Huawei Consumer Business Group today launches the Huawei Mate 20 Series in South Africa.
The phones are powered by Huawei’s densest and highest performing system on chip (SoC) to date, the Kirin 980. Manufactured with the 7nm process, incorporating the Cortex-A76-based CPU and Mali-G76 GPU, the SoC offers improved performance and, according to Huawei, “an unprecedented smooth user experience”.
The new 40W Huawei SuperCharge, 15W Huawei Wireless Quick Charge, and large batteries work in tandem to provide users with improved battery life. A Matrix Camera System includes a Leica Ultra Wide Angle Lens that lets users see both wider and closer, with a new macro distance capability. The camera system adopts a Four-Point Design that gives the device a distinct visual identity.
The Mate 20 Series is available in 6.53-inch, 6.39-inch and 7.2-inch sizes, across four devices: Huawei Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 X and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS. They ship with the customisable Android P-based EMUI 9 operating system.
“Smartphones are an important entrance to the digital world,” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, at the global launch in London last week. “The Huawei Mate 20 Series is designed to be the best ‘mate’ of consumers, accompanying and empowering them to enjoy a richer, more fulfilled life with their higher intelligence, unparalleled battery lives and powerful camera performance.”
The SoC fits 6.9 billion transistors within a die the size of a fingernail. Compared to Kirin 970, the latest chipset is equipped with a CPU that is claimed to be 75 percent more powerful, a GPU that is 46 percent more powerful and an NPU (neural processing unit) that is 226 percent more powerful. The efficiency of the components has also been elevated: the CPU is claimed to be 58 percent more efficient, the GPU 178 percent more efficient, and the NPU 182 percent more efficient. The Kirin 980 is the world’s first commercial SoC to use the Cortex-A76-based cores.
Huawei has designed a three-tier architecture that consists of two ultra-large cores, two large cores and four small cores. This allows the CPU to allocate the optimal amount of resources to heavy, medium and light tasks for greater efficiency, improving the performance of the SoC while enhancing battery life. The Kirin 980 is also the industry’s first SoC to be equipped with Dual-NPU, giving it higher On-Device AI processing capability to support AI applications.
Read more about the Mate 20 Pro’s connectivity, battery and camera on the next page.
The Mate 20 Pro is also the world’s first smartphone to support the 4.5G LTE Cat. 21 standard, allowing download speeds of up to 1.4Gbps. It also supports dual-band (L1+L5) GPS positioning technology, while an AI GPS Satellite Selection technology enhances the positioning accuracy across a wide range of scenarios.
The Mate 20 Pro houses a large, high-density 4200mAh battery, and supports 40W HUAWEI SuperCharge, which gives the device 70 percent charge in 30 minutes. The safety of the technology is certified by TÜV Rheinland.
The device also supports Wireless Reverse Charge, which enables the device to work as a power bank for selected electronic devices supporting wireless charging.
The Mate 20 X supports an ultra-large 5000mAh battery, and is equipped with a cooling system that uses a combination of graphene film and vapour chamber to deliver higher cooling performance.
The P20 Series’ camera system uses a 16mm Leica Ultra Wide Angle Lens, which Huawei says creates a sense of spaciousness and a three dimensional effect in images. It also supports macro distance, which produces crisp images of objects that are placed as close as 2.5cm from the lens. It is equipped with a 40MP main camera, a 20MP ultra wide-angle camera, and an 8MP telephoto camera. Together, the trio of lenses supports a wide range of focal lengths, which Huawei says is equivalent to the performance of a 16-270mm zoom lens.
An AI Portrait Color video mode can isolate human subjects and desaturate the colours around them to highlight the person. AI Spotlight Reel identifies clips with a shared theme and auto-generates a montage, made of highlights.
The Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 RS both support 3D Face Unlock. The solution authenticates users within 0.6 seconds at a false acceptance rate measured at below 1/1,000,000. A 3D Depth Sensing Camera System located at the front reads the facial features of a subject and recognises even small details. Besides user authentication, this suite of sensors also enables portrait beautification effects to be realised in a more natural and effective way.
The EMUI 9.0 Android skin incorporates new gesture navigation support to allow users to interact with their devices using taps and swipes. It also introduces new AI features that enable it to perform or enhance a range of tasks from object identification to food calorie counting. Using 3D Live Object Modeling, consumers can also create a fun digital avatar to dance or interact with.