Huawei Mate 20 Pro: Strong battery, weak screen
16.11.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is strong, very strong. System performance, battery life and the look are impressive. But please be careful with the phone, because the screen has its flaws.
I'm known to be a fan of black phones. Amoled at the front, black at the back. Sure, I use other colours from time to time for professional reasons - a gold iPhone Xs, for example - but if I have a free choice, my phone is black.
Except for Huawei. Because with the revised Twilight, the Chinese manufacturer has hit the bull's eye. So far, I haven't really liked the colour on the P20 Pro, which is actually a colour gradient from dark purple to blue. It was striking, yes, I admit, but it didn't really knock my socks off. I missed the contrast. But then I knew as soon as I saw the devices in London: I want the new Twilight. Blue to violet to black. Even after a good month of testing, I still find myself playing with the colour gradient and showing it to people. In short: I'm a fan of the new Twilight.
About the device from London: I must point out that my test device is a pre-production model. I know for sure that my software is not completely up to date, because some apps such as the 3D scanner are missing. I will have a look at that, but I wasn't able to for obvious reasons.
I'm not only a fan of the new Twilight, but also - this year at least - of Huawei. Because no other manufacturer has put in as much effort this year as the Chinese. And it has paid off. With two flagships, both of which are in the running for Phone of the Year, Huawei has proven that it has what it takes, shown its teeth and demonstrated its hunger. This will be good if it continues.
A warning at the beginning
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro, just like the other models in the Mate 20 series, will be delivered with a protective film over the screen at the London launch event, according to Huawei Switzerland. User Sys-lab asks in the Community whether there is actually protection and a case in the packaging. User Mirkolino90 thinks he knows why there isn't one
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EU countries, including Switzerland, do not receive a film or case.
My pre-production model didn't come with a film. I removed it from my P20 Pro out of curiosity. Don't do that. Really don't. After two days, my Mate 20 already had scratches. Now there are more, some of them big ones. That didn't even happen to me with the P20 Pro. So I'm not entirely sure whether this has anything to do with the pre-production model or not. But I seem to remember that the hardware is final.
The screen is on the same level as that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, impressing with rich, strong colours. Videos just look good and since I've been employing the Mate 20 Pro, I've been watching a lot more videos. Instead of my morning podcasts, sceptic Myles Power comes on the screen. Instead of listening to music, I watch Unbox Therapy on the tram.
The back, on the other hand, is a fingerprint magnet, but it can take a beating. Even after a good month, there are no scratches or other signs of wear. I wonder why the front can't do the same. Logically, the material is completely different and only feels similar, but I think it should be feasible.
If there really isn't a protective film on your mobile, then I strongly recommend that you buy one. Sure, it costs extra, but you'll really enjoy your phone more if there are no scratches on the display. As I rarely or never apply protective films to my test devices, I simply recommend the brand that always makes a good impression at trade fairs such as MWC or IFA and that I used on my ancient Galaxy S5 back in the day.
Lots of battery, unobtrusive grip
Now for the good stuff: The Huawei Mate 20 Pro isn't just fast, it's wicked fast. It rarely gets hot and never chugs along. Huawei has built a device that essentially always works at full speed. The Mate 20 Pro consumes comparatively little battery and the 4200 mAh battery lasts for around 36 hours even with heavy use. Respect. The Kirin 980 system-on-a-chip (SoC) doesn't make everything radically faster, better and greater if you compare it directly with the 970 from last year, but power management is one of the features that has been massively improved.
In addition, the supplied charger with 40W output charges the entire battery within a maximum of one hour. That's how it should be. In general, it's these rather inconspicuous things that make the Mate 20 Pro fun. The fancy features may be fancy, but things like the battery warm my heart. A phone that can easily keep up and is quickly recharged is simply more fun. Other manufacturers can take a leaf out of their book. Because it's true: no matter which phone you have, be it Android or iOS, the device is useless if it runs out of juice.
The 980 SoC does its job very well. But it's always a case of artificial intelligence being built in locally with a dual neural processing unit (NPU) and not computing somewhere on the internet. If the two NPUs work well, you won't notice them. Because the processors do the thinking for you. A small, admittedly niche example that I noticed: I often browse the phone's settings. I never actually go to "Settings → Display → Text Style" or anything like that. I open the settings and use the search field at the top. The phone then searches for the setting for me while I'm typing. So when I type "Tex", all the settings with this string come up. This index of all settings is not persistently stored anywhere on other phones and the Mate 20 Pro was also rather slow to search in the beginning. In the meantime, however, the index, which has changed exactly twice - Developer Options and Text Style - seems to be cached somewhere and can therefore be retrieved quickly. It's the little things.
Speaking of inconspicuous. This also applies to the camera. It's good, very good in fact. But I remember it well from the P20 Pro. Sure, it has a wide-angle lens, but I've only really needed it once. Maybe I just don't have a use case for a wide-angle lens or I haven't been anywhere where the view is spectacular, but I wouldn't buy the phone for the camera alone. Or maybe I would: the camera is just like the P20 Pro, apart from the wide-angle lens. The pictures are and remain really good. But don't expect sensational new features.
Small hacks for Huawei and sometimes for other phones
A lot goes wrong with Huawei on the screen. Especially askew. I've been complaining about Huawei's and Honor's user interface for two years now. Because I don't like Emui at all. It doesn't have a consistent design language, looks old-fashioned at best and simply doesn't do justice to the phone's system performance.
That's why I've found all sorts of tricks over the past few years to get round Emui as far as possible. These include replacing the launcher with Nova Launcher, a new font for your mobile and how to get prettier icons on your phone.
These little hacks are also easy for beginners to master and I highly recommend them. It's a little more complex, but still quite okay, if you want to reclaim the space in the status bar lost due to the wide notch of the Mate 20 Pro.
For insurance reasons, I have to add here that I or my employer do not accept any liability for damage to your device, even if the probability of you breaking something is extremely small. I'm also not sure if the two projects you're working on with the Android Developer Bridge (adb) will do anything to your warranty. But the chance of something going wrong is very small.
The phone of the year?
In the video from London, I raised the question of whether the Mate 20 Pro will be the phone of the year. Certainly in terms of colour, but that's not the point. However, I don't want to answer the question conclusively today, because I have decided to go through all my test devices and highlights from trade fairs and the like again at the end of the year and then create a ranking list.
I wasn't as emotionally overwhelmed by the Mate 20 Pro as I was by the P20 Pro. Not that the P20 Pro is necessarily the better phone, but the P20 Pro in the spring simply set a new standard and overwhelmed me. The Mate 20 Pro is a solid upgrade of the P20 Pro, with improved battery performance and a better SoC, but I didn't get the wow effect. Nevertheless, in the battle for the title of Phone of the Year, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is a strong contender.
So, that's it. I'll see if I can get the scratches out of my display. Then put some armoured glass over it. Any tips on where I can have the scratches removed would be appreciated. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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