The Mate 20 & Mate 20 Pro Review: Kirin 980 Powering Two Contrasting Devices
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 16, 2018 8:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Mobile
- Kirin 980
- Mate 20
- Mate 20 Pro
Battery Life - Contrasting Two Models
The Mate 20 comes with an LCD screen and a 4000mAh battery. The screen is slightly larger in area than that of the Mate 20 Pro, who in turn uses an OLED screen, but also features a slightly larger 4200mAh battery.
The Kirin 980 of both phones should provide great efficiency, although I have to note that my units of the Mate 20 Pro seemed to have a worse binned SoC, as active system power consumption (normalised for screen and idle) in SPEC was about 8-9% higher than on the Mate 20.
In the web browsing test, we see the regular Mate 20 post some new record battery life results, with a staggering runtime of 13.5h. Here we finally see Huawei replicate the results of the Mate 9, which similarly had a very efficient screen. The efficiency of the SoC also augments the phone above that of other devices.
On the Mate 20 Pro, we see the previously discovered screen panel issues come back to haunt it. Even though it has a larger battery and a smaller screen than the Mate 20, the more expensive phone fares worse off in the test. Unfortunately the large base power handicap of the phone along with slightly worse luminance efficiency is the main cause of the results.
In regards to the Mate 10 results: The actual battery life of devices on the stock firmware should be better, unfortunately I haven’t been able to get to get back to this version as my units have a variant that unlock the memory controller to its full speed (and reduces battery life).
In PCMark, we see a similar regression on the part of the Mate 20 Pro – the regular version is achieving excellent results. Here the test is favourable to OLED devices, as evidenced by the P20 Pro leading all our results, however again this increase base power consumption of the Mate 20 Pro costs it a lot of lifetime which ends up it having much reduced battery life compared to where the SoC and battery capacity should have been capable of.
Overall, there’s two conclusions here in regards to battery life:
The Mate 20 is just an outstanding device and is currently showcasing absolutely leading battery life. Most devices with such runtimes are lower or mid-range phones with large battery capacities. In the high end, the Mate 20 is essentially in a tier of its own as it achieves this excellent battery life result while also showcasing the best performance of an Android device.
The Mate 20 Pro’s result and conclusion is a bit more muted. Its battery life isn’t bad, but falls short of expectations. Here the 4200mAh battery serves as no more than to just compensate for the inefficient display.
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Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Nothing on the nanoSD, I don't even have any way to test it. As for storage, again I'm not posting any results in the review because the tools are broken/misleading. If it's any worth, both phones are leading in terms of Androbench performance.Chitti - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link
Andrei, its almost 10 days.U didn't upload it yet 😓.
s.yu - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Samsung's body + Apple's notch, a popular opinion on the net.For the record Huawei's always "taking note" of somebody's design, they copied Sony's Omnibalance back with the P8, especially with that power button, moving on they've been closely following Samsung's design (S6,S7,S8) until the P20, in which they copied Apple, with the latest Mate20Pro, it's both, altogether.
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I don't really agree with this (Beyond the P20's looking similar to the iPhone X), Huawei always had quite distinct designs in its phones, especially on the Mate series.s.yu - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Well for the P8 Huawei's own slide mentioning a "balanced design" following Sony's use of "Omnibalance" as well as the obvious resemblance in design did give them away, Huawei's Mate 9 Pro's a facelift of the S6/S7, and their subsequent so-called "Porsche Design" versions as well as the corresponding "Pro" versions all suspiciously follow Samsung's move in design philosophy from the S7 onwards. Then Apple's IPX and all...levizx - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
Well, that's quite a bold regarding P8, P8 looks nothing like SONY. By your logic, any phone that claims "slim" or "premium" would be clones.How else would you design a phone with 16:9 curved display with 3 years old technology, I'd like to see you try.
You have to be very stupid to think Mate 10/P20 series looks anything like S7/S8/iPhone being non-curved with front/back fingerprint readers.
So your logic is essentially - curved display: copying Samsung, non-curved display: copying Samsung, notch with fingerprint reader and triple camera: copying iPhone.
s.yu - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
That's some weak trolling.Let me tell you now how exactly the P8 looks like Sony's Xperia Z released earlier:
1. It's very boxy for its release date, compared to its peers only Sony of that era used such a design philosophy though Sony stuck to it for the many years to come while Huawei went on to copy Samsung the subsequent generation starting from Mate 9 Pro.
2. Sony's machine-milled power button was iconic in their Xperia Z and Z1, then Huawei came over, slightly changed the shape and stuck it onto an equally boxy body with suspiciously similarly named design philosophy.
How else would *I* design? That's not my problem, I'm not a team of engineers paid to innovate on a smartphone design after all, but HTC and Samsung both had unique solutions at the time, especially Samsung's S6 was an ingenious generational leap which pioneered the trend of glass-sandwich-metal bodies until this day.
When Huawei wasn't so obviously copying, well of course you know what happened, the unsightly Mate S, Mate 8 and Mate 9.
The Mate 9 Pro's screen was curved, together with the home button it's a straight Samsung S6E/S7E ripoff under a façade of "Porsche Design". At least get your basic facts straight before you troll.
I didn't say that the Mate 10 was a Samsung/Apple copy, you put that in my mouth. Not every Huawei is a copy, just that they copy somebody almost every generation, which also shows from their highly inconsistent, rapidly shifting design language, because they "borrow" from different opponents each year.
The P20 is a thorough IPX clone, up there with the Mi8, there's no doubt about that.
Quantumz0d - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Agreed.Press don't care unfortunately and that makes the marketing work. How else Huawei could gather all that. Look at Pixel 3XL its the best android phone according to press. Less features is more nowadays and you should pay more for the super cloned designs and submitting your ownership as well.
And it's China and their famous pro local IP theft game, no one can win there except their own.
levizx - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
What a stupid and racist troll. So in your mind Pixel XL is not a clone, but all Huawei phones are?Mate 10 Pro looks more like LG V30 than anything else, and they are only 2 months apart, no chance of copying at all.
s.yu - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
Look at you grasping at straws like that, the Mate 10 Pro may not be a copy, but Mate RS was a clear Samsung copy.