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.

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  • S
  • Suar99
  • 6c2
  • 09 Nov 2018

how does all reviewer say this is the fastest android chip.

benchmark says. antutu lost. gpu lost. what next

    • S
    • S Yu
    • ntJ
    • 08 Nov 2018

    Mac321, 06 Nov 2018Hi guys might be in the wrong place to post this tho any up... moreSamsung and Apple have the best set of accessibility features AFAIK.

      • b
      • bdfbsdvsvsd
      • 6u7
      • 07 Nov 2018

      Mac321, 06 Nov 2018Hi guys might be in the wrong place to post this tho any up... moreGo to settings>display>viewmode and increase the size. Also go to settings>display>textsize and increase the text size.

        Hi guys might be in the wrong place to post this tho any up to date phones allow you to zoom in on screen and keyboard ? As i struggle to read the keyboard due to poor vision many thanks guys👍

          • S
          • S Yu
          • r2S
          • 05 Nov 2018

          Shui8, 05 Nov 2018My comments on every each camera quality was not just depen... moreI haven't had the time to read so many reviews but so far your conclusions cannot be extrapolated from GSMA's and PA's reviews(I examined PA's individual stills samples, as for the "video" you mentioned I didn't see any).
          I don't pay much attention to most youtubers because of their (particularly) patchy methodology and that the nature of videos is that one is unable to extract original OOC samples from them, but I'll be keeping an eye out for more credible reviews, especially Anandtech's when Andrei completes his review.

            • L
            • Lin
            • KhB
            • 05 Nov 2018

            Is there any thing wrong with the battery life? It rates 85hrs but all three factors( talking time, video, and web browsing) are longer than p20 pro. Why p20 pro rates 87hrs, however, mate 20 pro rates 85hrs?

              • S
              • Shui8
              • KZ8
              • 05 Nov 2018

              lyndino, 05 Nov 2018I'm just pointing out what's fair. And as for the Note 9... moreOnce u experience Huawei flagship phones, the 'lies' & 'deceit' turns out to be true in real life performance. Apart from that DSLR used of course. Every ad on smartphones camera are using DSLR, they just want to illustrate the function. Huawei got caught & others dont. But u can just knows it if they use DSLR or not (a lot of smartphone brand use DSLR in ad). Its just how bussiness works, in every smartphone company.

                • l
                • lyndino
                • xGa
                • 05 Nov 2018

                Shui8, 02 Nov 2018Your funny. Like obviously so much hate lol.I'm just pointing out what's fair.

                And as for the Note 9, I'm unaware of the fragile S Pen. I'll check it out though because I love me my Samsung.
                iPhones are overpriced garbage units in my eyes.

                And it's not just the Mate 20 line that I don't like, I don't like Huawei due to the lies and deceit.

                  • S
                  • Shui8
                  • KZ8
                  • 05 Nov 2018

                  S Yu, 02 Nov 2018"tends to overblown the highlights" I don't know what you'... moreMy comments on every each camera quality was not just depends on that video on PA. Its from many reviews out there. This are one of the video justifies my comments about each phone.
                  - https://youtu.be/c6RBNyzE1TY

                    • D
                    • Dave Granger
                    • 8vJ
                    • 04 Nov 2018

                    Was the battery life test conducted with the screen set at 1080p or 1440p? I'd be interested in seeing the different scores for these two options.

                      • S
                      • Shui8
                      • KZ8
                      • 02 Nov 2018

                      lyndino, 02 Nov 2018Are they going to rightfully lower the score due to the scr... moreYour funny. Like obviously so much hate lol.

                        lyndino, 02 Nov 2018Are they going to rightfully lower the score due to the scr... moreIf they do, then they better massively reduce the scores of iPhone XS & XS Max for their multi-gate issues & Note 9 for it's fragile S-Pen & Side-Buttons.

                        You see, every phone can be targeted for individual issues if desired, but that doesn't make it any less attractive to non-haters.

                          • l
                          • lyndino
                          • QHA
                          • 02 Nov 2018

                          Whackcar, 02 Nov 2018I just noticed GSMArena raised it's rating from 4.5/5 to 4.... moreAre they going to rightfully lower the score due to the screen issue? Because, it's just fair that way.

                            I just noticed GSMArena raised it's rating from 4.5/5 to 4.6/5. Hehe

                            Good work! It is a fairer score for the phone. It's a fully satisfying phone and it rightfully deserves to be praised!

                              Checked out the phones in Photo Comparison Tool Chart
                              Mate 20 Pro is fantastic, Pixel 3 is amazing, but XZ3 is still next level

                              https://www.gsmarena.com/piccmp.php3?idType=5&idPhone1=9343&idPhone2=9232&idPhone3=9256

                                • S
                                • S Yu
                                • tLG
                                • 02 Nov 2018

                                Shui8, 01 Nov 2018You just pick the weakness only from the Mate 20 pro camera... more"tends to overblown the highlights"
                                I don't know what you're talking about. In sample 2 the XS retained much better highlights of the sign which was pretty significant. Only in the XS shot could you tell that a few round light bulbs lit up the sign while Mate20P's sign was clearly overexposed and the area illuminated by the bulbs were all merged together concealing the shape of the bulbs. In sample 5, as I already mentioned in my last post, the XS retained more highlights whereas the Mate20P retained the least, pay attention to the strongly lit windows of the office building in the background. I think its just that the perceived DR of the Mate20P is sometimes higher because the PP algorithm suppresses highlight edges indirectly through the clarity boost, while the XS actually captured more DR.
                                "its actually smoothen the pics & create like an oil painting"
                                Again no idea what you're talking about, there's a difference between less artificial sharpening and more artificial NR. The issue with XS is that it tends to retain slightly more noise than is generally acceptable, not that it reduces noise at the cost of smearing, then cook in excess sharpening, that's Huawei.
                                "Note 9 now looks the most oversaturate photos"
                                P20P's oversaturation criticism was based on its rendition of natural subjects, here with all artifical constructs at night it's hard to tell whether saturation is too much or too little, I don't think anybody but you would bring this up as an issue, and personally I don't see any one of the three oversaturated or undersaturated, they all seem within acceptable parameters.
                                Also I don't believe Note9 really improved from S9, it's definitely at a disadvantage here from the dated setup.
                                "U supposely calibrate color temperature on screen/monitor, not on the picture results itself"
                                Fundamentally wrong. All displays should be calibrated to D65 unless for special purposes, and AWB is technically calibrated with a grey card with 18% reflectance across the visible spectrum as any medium displaying the resulting photo is assumed to be calibrated.
                                "Its a software tweaks that process the pics a bit longer than usual (maybe only for 1.5 seconds) is part of its Auto mod in certain situation."
                                That makes no sense, there's no need to hold still if the sensor isn't in the middle of an exposure. I don't know what exactly is going on but it's certainly not pure processing.

                                  • S
                                  • S Yu
                                  • tLG
                                  • 02 Nov 2018

                                  Nick Tagataka, 01 Nov 2018Uh, that's not really a night mode. PA specifically writes ... more"when auto HDR kicks in it takes more than a second to show the image on the gallery preview on the bottom right corner"
                                  From my experience Samsung's HDR algorithm is pretty crappy and usually doesn't engage automatically in low light, in fact I forced HDR once in low light and nothing improved but there was much more smearing so I gave it up. Forcing a high setting in GCam usually gives better results, but seems that doesn't apply to every camera APP.
                                  That said from current information none of us know how long PA's Huawei shots took as they didn't specify. It's just that in their last night shot comparison with the P20P PA did mention that they used night mode so I thought they used the same testing method here. Also the smearing pattern should be somewhat different between P20P and the new model so I didn't rule night mode out based on the amount of smearing.

                                    • S
                                    • S Yu
                                    • tLG
                                    • 02 Nov 2018

                                    Nicolas F, 01 Nov 2018Hmm, really? Well, I'll lurk about that, thanks.Another issue is that the Pentile layout of this panel is different from Samsung's, it seems to have much fewer red and blue subpixels at a similar PPI, they use long rectangular R/B subpixels about twice the size of a typical subpixel(also taking up twice the space their own green subpixel) in a diagonal layout, so subpixel rendering may result in unacceptable jaggedness anyway.
                                    This is a microscopic shot of the layout:
                                    https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/Huawei/Mate_20_Pro/subpixel_Mate20Pro_1440p.jpg

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • pQr
                                      • 02 Nov 2018

                                      Thank you gsmarena for the 54mm comparison!

                                        Nick Tagataka, 01 Nov 2018A few corrections: 1. DAC means Digital to Analog Converte... morewas quite close. ^^;

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