Huawei Mate 20 review: The solid brother of the Mate 20 Pro?

A few weeks ago I had this for you here in the blog Huawei Mate 20 Pro tested. I was also able to test the cheaper version - the Mate 20 - for a while. You can read how it performed in everyday life in the following review.

The Mate 20 is one of the five smartphones in the Mate series, which Huawei introduced last year Has. Next to the Mate 20 there is still that Mate 20 Lite (Test follows), Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20X and Mate 20 RS (Porsche Design). With its price, the Mate 20 is clearly in the middle class. Yet it's actually a lot worse than that Pro-Brothers? After all, it costs 200 euros less. We check that in the following test.

Smartphone unpacked

The packaging and accessories of the Mate 20 are identical to those of the Pro-Model. Lid open: the smartphone – protected with foil at the front and back – comes straight towards you. The basic equipment consists of a power supply unit, charger and SIM needle. Unlike the Mate 20 Pro Instead of USB-C headphones and a USB-C jack adapter, there are "only" classic jack headphones. The Mate 20's jack is on the top. There is also a thick quick start guide in all possible languages, as well as a guarantee card.

Processing and display checked

Even with the Mate 20, I have nothing to complain about in terms of workmanship. However, I like the design - after a previous comparison with the Pro-Model – not so good. It just feels chunky in the hand. This is probably due to the lack of rounded corners and the slightly larger 6,5-inch display and dimensions. So you need two hands to operate the Mate 20, with the Mate 20 Pro one hand was enough. However, Huawei has the notch better hereProproblem solved. So it is only as big as the front camera itself. The sensors for the 3D face recognition had to give way for this. We have how to hide the notch in this guide already shown.

The display is sufficiently sharp with its resolution of 2244 x 1080 pixels – in 18,7:9 format. Instead of an OLED panel on the Mate 20 Pro the slimmed-down variant is content with an IPS LC display. Due to this downgrade, the lack of contrasts - in a direct comparison - are noticeable, but the price hit is a lot brighter. On the back you will find the fingerprint sensor, which is used in the Mate 20 Pro however, sits in the display. However, the sensor of the Mate 20 seems a lot faster to me.

Looked under the hood

The Mate 20 doesn't cut corners when it comes to performance. This means that even the cheaper model can count on the latest in-house model Kirin 980 Octa CoreProprocessor. So you don't notice any difference at all in everyday life with the 200 euro price difference. Only the RAM in the Mate 20 is only four gigabytes instead of six gigabytes. For files, pictures and music stand as in Pro-Model 128 GB of internal memory available. However, the memory can be expanded up to 256 GB – with Huawei's new nano SD card. But then you have to do without the dual SIM function. A few more benchmarks for performance comparison:

• Geekbench 4 single-core: 3312 points
• Geekbench 4 Multi-Core: 9718 points
• Antutu 7: 262.189 points

In terms of gaming, the Mate 20 is no worse than its brother. The smartphone never really gets warm, even under constant load. In addition, there is also multitasking – as with the Mate 20 Pro - nothing to complain about.

A closer look at the lenses

The well-known Leica lens combo on the back of the Mate 20. (Image: © 2019 TechnikNews)

On the back we find the familiar camera square of the Mate series. Here are three lenses (RGB wide angle: 12 megapixels, f / 1.8; ultra wide angle: 16 megapixels, f / 2.2; telephoto lens (2x zoom, 8 megapixels, f / 2.4) plus flash Megapixels and comes with an f / 24 aperture. Thus, the cheaper model has been equipped with slightly poorer lenses, which you can also see in everyday photos in a direct comparison. Nevertheless, you don't have to hide from the pictures of the Mate 2.0 to share with others: here you get very good results again, even at night.

Battery tested

The Mate 4000's 20 mAh battery easily lasts a day with normal use. However, if you leave out social media, permanently WLAN, Bluetooth and GPS, you can easily manage two days without a charger. With the fast charger, the battery of the Mate 20 was fully charged in one hour. With the price difference of 200 euros, however, you do without wireless charging. Wouldn't be for me personally though Prostated problems.

Conclusion given

The Mate 20 is not just the Mate 20 Pro – even if it looks pretty similar to the more expensive model on the data sheet. For a price saving of 200 euros, you make deductions for the camera, you have to make do with a smaller battery and you have to do without functions such as wireless charging and a fingerprint sensor in the display. Nevertheless, the Mate 20 also has stereo speakers, and there is also a jack connection. In return, features such as water resistance are then dispensed with again – the Mate 20 is only splash-proof with IP53 certification. Although the Mate 20 does not have rounded edges and therefore looks a bit bulkier, I like the smaller notch.

So you can save the 200 euros and proeasily reach for the Mate 20 if you want a large smartphone. Otherwise that would be it P20 Pro interesting.

Buy Huawei Mate 20

• Buy the Huawei Mate 20 on Amazon
• More information about the Huawei Mate 20 at Huawei (DE | AT)

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