Huawei is going through a difficult time because of the US veto that prevents companies like Google sell or license its technology to the Chinese company. However, Huawei is not willing to give up and recently announced its new flagship Huawei Mate 30 Pro, which comes with impressive hardware but without the services of Google or Play Store.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro comes with a curved 6.5 ″ OLED screen, Kirin 990 processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 40MP + 40MP + 8MP + ToF quad-rear camera, 32MP front camera and 4,500 mAh battery with a fast charge at 40W.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro is not yet for sale in some countries but, if there are no surprises, it will reach the market for an official price of € 1,029.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro Design and Construction
The Huawei Mate series has always been characterized by a less striking and youthful appearance than the P series, as well as a completely symmetrical design on the vertical axis both in the front and in the back.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro features a front dominated by a large 6.5 ″ screen with a prominent notch at the top.
The reason for this large notch is in the presence of a 3D facial recognition system, which allows the phone to be unlocked using the face, as well as a sensor for detecting gestures in the air.
It is a bit strange that Huawei has included 3D facial recognition given the amount of space it occupies. The fingerprint reader under the screen works very well, so it could have saved facial recognition in favor of a smaller notch.
The notch aside, the upper and lower frames of the screen are quite narrow, although at this point the Samsung Galaxy Note10 + with its very thin frames still leads the way.
Huawei has opted for a screen with a very sharp curve on both sides. The company speaks of an “ultra curve screen of 88 degrees”, that is, with a practically vertical fall. As a result, when looking at the phone from the front, the side frames are not visible but the screen appears to be side to side.
The drawback of the curved screens, especially when the curvature is so pronounced, is that the sides look darker than the central area and can produce reflections, so it is not everyone’s taste. Huawei is aware of this problem and has added an option to remove the side edges as a viewing area, both generally and only for some apps.
The large screen size combined with the elongated ratio makes it almost impossible to operate the smartphone with one hand comfortably. Although it is possible to type by holding it with one hand, it is very difficult to drag the notification bar down without juggling the phone.
A curious aspect of the front of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is that it does not have an earphone. Huawei has made use of a technology that uses the screen itself as a headset when you stick your ear to the glass. In practice, it works well as long as you stick your ear to the screen.
Another innovative aspect of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro’s design is in its volume buttons or, rather, in the absence of physical buttons to increase/decrease the volume. Instead, Huawei has included a volume slider on the screen that is activated by double-clicking on the side of the device.
Although this way of controlling the volume is very original, in the day to day I do not find it a very practical approach. It is easier and faster to press a button than to double tap and slide your finger. On some occasions, it has happened to me that a video has begun to play at a very high volume and it has been difficult for me to silence the phone. It is also more complicated to take a screenshot (you cannot use the power button + volume combination below).
The back of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is made of curved glass on all four sides but what really stands out is the large circular camera module in black. This module is surrounded by a ring with a matte finish.
The camera module protrudes slightly from the surface of the phone although, being located in the center, the phone does not dance when you press its screen while it is resting on a table. On one side of this module, we find the flash in a vertical layout and the LEICA inscription.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a thickness of 8.8 mm. and weighing 198 grams, making it the most smartphones strong we can find. The fact that the thickness of the terminal is reduced at the edges thanks to the curvature of the screen and the rear glass helps to make the terminal appear thinner.
Next, we will review the elements found on the sides of the phone.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro is available in black, space silver, emerald green, and cosmic purple colors.
Cosmic Purple 
Space Silver 
Emerald Green 
Black
As with any glass finish, the prints are easily marked on its surface, although it gives me the feeling that in this case, they are not as visible as in other devices that I have tried.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has IP68 certification, so you should not worry if there is a dip. Like any smartphone, it is not indicated to be submerged in water, so you should not use it for underwater photography.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro Screen
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a 6.53 ″ OLED screen with an 18.5: 9 ratio and Full HD + resolution (1,176 x 2,400 pixels), which implies a pixel density of 409 dpi.
Other high-end smartphones feature screens with higher Quad HD + resolutions and, therefore, higher pixel densities. Now, the sharpness offered by the screen of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is more than enough, so in my opinion, you will not miss a higher resolution.
In addition, smartphones that have Quad HD + panels with a higher resolution display by default a Full HD + resolution instead of Quad HD + to reduce battery consumption and only switch to Quad HD + when displaying certain contents.
Being an OLED panel, the sub-pixel matrix is ​​of the Pentile type. While LCD panels use an arrangement of sub-pixels in RGB rows, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro shows a pattern known as RGBG, in which the green sub-pixel is divided into two.
In addition to having a good sharpness, the screen of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro offers a wide range of colors, being able to cover 100% of the DCI-P3 range.
If you are not familiar with color spaces, all high-end smartphones cover the standard Android color space: Rec. 709 / sRGB.
No current panel is capable of displaying the full-color range Rec. 2020, but many panels do cover the DCI-P3 range.
On the other hand, HDR technology increases the dynamic range of color tones shown on the screen. The Huawei Mate 30 Pro panel is compatible with HDR, so we can enjoy compatible content from YouTube and other sources.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro offers two color playback modes: normal and vivid. As the name implies, the vivid mode offers more vivid colors but, at the same time, less true to reality, while the normal mode is the one that aims to show colors closer to reality.
With the normal mode active, the color fidelity turns out to be quite good since the average error is 2.4 dE (a value below 4 dE is considered excellent and above 9 is considered unacceptable) and the maximum error is 5.8 from. It does not reach the excellent fidelity of the iPhone 11 Pro or the Pixel 4 but does not admit complaint.
In this color model, the screen covers 97% of the sRGB range, as expected, and the color temperature turns out to be 6,164ºK, a value that is somewhat remote from the optimum temperature of 6,500ºK.
If we go to the vivid mode, which is the one that is active by default, the color fidelity worsens to an average error of 4.6 dE and a maximum error of 8.7 dE. This is because the colors are more saturated than they really are.
The vivid color mode covers more than 100% of the sRGB range, 93% of the widest DCI-P3 color range and 68% of the Rec. 2020 range.
According to measurements, the maximum brightness of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro panel is around 455 nits with the maximum brightness in manual mode, but it increases to 629 nits if we set the automatic mode and we are under a very bright environment. These tests have been performed, as usual, with the screen completely blank.
This maximum brightness value with the 100% illuminated display is very high, although it is slightly below other Samsung and Apple smartphones with OLED display such as the Samsung Galaxy Note10 + or the iPhone 11 Pro.
OLED screens have a peculiar behavior when viewed from an angle. On the one hand, the light emitters are closer to the surface, and this makes the contrast and brightness vary less when we move from the center, but on the other hand, the Pentile matrix causes the colors to distort.
In the case of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, the viewing angles are wide and the colors are hardly altered when viewing the screen from an angle. Now, since the screen is curved on the sides, when you look at the phone in front you can see a much darker color on the sides.
Huawei has incorporated the functionality of turning on the screen with a double-tap to see if we have pending notifications, as well as the functionality Always Show on Screen, although it is somewhat hidden in Settings > Main screen and wallpaper > Always show on screen.
This functionality shows the time/date, battery level and app notification icons on the lock screen. However, it does not show the place where we must place the finger to activate fingerprint recognition, which makes it difficult to hit the finger in the right place at the first.
The screen of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro offers a very useful intelligent rotation system that I had never seen before. Instead of automatically rotating the screen when you rotate the phone 90 degrees, this system takes into account the position of your eyes to know if you are lying or straight. This avoids the typical problem that you lie on the couch and the screen tends to turn when you shouldn’t.
Finally, Huawei has incorporated a reading mode that filters the light to relieve visual fatigue. It can be activated manually or, if we prefer, program the start and end time.
Read full Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis:
- Part 01: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Design and Screen.
- Part 02: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Hardware and Battery.
- Part 03: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Software.
- Part 04: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Applications included and Multimedia.
- Part 05: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Photo Camera and Voice Calls.
- Part 06: Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Price and Competitors
All Image credits: Huawei Mate 30 Pro
