The Huawei Mate 20 Pro could be the most premium smartphone the firm has ever launched.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro launch date is tomorrow, October 16, and we’ll be reporting live from the London event.
While nothing is officially confirmed yet, there has been a huge amount of Huawei Mate 20 Pro leaks which suggest the specs will include a triple camera offering on its rear and an in-display fingerprint scanner on the front.
It means the Huawei Mate 20 Pro may be the firm’s most premium mainstream smartphone ever, and that in itself is exciting.
Update: The Huawei Mate 20 Pro launch is October 16 — that’s tomorrow — and we’ll have all the latest on the new handset right here.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is set to show up alongside the Huawei Mate 20, which is rumored to be a slightly less premium version of the handset — similar in a way to the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro, with the latter boasting the more impressive spec list.
Here’s everything we know so far — and it’s a lot.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro launch date is October 16, which — if you haven’t been paying attention — is tomorrow!
What we don’t know yet though is the Huawei Mate 20 Pro release date. We’d expect Huawei to get the Mate 20 Pro into hands in the following weeks.
It won’t want to wait too long to get the Mate 20 Pro out to consumers either, with the Google Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, LG V40, Razer Phone 2 and OnePlus 6T all arriving around the same time.
In the past Huawei has started selling its new Mate range in November — including the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro — which may mean you have a little longer to wait before you’re able to pick one up.
If you’re in the US we wouldn’t count on being able to buy the Mate 20 Pro, as Huawei’s recent handsets haven’t hit the States.
According to one source the Huawei Mate 20 Pro could cost roughly $1,050-$1,110 / £810-£850 / AU$1,500-AU$1,570, which would be a lot, but that’s based on a conversion from Swiss Francs, so probably isn’t totally accurate.
Another source has suggested it will cost at least (and we should emphasize the ‘at least’ bit) 850 euros (roughly $980 / £750 / AU$1,380), so perhaps a little less, but not much. In other words, this is sure to be an expensive phone.
One of the most exciting Huawei Mate 20 Pro leaks is the one suggesting the handset will feature an in-display fingerprint scanner.
From an early rumor suggesting the standard Mate 20 with have an in-display fingerprint scanner, to leaked firmware details published by XDA Developers and more recent renders showing no sign of an off-screen scanner — it’s almost nailed on to be offered on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.
Indeed, we’ve even now seen an image seemingly showing the scanner component itself.
Industry sources claim the phone will use a Qualcomm ultrasonic scanner, which can work when greasy or wet. It’s a believable claim too, given that the super-premium Huawei Mate RS Porsche Design has an in-screen scanner.
The claim of an in-screen scanner has also been spotted in images of the front panel, showing off a curvy design and a large notch which apparently houses a 3D-sensing camera for facial recognition.
We’ve since seen another set of images reportedly showing the front of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and they match up with the ones above, as well as giving us a look at the settings screen, which suggests the phone will have 128GB of storage.
Of course, there may be other sizes available as well. The images (which you can see below), also show that the phone has NFC — though we’d be surprised if it didn’t.
We’ve also heard that the Huawei Mate 20 Pro might have a 6.9-inch OLED screen, as the company is apparently in the process of sampling screens of that size from Samsung Display, for use in a smartphone. That could make the Huawei Mate 20 Pro the biggest mainstream phone yet.
We’ve seen the 6.9-inch screen rumor surface for a second time after code relating to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro was found on firm’s own website, which also revealed the Mate 20 Pro would come with a QHD+ resolution.
We’ve also seen some more leaked images claiming to show what appears to be the front panel of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.
The panel seems to feature Samsung Galaxy Note 9 -style curved edges and a more distinct iPhone XS -inspired notch that will reportedly house a 3D facial scanner, matching the leaked images above.
We’re expecting the Huawei Mate 20 Pro to have a glass back — which should allow for wireless charging — but apart from that we don’t know much about the size, materials or colors Huawei will choose.
One odd feature that’s turned up in an image is an unidentified detail on the bottom bezel of the phone. You can see this below. It doesn’t appear to be a button or logo, but could it be a front-facing speaker? We’re not sure right now.
Of course, we’d take the image itself with a pinch of salt, especially given the stretched out look of the phone in it, but it comes from a fairly reliable source and could just be an issue of perspective.
More recently we’ve seen the leaked pictures below, claiming to be the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. You can see the rear camera setup and the wider notch on top.
Here the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is enclosed in a case, but the leaks seem genuine enough, and it seems to match an even more recent image leak which shows the front and rear of the handset in three colors.
Those colors include the Twilight shade that we first saw on the P20 range, which shifts from blue to purple. It’s a color that has popped up again in another leak, so it’s likely making a return.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro will pack the new Kirin 980 chipset. Huawei has confirmed this in a press release, announcing the Kirin 980 will be the world’s first 7nm silicon and boast an octa-core setup.
Huawei claims that the Kirin 980 chip will deliver 20% better performance and 40% better battery efficiency over its predecessor (in the P20, P20 Pro, Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro).
That chipset could be very powerful if an early benchmark is to be believed. The multi-core score of 10,318 is higher than any Android handset, though lower than the iPhone XS.
The benchmark also points to 6GB of RAM, though a TENAA (a certification body) listing for the phone suggests it could come in both 6GB and 8GB versions, with up to 512GB of storage.
It’s also expected the Huawei Mate 20 Pro will launch with Android Pie — the latest version of Google’s operating system — after it was certified by the Eurasian Economic Commission, with the listing mentioning Android 9 Pie.
But even without that evidence we’d expect them to run it as it’s out now and a flagship is unlikely to use old software. That said, the phones will probably have Emotion UI 9.0 on top — an overlay which is designed specifically by Huawei for its devices.
One of the main focuses for the Mate series is long battery life, and we fully expect the Huawei Mate 20 Pro to follow this trend.
According to the firmware files found by FunkyHuawei, the Mate 20 will come with a 4,200mAh battery, and we’d expect the same (if not bigger) inside the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.
