Huawei unveils Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro — no Android Apps
Amid a trade war between the US and China
and the resulting uncertainty of continued use of the Android platform, Huawei
unveiled the Mate 30 and the Mate 30 Pro smartphones.
The Mate 30 Pro has impressive hardware and an interesting take on how people will interact with the device.
Huawei has been quite innovative in the
smartphone camera arena and the Mate 30 Pro continues this tradition. It is
armed with a Leica-branded camera system, that includes two 40MP cameras, a Time
of Flight (ToF) sensor, and an 8MP telephoto camera housed in what Huawei calls
the Halo Ring design.
One of the 40MP pair is an ultra-wide Cine
lens while the other is called a SuperSensing wide camera. The telephoto camera
enables 3x optical zoom. Both the SuperSensing and telephoto cameras have OIS. There’s
4K 60fps video capture along with excellent night mode photography and video
modes. When it’s dark, the phone can ramp up to 52,000 ISO for video and a
whopping 409600 ISO for photos. In addition, the phone can shoot slow-motion
video at an amazing 7,680 fps. It doesn’t stop there. 4K time-lapse with HDR+
is also included in this stellar camera package.
The Mate 30 Pro’s display is an all-new 6.53”, OLED screen that curves over the side of the device at 88°. Huawei is calling it “Horizon Display”. The display has a smaller notch compared to the previous model that houses a 3D scanning sensor, along with a sensor to recognise hand gestures.
The Mate 30 has a flat, 6.62” display
designed to reduce the amount of blue light users are exposed to from the
screen. Its triple camera Leica-branded setup boasts a 16MP ultra-wide, 40MP SuperSensing wide and an 8MP telephoto
camera but has a laser focus sensor instead of a ToF, all housed in the same
Halo Ring design.
The Kirin 990 chipset powers the duo. It uses 7nm processors to deliver up to a 23% performance increase over the previous generation. The new processor promises reduced latency and improved battery life even with the large displays. Speaking of batteries, the Mate 30 Pro has a 4500 milliampere-hour (mAh) battery while the Mate 30 has 4200 mAh cell.
Those batteries will charge rapidly with
the 40W wired and 27W wireless charging options.
The Mate 30 Pro is IP68 dust and water-resistant, while the Mate 30 comes with an IP53 splash resistant rating.
Both phones run EMUI 10 which is based on Android 10. It features a dark mode and gesture navigation. However, there are no Google apps or services included.
To overcome the loss of the Google ecosystem, the company will ship its devices with the “Huawei App Gallery” and come with “Huawei Mobile Services” instead of Google’s offerings.
The phones are available in green, silver, black and purple and there are two vegan leather options in green and orange.
The Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro will sell for €800 and €1100 respectively.
— Written by Renor C.
