Huawei Mate 20

While the mid-range Huawei Mate 20 Lite released in May carries the same name, the Huawei Mate 20 is the true flagship phone with some of the best specs on the market. 

But that doesn't mean it's the most powerful smartphone in the company's lineup: the Huawei Mate 20 Pro launches alongside this standard version, packing the same specs with additional notable features. 

The Huawei Mate 20 still has perks to brag about, with a crisp 6.53-inch display as well as the powerful Kirin 980 processor, which is the first 7nm chip in an Android. And, of course, three rear-facing cameras - a standard, telephoto and ultra-wide angle - all with Leica optics. 

But the standard version does miss out on some of the most exciting features coming to the Pro, including an in-screen fingerprint scanner and the ability to wirelessly charge other devices. Just like last year's Mate 10, the new Mate 20 runs the risk of falling in the shadow of its flashier Pro sibling.

Overlooking this phone would be a shame: the Huawei Mate 20 brings more to the table than the Mate 20 Lite and other flagship phones. 

At first glance, the Mate 20 Pro has a lot of features that will start showing up in next year's smartphones, but the Huawei Mate 20 has enough power and quality cameras to satisfy consumers today. 

Huawei Mate 20 release date and price

We're still waiting to learn the official Huawei Mate 20 release date, but we'll update this hands on review as soon as we know.

The Huawei Mate 20 should come in a bit cheaper than its more powerful sibling. Last year's Mate 10 cost around $700 at launch, so we're expecting around the same - if not a little higher - for Huawei's new standard flagship. 

Design

With a flat glass display on the front and a fingerprint sensor on the back, the Huawei Mate 20 looks like a lot of other Android smartphones on the market. But that mimicry stops two-thirds up the Mate 20’s backside, where a trio of cameras along with the flash are collected in a 2x2 grid. 

It's a new look for smartphones - intentionally so, actually. During a preview event, a Huawei representative pointed out that the quad-camera setup would tip off passersby to which phone you were sporting. Likewise, the LG V40 has its three cameras in a horizontal line to distinguish its otherwise generic case. 

The standard Huawei Mate 20 doesn't have the Samsung-style curved edges of the Pro version, and its flat front looks subsequently more commonplace, as far as smartphones go. 

Also unlike its more powerful sibling, the Mate 20 has a small but present notch at the top-center (which Huawei affectionately labels a "dewdrop") housing the phone's lone front-facing camera. It's not the worst notch we've seen, but it's noticeable.

Both the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro come in five colors. The black, pink and blue-to-purple Twilight hues have a glossy finish on the phone's glass back, but the two others - Midnight Blue and Emerald Green - have something extra: a textured finish that adds a bit of tactility to the touch.

This so-called "hyper optical display pattern", consisting of slightly-raises stripes, is more resistant to fingerprints, Huawei claims. It also gives you a bit of a grip, which is helpful for the bolder among you who are willing to carry your expensive smartphone around without a case.

A Huawei representative compared its feel to that of a vinyl record, but we found the ridges to be even more subtle, so the phone will still slip easily into pockets.

And in keeping with other leading smartphones, the Huawei Mate 20 has IP68 water and dust resistance. 

Huawei Mate 20 hands on gallery

Display

For once, the standard version of a phone has a bigger screen than its higher-performing sibling (in this case, the 6.39-inch Mate 20 Pro). The Huawei Mate 20 has a 6.53-inch full HD (2244 x 1080) LCD display, which makes out to an 18.7:9 aspect ratio.  

While that's admittedly less impressive than the OLED HDR in the Mate 20 Pro, it's still a decent screen that, at least on paper, keeps up with other high-end Android phones. 

At first glance, it looks bright and crisp - you probably wouldn't notice the difference unless both were placed side-by-side.

Interface and Performance

The Huawei Mate 20 runs Android 9 Pie out of the box, with Huawei's own EMUI 9 interface over the top. 

At a preview event, Huawei boasted that it hewed down the massive number of settings options in the Mate 10, resulting in 10% fewer in the Mate 20. It's a dubious accomplishment that may not be noticeable: in our testing, the phone's settings were still an intricate nest of options. 

The Huawei Mate 20 might not have the tricks of its Pro sibling, but both are powered by the octa-core Kirin 980 processor, which Huawei claimed would handily outperform the other leading Android phone SoC, the Snapdragon 845. 

The 980's eight cores are split between four small, two medium and two large cores, which theoretically allow phones to spin them up in combinations that more efficiently match the processing needs of current tasks. 

This should result in lower power drain through better efficiency. The Mate 20 certainly zips between apps quickly enough, though we'd have to see it pitted against other Snapdragon-powered phones to see how much the phone really benefits from what might be the fastest chip on the Android market.

The chip also runs dual neural processing units to power the phone's various AI tasks. This includes Huawei's smart lens feature in the camera software, which purportedly recognizes people, places and products a la Google Lens. 

As for RAM, the Huawei Mate 20 comes in 4GB and 6GB configurations, although you'll have to wait for local availability to be announced to find out which model will be available to you.

The Mate 20 comes with 128GB of storage, and it does have expandable storage upt to 256GB... but in a proprietary format: NanoSD. 

You can plug one of them into the top or bottom of a new double-sided SIM slot, though that obviously means you wouldn’t be able to dual-SIM. Decisions, decisions.

Camera

The Huawei Mate 20 has the same triple array of cameras as the Mate 20 Pro, though with fewer megapixels in two of them. It has a 12MP f/1.8 primary lens, an 8MP f/2.4 telephoto with 3x optical zoom (paired with OIS) and a 16MP f/2.2 wide-angle camera with autofocus. 

The Mate 20's front-facing camera is a 24MP f/2.0 lens, producing sharp photos. All of the Mate 20's lenses have Leica optics, as expected for Huawei.

In other words, a similar trio of lenses to other triple-camera phones, though Huawei's telephoto lens peers slightly farther than the LG V40's 2x optical zoom.

As in its predecessor, the Mate 20 has a wide range of interesting camera modes that take advantage of its three lenses. 

There's no gimmicky triple-shot feature here, nor a cinemagraph-like motion-trick mode. Instead, the Mate 20's modes are more pragmatic, including a bokeh-focused one and one that allows you to tinker with settings (aperture, ISO, shutter speed) manually. 

Admittedly, many of these are simply carried over from the Huawei P20 that came out earlier this year. And, of course, there's a beauty mode.

Battery

The Huawei Mate 20 has a sizable 4,000mAh battery. It's not the biggest battery in the smartphone world, but it's on par with previous Huawei phones. 

The Mate 20 works with 40W-rated SuperCharge, though at a less-impressive rate than the Mate 20 Pro.

The Mate 20 Pro can recharge 70% of its battery in half an hour, and Huawei promises the Mate 20 will recharge "quickly", so our tests will tell how much it suffers from being the less-developed child of the pair. Another cool feature the standard Mate 20 didn't get this time around: wireless charging.

Early Verdict

The Huawei Mate 20 is a powerful phone that, spec-wise, only comes up short in a few places compared to the Mate 20 Pro. It has all of today's best tech with reliable, if unsexy mechanisms, an impressive processor and a novel, respectable camera array.

Whether it's truly lacking for missing the Mate 20 Pro's flashier features may be a subjective judgment. You'll have to ask yourself: do you need an in-screen fingerprint scanner, facial recognition, higher-end curved screen or the ability to wirelessly charge other devices? Is it worth a higher price tag?

But by shedding those features and sticking to the basics, the Mate 20 shaves some of the price tag and barely skips a beat, performance-wise. It might look like many other smartphones from the front (that camera array is pretty distinctive on back), but the Mate 20 is a pretty good phone, all things considered. 

We'll have to see how the phone holds up to more rigorous testing, but from the outset, the Mate 20 could be a serious underdog, especially for folks who want a top-end smartphone but aren't willing to venture too far from the mid-range price range. 

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