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.
In this article, you will find Huawei Mate 30 Pro In-depth Analysis – Design and Screen.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro Hardware
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a Kirin 990 processor, manufactured in a 7 nm process. The Kirin 990 offers faster CPU clock speeds and a new Da Vinci NPU architecture for Artificial Intelligence (AI) tasks.
The Kirin 990 has two Cortex-A76 cores at 2.86 GHz, two Cortex-A76 cores at 2.09 GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores at 1.86 GHz.
If you wonder why Huawei has not used the latest Cortex-A77 cores, it is because the 7 nm process of TSMC did not allow us to reach the desired frequency. The A76 cores could reach higher frequencies using the same process and there is not much difference in energy consumption between both designs.
The new chip achieves up to 10% improvement in the performance of a single core and 9% in multi-core compared to the Snapdragon 855, as explained by Huawei. Even more important is that this is achieved with lower energy consumption than the Qualcomm processor.
The new chip also incorporates a 16-core Mali-G76 MP16 GPU and supports LPDDR4-4266 memory with a low latency cache. Compared to the Snapdragon 855, Huawei claims that the new GPU offers 6% more performance and 20% more energy efficiency.
Huawei has adopted a new architecture called Da Vinci for its NPU.
Huawei also offers a variant of the Mate 30 Pro with the Kirin 990 5G chip with somewhat more powerful hardware and an integrated 5G modem.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has 8 GB of RAM, which are more than enough to have several applications open at the same time. It is true that there are some 10 or 12 GB of smartphones on the market but, in my opinion, it is more a matter of marketing than a real improvement for users since in practice there is not much difference.
In the storage section, Huawei uses the Extendable Read-Only File System (EROFS) to greatly improve the reading speed of storage devices.
Huawei claims that the Mate 30 Pro has a multi-dimensional cooling system with the most advanced dissipation material, the graphene film, which allows the phone to dissipate heat very quickly.
In the day to day, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro moves with total fluidity. I have not suffered any stoppages when moving around the phone interface or when I have used common apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail or Google Maps.
The 8 GB of RAM of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is more than enough to keep in memory a good number of apps at once, and I have not suffered app closures when putting them in the background.
In terms of graphic capacity, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro incorporates GPU Turbo, a technology that debuted at the Honor Play and that promises a graphics performance improvement of up to 60% and a battery-saving of up to 30% for compatible titles such as PUBG, Fortnite, NBA 2K18 and many more.
Three demanding 3D games – Asphalt 9, Dead Effect 2 and PUBG have been tried- and, in all of them, the experience of playing with the Huawei Mate 30 Pro has been very satisfactory. Therefore, the apparent lower power of the GPU compared to other smartphones is no problem with current games.
Like all high-end phones, it is heated when subjected to a high workload, especially in 3D games. In the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, however, a temperature of 34ºC has been measured in certain areas of the back surface after playing some games, which is a pretty restrained value.
To optimize performance, Huawei incorporates an application called Optimizer that analyzes the state of the phone and offers various ways to optimize the operation of the phone.
Among others, this application can propose to close certain applications to reduce energy consumption, delete large files or applications rarely used to free up space or disable Bluetooth if there is no device to link.
This application also allows you to block calls and messages from certain sources, restrict the use of mobile data / WiFi by apps, reduce data consumption by limiting background connections, control applications that can display floating notifications, search for viruses, and manage battery consumption.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro comes with 256GB of storage, so you should have no problem storing images and videos even in 4K quality.
This storage can be expanded using a type of card called NM Card. This card is a proprietary format of Huawei that is the size of a nano-SIM card, and whose price is above traditional microSD cards.
In the connectivity aspect, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is compatible with WiFi 802.11 b / g / n / ac in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands (but does not support WiFi 6), Bluetooth 5.1, 4.5G / LTE, a transmitter of infrared, dual-frequency GPS and NFC. It does not incorporate FM radio.
The USB-C connector supports USB 3.1 Gen1 but the cable included in the box only supports USB 2.0.
An interesting functionality of the Mate 30 Pro is that it allows you to share a WiFi connection with other smartphones – any smartphone can share a 3G / 4G connection but not everyone can share a WiFi connection.
Biometric systems and gestures in the air
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has two biometric authentication systems: fingerprint reading and 3D facial recognition.
Huawei has incorporated a fingerprint reader under the screen itself that allows you to unlock the phone by placing your finger on the area of ​​the screen where the sensor is located.
If we have the Always On Display screen activated, just put your finger on the screen to unlock the phone without having to touch any buttons – as long as we place the finger in the correct area. Unfortunately, with the Always On Display screen active, the fingerprint reading area is not marked until we touch the screen with your finger.
The fingerprint recognition is reliable as long as we place the finger in the correct area since the recognition area is quite small. Unlocking is very fast although, in my opinion, it does not exceed that of OnePlus.
Huawei has also incorporated an advanced 3D facial recognition system, which incorporates elements such as a spot projector, a ToF proximity meter, an illuminator, and an infrared camera.
To activate facial recognition, simply lift the phone from the table as the accelerometer detects movement, automatically turns on the screen and unlocks the phone if it detects your face.
In case you already have the phone in your hand with the Always On Display screen active, it is possible to activate facial recognition by pressing on the power button or double-tapping the screen.
Facial recognition works quite quickly and, in my experience, is even more comfortable than placing my finger on the fingerprint reader. The recognition just fails, so you will have no problem for the system to recognize you if you wear glasses, stop shaving or make small changes on your face. Huawei also allows you to configure an alternative appearance for recognition to work if you change the image (it’s a clown-friendly phone).
The facial unlocking uses a 3D sensor like the latest iPhone, so I have not been able to fool the system by putting a photo or video mask in front of the phone. Huawei incorporates an option that allows you to specify if we want facial recognition to require eye contact and open eyes to function ( learn, Pixel ).
A novelty of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is the presence of a hand gesture sensor in the air that allows two functionalities:
Scroll: Move your hand up and down to scroll without touching the screen
Screenshot: Close your hand in front of the screen to capture without touching the screen.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro Battery
The battery of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a generous capacity of 4,500 mAh, so you can expect great autonomy.
On a daily basis, the autonomy of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is excellent. I have not had any difficulty in reaching the end of the day even though I make quite a heavy use of the phone during the day.
In addition, Huawei has incorporated a tool to manage energy savings within the Optimizer application. This tool allows you to choose between a standard and an Ultra energy-saving mode.
The standard mode restricts the activity of background applications, reduces or disables some visual effects and system sounds, and disables the reception of background mail to save energy. The Ultra mode changes the interface to a more simple and only provides access to calls, messages, and contacts, although we can add some additional apps.
A functionality called Smart Resolution allows you to automatically or manually reduce the resolution of the screen to save battery although, in the case of a 6.5 ″ screen, it does not seem advisable to reduce the resolution below Full HD +.
The company has included a Dark mode that allows the interface colors to darken. Since the screen is OLED, this has the advantage that black pixels do not consume energy.
The Manager app also performs a phone status analysis to increase energy savings by suggesting various actions.
For example, the app indicates which applications are the ones that consume the most energy and what adjustments we can modify to reduce the energy consumption: reduce the waiting time of the screen before turning off, deactivate the vibration when pressing, deactivate the vibration, etc.
One feature that I liked is that it allows you to individually select which apps can start automatically, as well as which ones can continue running once the screen is turned off. In addition, the phone also indicates which applications consume a lot of energy so that we know where we will get the greatest benefits.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has the SuperCharge 40W charging technology that is one of the fastest we can find in a smartphone today.
The charging process takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes with the charger included. In just half an hour, it achieves about 70 percent charge, which is an excellent brand and, in one hour, it already has a 95 percent charge.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro is compatible with wireless charging at 27W, which is significantly faster than charging at 7.5W offered by other smartphones although you will have to get a charger that supports this speed.
Another functionality that is present in the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is reverse wireless charging, which allows you to wirelessly charge other devices that have wireless charging support.
This means that if a friend’s smartphone with wireless charging or your headphones with a wireless charging case runs out of battery, you can transfer charge by placing the device on your device back.
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
