easily.

                                      First of all let's be real here, no reviewers are saying Note 9's battery life is as good as P20 Pro nor Mate 10 Pro, either of which have lower battery rating than Note 9 on this website. There are also many tests showing iPhone XS Max lasts longer than most other flagship phones out there despite what GSMArena says.
                                      So all the haters who are sh*tting on this phone just because it got relatively low mark in their battery benchmark can shut up until real life battery tests will come out. And don't forget the fact that Note 9 ships with FHD+ resolution settings instead of QHD+ to greatly extend the battery life, whereas on smartphones from other manufacturers it's set to full resolution.

                                      However, to be completely honest, I'm quite disappointed with Mate 20 Pro. I was one of those who were hyped up with this phone but then got let down in so many ways. But why? Well, here are a few of them:

                                      -No headphone jack
                                      -A speaker which gets muffled when connecting USB cable, which is purely idiotic
                                      -Only marginal overall camera performance improvement from P20 Pro, sometimes even worse depending on the scene
                                      -Color inaccurate display
                                      -No monochrome sensor(the feature I honestly love the most on my Mate 10 Pro - now they took it away and replaced with a rather mundane wide angle lens)
                                      -They were bothered to put NM card slot but not MicroSD card slot, wtf

                                      And the list goes on. I've been using Huawei phones for a while but that's because they've been making competitive products that I have reasons to buy over flagships from other manufacturers, but sadly it no longer seems to be the case here. To me there's no point of getting this phone over Galaxy Note 9 apart from faster performance and better, but not astonishingly better battery life. Note 9 just covers basics more throughly and I really like how Samsung doesn't skimp on tiny details.
                                      Heck, I could even go for iPhone XS if I wanted consistently great camera performance, and that one would also give me class leading SoC performance and battery life with promised 5 years of software support. So again, why would I want to buy Mate 20 Pro over these two? I mean it's not like Mate 20 Pro is priced cheaper than Note 9 or iPhone XS, why pay the same amount of money to get less? I'll just skip this one and wait for P30 Pro to come out next year, and if it doesn't bring any sort of revolutionary improvement to the camera department, I'll just ditch Huawei and go for Galaxy S10.

                                        • L
                                        • Love the Community
                                        • Fv4
                                        • 28 Oct 2018

                                        85 hours average? That's a pretty good score. I'm sure software updates will make GSMArena retake it.