Huawei Mate 10 was one of the best phones last year. Now, the same (and even better) is expected from its successor, which is being referred to as the Mate 20. Huawei Mate 20 is expected to come in two versions – Pro and a Lite.
Release date and pricing
Both the versions of the Huawei Mate 20 are expected to come up very soon. According to DigiTimes, the Mate 20 flagship series will hit the stores sometime in October as it will feature the latest HiSilicon’s Kirin 980 chipsets. The Chinese company also gave a hint earlier last month, when it teased Samsung about its Galaxy Note 9, hinting that it would soon launch a new phone.
Putting rest to the speculations, Huawei confirmed during the recent IFA that the Mate 20 would be announced on October 16 in London. The Chinese company also confirmed that it would be powered by the Kirin 980, the first mobile chip to use 7nm architecture. The cheaper Lite version would run on a low-end processor.
Huawei launched the Mate 10 Pro in the US in early 2018 after launching it in other regions in 2017. So, we can expect the Mate 20 to also come to the US sometime next year.
Talking of the price, there is not much to say, but a report from Gizmochina, noted that the Mate 20 Pro would come with a price tag of 5,000 yuan (about $732). There is no information on the pricing of the smaller Mate 20. In the US, the Mate 10 Pro was priced at $799 upon its release.
Huawei Mate 20 – what to expect?
All the previous Mate series phones featured big displays, and the same is expected from the Mate 20 Pro. According to a report from a Korean publication – the Bell, Huawei has reportedly ordered 6.9-inch OLED screens with Samsung, and these screens are meant for the smartphones, not for a tablet. Along with a big screen, the handset would reportedly come with an in-display fingerprint sensor, something that was seen with the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS.
In terms of power, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro will be better than most. The handset would run on Kirin 980 processors, feature 8GB of RAM, and come with a 4,200 mAh battery. The Huawei Mate 20 Lite would feature a 6.3-inch screen, and feature a lower-end Kirin 710. Further, the Lite variant is expected to come with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.
Coming to camera specs, the smartphone would feature a rear triple-camera module with the primary sensor of 48 megapixels. Further, the camera setup would include dual neural processing units to allow for real-time image processing and scene recognition
Talking of the design, the majority of the leaks and rumors for the Mate 20 comes from XDA Developers, which claims to have viewed the image of the handset. Though the website has not shared the images of the smartphone, it has created renders based on it. Those renders suggest that Huawei’s upcoming handset shares a few styles to the Essential Phone, like the teardrop-shaped notch housing just the camera. The earpiece is fitted into the very thin grille above the lens. At the bottom, there is a slight chin, i.e., it is thicker than the other three sides.
Coming to the back, it would sport the triple-camera system with the flash. According to XDA, the fingerprint sensor would sit below those lenses, while the bottom edge would house a 3.5-mm headphone jack.
Kirin 980 vs. Apple’s A12
Huawei Mate 20 Pro will be powered by the Kirin 980 chipset, which the Chinese company claims will be based on the 7-nanometer processor, suggesting an improvement over the 10-nanometer chipsets, like the Snapdragon 845. Similar to the Kirin 970 last year, the 980 also doubles on the neural processor. This along with a new image signal processor would mean that users will get good images even in low light.
It will be interesting to see how the Kirin 980 chipset would perform against Apple’s processor. If you remember, Huawei’s Kirin 960 surpassed Apple’s A9 processor (used in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus) in terms of the performance. However, Apple’s A11 Bionic overtook both the Snapdragon 845 and Kirin 970. So, it will be worth watching the two chipsets compete against each other. Huawei, on its part claims, that the Kirin 980 would give better graphics than the 845, and will be faster at recognizing images than Apple’s A11 Bionic.
