Huawei Mate 30 Pro Preview – Disappointed, but not disappointed
We recently published an article in which we describe what you encounter when you have a phone that runs on Android, but does not have Google apps or Google Play Services. That’s quite a lot. For example, you will have to download Google apps via an alternative app store if desired, or find replacements for those apps, for example. However, the lack of the Google Play Services is even more inconvenient. For example, it turned out that apps such as DigiD and Snapchat do not work, that you cannot make a backup in WhatsApp and that most popular video apps do not function properly or even at all.
In Europe, we rely heavily on Google apps and services. This is also evident, because Huawei has announced that the Mate smartphone series will not be released in Europe for a while, because it has not yet found a solution for the lack of Google’s approval. This is, of course, due to the trade war between China and the United States. Huawei also sees nothing in releasing the Mate phones without a solution for the lack of Google support. What the possible solution will look like remains shrouded in mystery even today, while we went to Munich with the idea that the solution to be proposed by Huawei would be the main reason for this press trip.
It is a pity that the Mate devices may not receive Google’s approval. These phones usually bring quite a lot of innovation, especially the Pro variant. So let’s focus our attention on the innovations that this device brings.
Around the corner
When you hold the Mate 30 Pro for the first time, the screen is especially striking. This bends more extreme than we are used to to the sides. You can find it beautiful or ugly, but it is certainly an eye-catcher. We immediately checked whether you are suffering from unwanted touches and fortunately that is not too bad. The last few millimeters of the screen are not touch-sensitive and we were not bothered by it in the short time that we held a Mate 30 Pro.
It was also not too bad how much the screen darkens towards the edges due to the bending of the light through the curved glass. Still, you can of course not see a small part of the screen when you look straight at the phone. It seemed that Huawei took this into account, because no letters fell off the ‘waterfall screen’ while browsing. A potential downside to the extremely curved screen is that the screen is more likely to shatter if the phone falls on its side. In that case, the screen turns the corner in more ways than one.
The 6.53″ OLED screen has an area of 108.7 cm² and a resolution of 2400×1176 pixels. That equates to an excellent pixel density of 409 ppi. The screen ratio is a fairly regular 18.5:9 for 2019. The OLED screen has the latest Gorilla Glass version, namely number 6. The viewing angles, the contrast and the maximum brightness of the screen seem more than sufficient, at first glance.
Notch and other design elements
Where other manufacturers have removed the screen notch from the design, the notch is still present in the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. He’s gotten a little smaller though. There is still an infrared scanner, which has also been lost at Samsung, but no speaker. The screen itself serves as a speaker, which means that the phone does not have stereo sound when playing media. The infrared scanner ensures that facial recognition is a bit safer. The fingerprint scanner is behind the screen, just like with the Mate 20 Pro. He worked quickly during the hands-on and did not fail. That offers hope.
Since the screen bends at such a large angle, the power button is somewhat towards the back. That’s not bothersome. However, the volume buttons have been lost and that is a bit less convenient. You now have to tap the side of the screen twice to bring up the volume control. You feel that you are operating the controller via haptic feedback. We sometimes had a bit of trouble to conjure up the controller, but that went better and better. We have high hopes that you will get used to it, but it remains more hit or miss than a physical volume knob of course.
Other design elements are also quite different from Huawei’s previous devices. The camera module of the Mate 30 Pro is round. It is neatly finished and this camera bump is not too thick either. There is a circle around the camera part to accentuate it. Some color versions of the Mate 30 Pro have a matte to glossy back, towards the top. That ensures less visible finger smears and is therefore a great idea. There are also versions with a back of fake leather. Whatever you think of it, the design has certainly been thought through and it looks neat. Like its predecessors, the Mate 30 Pro is IP68 certified.
Low light ultra wide angle and video upgrades
It’s quite surprising that the Mate 30 Pro doesn’t have a periscopic telephoto lens. After all, that was a major addition to the P30 Pro and we expected that it would also be on this device. Being able to get things so much closer in good lighting conditions is useful more often than you might think. Fortunately, the device does have an 80mm lens, so it gets things three times closer compared to the primary camera.
That primary camera is the same as that of the P30 Pro. That’s somewhat disappointing because that’s where we actually want to see improvement every time. After all, this is probably the one you use the most. The big innovation, however, is in the ultra-wide-angle camera. Like the primary camera, it now has a 40MP module, but above all, it also has a fairly large 1/1.54″ sensor with f/1.8 aperture, enabling it to capture more light than the other ultra-wide-angle cameras out there. we know on smartphones. We took pictures with this camera in a darkened room and the results were certainly not disappointing at first sight. Of course we have to do comparisons to be able to say something meaningful about it. Unfortunately, this time we have no sample photos from the device.
Another innovation of the camera is in the video capabilities of the Mate 30 Pro. The device can now shoot 4k time-lapse videos with HDR+ and can shoot 4k videos with 60fps. The most special is perhaps the new ultra slow motion function. In the camera app, you can shoot slow motion videos in 720p at up to 7680fps. However, it could well be that this is about interpolation and that is a bit of cheating, so we will dive into that in the review. In any case, 1920fps slow motion is possible and that is already more than the 960fps that we now usually encounter in some high-end devices, although that is often at 1080p resolution.
In the darkened room with aquariums at the hands-on, we had the Xperia 1 record a 960 fps slow motion video next to the Mate 30 Pro. The Mate 30 Pro was able to record a reasonably exposed, although not very detailed video, where the Xperia 1 showed almost nothing. The Mate 30 Pro did have a lot of trouble focusing in these conditions, but we can’t really blame it. The video results are promising for poor lighting conditions. The manufacturer therefore seems to be developing well in the low light area and is doing so, among other things, by putting relatively large sensors in smartphones. In our opinion, that’s a great idea.
Excellent specs and smooth software
The Mate Pro series also usually includes a new soc. In this case it is the Kirin 990, which has 5g on board. That is good for the future and it will take a while before 5g is a fact. The soc is accompanied by 8GB lpddr4x working memory. The 128GB or 256GB storage memory is of the ufs 3.0 type, just like the OnePlus 7 series and the Note 10 devices.
As far as speed is concerned, it is also good, it seems. During the hands-on we were positively surprised about the speed and flexibility of navigating Android. Switching between apps is very fast and Huawei has also worked on the animations to make it feel smoother. You will notice that immediately if you know other Huawei devices.
The battery life is of course also important for a luxury device like this. The capacity is 4500mAh, which is 300mAh higher than its predecessor. That device already had a very good battery life in practice. Charging is still at 40 watts and wireless charging at 27 watts. According to Huawei, that is more than the 30 watts Xiaomi claims for its latest phones, because Xiaomi measures the current at the charger and Huawei in the phone. That screams to be measured.
The Mate 30 Pro runs on Emui 10 based on the open source version of Android 10. There are a few small, but nice, new software features in EMUI 10 on the Mate 30 Pro. The first is called AI Rotate and it involves the phone looking at your eyes and rotating the screen with your eyes. This also means that when you lie on your side with your phone, the screen should not rotate. Unfortunately, we only got to see a demo of this feature and it seemed to work. We have not been able to try it ourselves, as well as the function in which the phone continuously checks whether only one pair of eyes is looking at the screen if desired. When he sees more eyes, for example, he hides the content of notifications.
Finally
The Mate 30 Pro is technically an interesting device again. That is why it is a pity that we have to wait a little longer before the device comes to Europe. Fortunately, he will come, according to Huawei. It will only partly depend on the solution that Huawei comes up with whether the device is advisable. Huawei will have to come up with a fairly simple way to make the Mate 30 Pro just as practical and functional as smartphones that have been approved by Google. That will be quite a challenge, we fear.
Apart from that, the camera, especially the ultra-wide-angle camera and the video capabilities, is again very interesting. The design is also neat and characteristic and the ‘waterfall screen’ is a refined design element and the specifications are also top. Unfortunately, the device does have a mono speaker and the price at 1100 euros is again a hundred euros higher than that of the Mate 20 Pro.
Huawei continues stoically. To the extreme, because the word Google was not mentioned during the entire presentation and that is very strange in this case. Fortunately, Huawei also continues unabated with what it does influence, namely technological innovations. That’s good to see. The manufacturer is currently taking a hard hit, but does not seem disappointed yet.
| Device | Huawei Mate 30 Pro |
| Housing | 158.1×73.1×8.8mm, 198g |
| Screen | 6.53″ OLED, 14.9×7.3cm 109cm 2 , 2400x1176px |
| Camera | Primary: 40MP, 1/1.7″, 27mm, ryyb, f/1.8, OIS Ultra Wide: 40MP, 1/1.54″, 18mm, rggb, f/1.6, macro Tele: 8MP, ‘3x zoom’, f /2.4, 80mm Fourth: ToF camera Front: 32MP Front secondary: ToF camera |
| Soc | Kirin 990 |
| Memory and storage | 8GB lpddr4x, 128GB/256GB ufs 3.0 |
| Battery and charging | 4500mAh Wired charging: 40W Wireless charging: 27W |
| Release and price | TBD, 1099 euros |