By Jonnah Lynne Pante
Just when we thought that the Huawei P20 Pro is the best smartphone Huawei could offer, the technology giant once again takes the ball to its home court as it welcomed yet another powerful devices in the form of the Huawei Mate 20 Series. With all the hype and the news that came before and after the series was unveiled, we bet you’ve already heard how these smartphones are compelling both on the inside and the outside.
While the grand launch of the said series in London brought most attention to two handsets off the series, the flagship Mate 20 Pro and the Mate 20 X, the Mate 20 flaunts itself as an equally capable smartphone with its fair share of premium features.
You can easily distinguish the Mate 20 from its siblings in the Mate 20 series with its notch as this device comes with a Dewdrop design. Its screen comes with an 88% screen-to-body ratio making its 6.53-inch FHD+ (1080 x 2244) display look even larger that it really is. As expected from Huawei’s flagship series, the display of the Mate 20 is superb with all its vivid colors and sharp details. This further complements the device’s camera and gaming capabilities.
Similar to previous Huawei devices off the company’s flagship lines, the main highlight of the Huawei Mate 20 series is its triple rear camera powered by Leica. While the company has released a number of models with their cameras placed vertically, the Huawei Mate 20 Series’ cameras are planted in square. The Mate 20 comes with a 12-megapixel wide angle lens in f/1.8 aperture, a 16-megapixel ultra wide angle lens in f/2.2 aperture, and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens in f/2.4 aperture. On the flip side, the Mate 20 has a 24-megapixel selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture. Camera modes are the usual that we can find in the Mate 10 series, except that the Mate 20’s cameras are made even better with the inclusion of enhanced AI capabilities.
We can’t emphasize enough how amazing the cameras of the Mate 20 are. From well-lit environments to dim settings, the Mate 20 is capable of delivering professional-like shots with the ample amount of color accuracy, saturation, and sharpness. Huawei has also planted improved video features, making the device an ample tool not just in photography but also in videography. The Mate 20 comes with video preset which allows users to put filters on videos to create a distinct mood.
AI Scene Recognition is still present, among other essential camera features like AI Image Stabilization, 3D Panorama, and AR lens.
Mirroring its high-end physique to its internals, the Huawei Mate 20 stays true to its series tagline, “A Higher Intelligence.” The device carries the Huawei Kirin 980, the world’s first 7nm mobile AI chipset -- one of the main reasons behind the Mate 20’s premium features. This is further amplified with either a choice of 4GB or 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The Huawei Mate 20 is also one of the devices to come with Android 9.0 out of the box on top of Huawei’s own EMUI 9.0.
Other than its cameras, the Mate 20’s interesting has something to do with productivity. The Mate 20 comes with HiVision capability, a feature which through a simple scan of an object or a landmark gives users information about it. Say, if you scan a food, the Huawei Mate 20 will give you details like how much calories it has.
In addition to all of these, the Huawei Mate 20 can last more than a day of moderate to heavy usage with its 4,000mAh battery which is made further efficient through AI. It comes with Huawei Supercharge which equated our 30-minute charge to more than half of battery life.
With everything that the Mate 20 offers, we think it’s safe to say that it has everything that’s important for a smartphone -- excellent cameras, superb display, efficient and intelligent internals, generous stamina -- and it’s not even the flagship smartphone off the Mate 20 Series. The Mate 20 is undoubtedly an epitome of how technology can be beautiful and intelligent at the same time.
The Mate 20 is priced at P40,990.