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
Camera Video Recording
Video recording have traditionally been a great weakness for Huawei, and the Mate 20’s feature the same type of issue that also plagued past Mate and P-series phones: the lack of OIS on the main camera modules. Furthermore, I was surprised to see that the video encoding block of the Kirin 980 caps out at 4K30, far lower than the competition from Qualcomm and Samsung.
Because the Mate 20’s feature wide-angle camera modules, this essentially doubles the amount of video samples we have to analyse. In terms of recording modes Huawei offers a slew of resolution from 720p to 4K30 – we’ll be limiting ourselves to the more popular 1080p30, 1080p60 and 4K30 modes. Video recording can be done either in H264, or H265, and the phone defaults to H264 for better file compatibility.
Mate 20 Pro:
Mate 20:
On both the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro, the one thing that immediately stands out from past Huawei devices is that the video is a lot more stable. Both in 1080p30 and 4K30 (in which previously EIS wasn’t available on the Kirin 970), we see some really good results considering the fact that the phones don’t have OIS. Here Huawei and HiSilicon are obviously using a different EIS algorithm that is much more performant, and the phone actually this time around doesn’t let you disable it. What is interesting to see is that here and there there’s still a jutter in the image, and when this happens we see the very edges of the video sometime warp for a few frames. This is an indication that the EIS algorithm is quite lax in following the camera frame, and in sudden movements tries to compensate and stabilize the recorded video frame by warping the existing camera frame along the edges when necessary. The only real negative of this implementation is that the actual video recording is delayed by a split second, something that plainly visible when panning around – in practical terms this shouldn’t be an issue.
Where things break down is in the 60fps mode: Here there’s no stabilisation and the result is what you’d expect from a non-OIS phone. I do find it weird that Huawei stabilises 4K30, but not 1080p60, as the larger resolution mode should in theory represent a more difficult workload. Here it’s likely that the new EIS is latency rather than throughput bound at some point in the pipeline, either by the sensors, or maybe even on the SoC side.
Video recording in 60fps is also not optimal, here I think Huawei was far too conservative in terms of video encoding bitrate as the resulting video is of much less quality than the 1080p30 mode. Also weird is that in 60fps mode, the phone will now do to the telephoto lens, only allowing digital zoom. However, switching over to the wide angle lens works.
4K30 is of great quality on both phones: This is an immense upgrade compared to the previous generation Huawei devices, and although it doesn’t quite match the quality of say the recent iPhone XS’, video recording is no longer a thorn in the side of the phones.
Recording video on the wide angle lenses is a great experience: It feels a bit less stable than o the primary lens (The EIS has more actual distance to compensate), but overall this is something that I’ve been a great fan of in LG phones, and should be definitely something that I recommend many users to try out.
Exposure and dynamic range is good on both phones and both modules, again something that’s seen immense upgrades compared to past Kirin 970 devices. It’s only when switching between the modules that it seems like it’s necessary to readjust the exposure sometimes. In terms of switching between the modules, Huawei is still a bit slow in this regard. Apple and other Snapdragon devices are able to do this almost instantly, however it still takes a few seconds for the Mate 20’s, especially switching to the zoom modules.
Overall, Huawei’s video recording quality on the Mate 20’s has seen a significant jump. The most glaring issues of stabilisation and lack of dynamic range (HDR recording) have been mostly fixed, and while it’s still not quite the best of the best, the end result is now no longer a big negative for the phones.
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name99 - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Please don't treat me like a child; read my comments and treat me accordingly.DDR as a rate (transactions) DOUBLE the clock was only relevant to the transition from SDR to DDR.
What do you think is the difference between DDR and DDR2, or DDDR2 and DDR3, or DDR3 and DDR4?
Part of the problem seems to be that no-one can agree on what "clock" actually refers to.
There are at least two clocks of interest - the internal DRM clock, and the external bus clock.
As far as I can tell:
- DDR doubled the transfer rate over the external bus. (External bus, internal clock the same, just like SDR). Internal clock is ~100..200MHz
- DDR2 runs the external clock at twice the internal clock.
- DDR3 runs the external clock at 4x the internal clock. (still running from ~100 to 266MHz)
- At DDR4 I'm no longer sure (which is part of the whole reason for this confusion).
The obvious assumption is that the external clock is now run at 8x the internal clock; but that does NOT seem to be the case. Rather what's defined as the internal clock is now run twice as fast, so that the internal:external multiplier is still 8x, but the internal clock speeds now range from ~200 to ~400MHz.
Meanwhile, is LPDDR following the same pattern at each generation? I haven't a clue, and can find no useful answer on the internet.
anonomouse - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I think the discussion of internal/external clock ratios is somewhat orthogonal to your originally posed question: the clock that is being advertised is the IO clock for the LPDDR4 modules, since they're telling you what the peak bandwidth of the module is. Commands are on the same clock but SDR instead of DDR and each command takes multiple cycles. Don't quite see what is so confusing about the 2133MHz clock though, since the way they are describing it is entirely accurate and is no different from previous practices. DDR4-3200 has a 1600MHz IO clock too.Also worth remembering that while pin speed is higher, individual LPDDR4 channels are 16bits vs 64bits, so it's not like the actual bandwidth is necessarily higher. This phone has 4-channels to get 34.1GB/s, which is the same bandwidth you'd get from a 2-channel DDR4-2133 system, but much more feasible to scale up capacity/channels/clocks on DDR4.
frostyfiredude - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
Look, I have no idea where you're going with all the internal clocks and DDR4, DDR3, etc differences so I'm not commenting. But, here are the facts on the Mate 20 Pro:The DRAM - Memory controller interface is clocked at 2133Mhz.
Due to being of the DDR family, 2 bits are transferred per clock.
Together, this mean 4266Mbits/s transfer rate per pin.
Finally its a 64-bit bus, meaning 64 data pins. 273024Mbits/s aggregate bandwidth.
That breaks down to 34.1GB/s.
In standard DIMM form on your favourite PC parts store, this is advertised as DDR4-4266 or PC4-34100.
ternnence - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
closer from ram to cpu core, higher frequency ram could get. HBM is another example.eastcoast_pete - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
@Andrei: thanks for this in-depth review! I wonder how S.LSI takes your pessimistic take on their M4; it seems they have a hard time backing away from their in-house design that doesn't seem to cut it. Also, I appreciate that you're live-updating the review with additional information; I trust reviews that add and update their findings as new data become available much more than the one-and-done style.Question: Did you have a chance to ask Huawei along those lines: "What is your commitment to OS updates, how quickly will you make them available, and for how many years?". Having been burned by Huawei a few years ago (promised OS update never arrived), I am still a bit once burned, twice shy. These devices are pricey, and if Huawei wants to take on Apple at Apple prices, they should mirror Apple's commitment to provide OS updates for several years.
rayhydro - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I'm using the mate 20 now, and I can confirm it has the same stereo setup as the mate20pro. maybe your unit's top tweeter is faulty ?rayhydro - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I tested both side by side in the stores, both model's stereo speakers sound pretty much the same or extremely similar to my ears. I opted for mate 20 due to it's smaller notch and headphone jack :Dlucam - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I still think Mali GPU is a garbage GPULolimaster - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
To put it simply, at the same year, they're 1 year behind.Mali G76 MP10 ~ Adreno 540 (a bit faster on the mali side, maybe)
lucam - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
Adreno is always been better. Still think Imagination has the best solution tho