Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is Huawei’s late-2018 flagship, unveiled at a London event. It leads with the features Huawei wanted to be known for that season: an in-display fingerprint reader, reverse wireless charging, and the 7 nm Kirin 980 chip. This review covers the design and build, the display, the performance and software, the triple Leica camera, and the battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4KbVfLly0

Design & Build

The Mate 20 Pro uses a tempered-glass back that curves into the front on both long edges, and the curve helps the phone settle into the hand. It measures 157 mm long, 72 mm wide, and 8.6 mm thick, and it weighs about 189 g. Despite the large screen, it stays manageable in one hand, and Huawei quotes an 87 percent screen-to-body ratio.

The Mate 20 Pro comes in five color options, including a standard Black, a cream Pink Gold, the blue-fading-to-purple Twilight, and a Night Blue. Twilight is the most distinctive of the set, since it shifts color as light moves across it.

There is no physical fingerprint sensor on the body; the reader sits under the display instead. Vivo brought in-display fingerprint reading to market earlier, and here Huawei folds it into a flagship. The phone is rated IP68, so it withstands water.

The right edge carries the volume keys and a red-accented power button. The bottom holds the USB-C port and the card tray. The tray takes Huawei’s proprietary Nano Memory card rather than microSD, and because these cards are hard to find, the second slot serves in practice as a second SIM. Storage expansion is therefore limited until the cards become widely available. There is no 3.5 mm headphone jack; the box includes USB-C earphones and a USB-C-to-3.5 mm adapter. Stereo sound comes from two speakers, one in the earpiece and one beside the USB-C port.

Display

The Mate 20 Pro carries a 6.39-inch AMOLED screen at 1440×3120 resolution, with a pixel density of 538 ppi and HDR10 support. The AMOLED panel renders colors accurately, and the screen is among the brightest in its class. The bezels are thin enough to nearly disappear, and the front is tempered glass apart from the notch.

The aspect ratio is 19.5:9. Users can hide the notch in settings, which helps when watching video, and users can also switch the output between WQHD+, FHD+, and HD+ to trade sharpness for battery.

Performance & Software

The Mate 20 Pro runs on the Kirin 980, Huawei’s first 7 nm processor, which the company showed at IFA 2018 in Berlin. It is an eight-core design paired with a Mali-G76 GPU, and the review unit has 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Cores	Type	Clock
2	Cortex-A76	2.6 GHz
2	Cortex-A76 (mid)	1.92 GHz
4	Cortex-A55	1.8 GHz

Connectivity covers Cat21 LTE with download speeds up to 1.4 Gbps, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5. In benchmarks, the phone posts the following scores:

Benchmark	Score
AnTuTu	273,280
Geekbench (single-core)	3,296
Geekbench (multi-core)	9,837

The phone handles PUBG at its highest graphics setting without strain.

The software is Android 9.0 Pie under EMUI 9.0, which keeps a plain, uncluttered look consistent with earlier EMUI releases and offers wide customization. Users can navigate by gesture in place of the on-screen bar: swipe from the right edge to go back, swipe up from the bottom to reach the home screen, swipe up and hold for recent apps, and swipe from the side edges to call Google Assistant. A dark mode darkens the interface to save power, and the Always On display, Phone Clone transfers from Android or iOS, and a one-hand screen-size option are all available. Movement Control lets users take a screenshot with a knuckle tap and open a split screen, and Digital Balance reports usage statistics and offers a grayscale mode for sleep hours.

For unlocking, the in-display fingerprint reader responds the moment a finger touches the middle of the screen, though the first enrollment takes a little longer than a traditional sensor. Face unlock works through a 3D Depth Perception Camera set in the notch, and the same camera drives 3D AR emoji that users can send as GIFs.

Camera

The rear array is three Leica cameras arranged in a square, with a dual-tone LED flash filling the fourth corner. The main camera is 40 MP at f/1.8, the second is 20 MP at f/2.2, and the third is an 8 MP f/2.4 telephoto. On the front sits a 24 MP camera at f/2.0, which in our testing produced strong results.

On video, the Mate 20 Pro records up to 2160p at 30 fps and does not offer 4K at 60 fps. Slow-motion capture reaches 720p at 960 fps. Users who need 4K/60 will not find it here, but the range covers everyday recording and high-frame-rate slow motion.

Battery

A 4200 mAh battery powers the Mate 20 Pro, and it lasts through a full day. In an always-on-screen test it ran for 12 hours and 16 minutes. In a 90-minute Full HD video-capture test with Wi-Fi on and brightness at full, the battery dropped 9 percent. In ordinary daily use, which here meant messaging, checking email, social media, some video, and about an hour of gaming, the charge rarely fell below 50 percent, and lighter use can stretch it toward two days.

Charging is quick. The bundled 40 W SuperCharge adapter and cable bring the phone to 70 percent in 30 minutes. The Mate 20 Pro also supports 15 W wireless charging, though the wireless pad is a separate purchase, and it can act as a reverse wireless charger: placing another Qi-compatible phone on its back charges that phone from the Mate 20 Pro’s own battery.

Pros & Cons

• Bright 6.39-inch AMOLED with HDR10 and 538 ppi
• Kirin 980 delivers high benchmark and gaming performance
• Strong battery life with 40 W wired and 15 W wireless charging
• Reverse wireless charging for other devices
• Versatile triple Leica rear camera
• IP68 water resistance
• No 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Storage expands only via Huawei’s scarce Nano Memory card, shared with the second SIM
• Video tops out at 2160p/30 fps, without 4K/60

Technical Details

Display	6.39-inch AMOLED, 1440×3120, 538 ppi, HDR10, 19.5:9
Processor	Kirin 980 (7 nm), eight cores
GPU	Mali-G76
RAM	6 GB
Storage	128 GB (reviewed), Nano Memory expandable
Rear cameras	40 MP f/1.8 + 20 MP f/2.2 + 8 MP f/2.4 telephoto (Leica)
Front camera	24 MP f/2.0
Video	2160p at 30 fps; slow motion 720p at 960 fps
Battery	4200 mAh; 40 W wired, 15 W wireless, reverse wireless
Operating system	Android 9.0 Pie, EMUI 9.0
Water resistance	IP68
Connectivity	Cat21 LTE (up to 1.4 Gbps), Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5

Who Is Huawei Mate 20 Pro For?

The Mate 20 Pro suits users who want a large-screen Android flagship with a bright AMOLED display, strong benchmark and gaming performance, and long battery life backed by fast 40 W wired and 15 W wireless charging. The in-display fingerprint reader, face unlock, reverse wireless charging, and the triple Leica camera give it a broad feature set for photography and daily use. Users who depend on a 3.5 mm headphone jack, or who want to expand storage with a common microSD card, will need to weigh the USB-C-only audio and the proprietary Nano Memory slot; for those who do not, the Mate 20 Pro covers the essentials of a 2018 flagship well.