Huawei Mate 30 Pro: the full Review

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We would have liked to Review the Mate 30 Pro in other conditions. Announced in September, Huawei's new smartphone contains components that are likely to make any fan of new technologies dream. Ultra-curved screen, quadruple camera module with two giant sensors, ultra-fast charging, 3D facial recognition, new Kirin 990 processor … The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has, on paper, everything to please.

Unfortunately for the Chinese brand, everything did not go as planned. Victim of political and economic tensions between the United States and China, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is severely handicapped from a software point of view. This is AOSP, the open-source version of Android found on this device … without Google services. Goodbye Play Store, goodbye YouTube and goodbye to all apps that use Google APIs. Is Huawei's hardware excellence enough to compensate for these software deficiencies? artbzen.com has tested the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, sold at a high price of 1099 euros.

A curved screen close to the work of art

You would have to be blind not to admit the beauty of the Mate 30 Pro. Over the years, Huawei has gone from being a follower to a model. Its new smartphone even pays for the luxury of introducing a new type of screen, the ultra-curved. The latter seems to plunge like a cascade to the left and right of the device and offers an unparalleled immersion. In hand, this is the first time that we really have the impression of only holding a screen. The borders have indeed disappeared.

Where evil tongues imagine that such a design can only bring constraints to use, Huawei succeeds in proving us the opposite. To our surprise, the smartphone does not allow itself to be trapped at the level of interactions with the palm of the hand. We only experienced very little support having accidentally launched apps or opened menus, during our Review of the Mate 30 Pro, proof that the Chinese company paid particular attention to this point. We had less fond memories of the P30 Pro … yet less curved.

To reach such a level of curvature, Huawei nevertheless had to make some concessions. The Mate 30 Pro does not have physical buttons for volume control. they are replaced by a touch control. You have to tap twice on an edge of the device to bring up a slider corresponding to the volume. Are we convinced? Yes and no. If this touch control works very well most of the time, it is almost unusable outdoors when it is too cold or when you wear gloves. The ability to turn the volume down from the pocket is sorely lacking, especially when it comes to wireless headphones.

Another sacrifice linked to the ultra-curved screen, the unlock button is practically on the back of the smartphone. It is almost impossible to place the Mate 30 Pro on a bicycle stand without turning it off by mistake … It is very annoying. Besides, to take a screenshot, goodbye the key combination, you now have to trust the touch screen. Just knock on the latter as if it were a door to make a capture. It works … but not every time.

OLED in line with the P30 Pro

The curved nature of the Mate 30 Pro's screen therefore won us over. Is it as technically impressive as it is aesthetically pleasing? The answer is yes. According to measurements from our laboratory, the 6.53-inch OLED screen on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is one of the best on the market. Its maximum brightness of 688 cd / m2 (we can push up to 753 cd / m2 thanks to a boost mode that activates automatically in full sun) places it at the same level as the P30 Pro released in April, a smartphone that had already impressed us. Huawei remains behind the iPhone 11 Pro (813 cd / m2) and the Galaxy S10 + (733 cd / m2).

The colors displayed by this smartphone are also very accurate, including on the curved areas. The measurements made by our laboratory reveal a Delta E by default of 3.71 and by switching the display to the "normal" mode of 2.14. Remember that the closer this value is to zero, the more the colors displayed are faithful. Again, Huawei remains behind Apple and Samsung, the two benchmarks in the market.

Last precision, the Mate 30 Pro does not have a definition screen Quad HD +. This is one of the rare regressions of this model compared to its predecessor, Huawei returns to Full HD + (2400×1176). So much the better for the battery, too bad for the most demanding customers.

Some regrets all the same

As you can see, the design of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is, in our view, one of its greatest strengths. Only its quadruple circular camera module (which we will come back to later) divides within the editorial staff of artbzen.com. We are not all followers of its large notch which, certainly, embeds a very fast 3D facial recognition system but above all occupies a lot of space. Huawei has also chosen not to include a speaker grille for calls and to use a technology for transmitting sound through the screen. It is as impressive as it is restrictive. When watching movies or listening to music, the stereo effect is preposterous and the sound seems extremely muffled. It’s not worthy of a smartphone over 1000 euros. Note that the P30 Pro already uses such a system but has a much smaller notch. We therefore apologize more easily.

Kirin 990: more powerful than the Snapdragon 855

This new Huawei Mate 30 Pro is also the first to introduce a new processor, the Kirin 990 engraved in 7 nm. If the latter is supposed to compete with the Snapdragon 865 from Qualcomm (which will land in 2020), our tests especially note that this new chip only slightly exceeds the Snapdragon 855 of 2019. We are therefore dealing with an extremely high-end chip efficient… which will soon be surpassed. Will it be annoying for users? Certainly not. The Huawei Mate 30 Pro is a racing machine and should be able to run any type of software without problems (provided they do not use Google APIs of course …)

Click here to view this graph interactively.

Under EMUI 10, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro benefits from a software interface as refined as it is efficient. Again, it's only missing Google.

One of the best autonomies on the market

In recent months, the autonomy of high-end smartphones has grown sharply. The manufacturers seem to have found a way to optimize their devices as much as possible and are no longer afraid of integrating very high capacity batteries even if it means sacrificing lightness.

With its 4,500 mAh battery, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is no exception to this rule and scores very well in the artbzen.com autonomy tests. Its versatile autonomy is 3:33, its autonomy in ehealth streaming of 12:25 while its autonomy in communication is 6:40. Note that these results would have made it the most enduring smartphone a year ago. But today, it does not even integrate our top 10. This is proof that the market has evolved.

Click here to view this graph interactively.

In terms of charging, Huawei is doing very well with its Mate 30 Pro. The 40W charger provided by the brand allows it to go from 0 to 100% autonomy in 1 hour 17 minutes, which is impressive in view of the monster capacity of its battery. In 27 minutes, we recover 50% of autonomy. The smartphone is also compatible with fast wireless charging (27 W) and reverse wireless charging to, for example, charge your smart health connected watch or headphones.

A breathtaking quadruple camera module

With its P30 Pro, Huawei has certainly signed the best photo smartphone of 2019. Logic would have wanted the Mate 30 Pro to content itself with recovering the same sensors but the Chinese brand has decided otherwise. Indeed, his new smartphone has only one goal in common with the smartphone released in April.

On the back of the Mate 30 Pro, there is therefore the giant 1 / 1.7 inch sensor of the P30 Pro (40 Mpix). This 27mm equivalent module has RJJB technology from the Chinese brand, an evolution of the bayer matrix designed to improve the quality of photos in low light. And like the Huawei P30 Pro, the Mate 30 Pro is incredible in the night shot. It is able to see in total darkness, which no other smartphone can do (the night modes of Google and Apple approach it but stay behind). Note, however, that at night, the colors are less faithful to reality (this is often due to errors in the white balance). This will not bother the average user, but we must recognize that Google and Apple have better algorithms on this point.

Also by day, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is very good. It easily competes with the best such as the Pixel 4, the iPhone 11 Pro or the Galaxy S10.

The second module of the Mate 30 Pro is for the original blow, it is a giant 1 / 1.54 inch sensor dedicated to … ehealth. It is also used to take ultra wide-angle photos (40 Mpix) since it is an 18 millimeter equivalent.

If Huawei presents this lens as that dedicated to ehealth (we can actually also use the main module), it is because it allows its smartphone to acquire new capacities. We can film in 4K at 60 frames per second up to ISO 52,000 and slow down at 7680 frames per second (compared to 960 on a smartphone like the Galaxy S10). If all this is enough to impress, the reality is a little more disappointing. You really have to be in optimal conditions to slow the picture down as much. It takes a lot of light and triggers recording at the right time (to the nearest second) and the night ehealth is not as exceptional as we would have hoped. In addition, we encountered focusing problems during some ehealth recordings. The smartphone often confuses the background and the subject. In short, there are things to improve. We welcome all the same the incredible optical stabilization.

Click here to watch a ehealth taken with the Mate 30 Pro.

The third module of the Mate 30 Pro is for once a disappointment (we must leave the P30 Pro an advantage), it is an 8 Mpix sensor with an equivalent 80 mm lens (for an optical zoom x3). Its quality is good but we would have hoped to find the x5 zoom of the excellent P30 Pro.

Finally, the latest camera in the Mate 30 Pro is not one. It is a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor for depth measurement.

In the coming days, we will offer you a detailed photo Review of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. If our first tests praise its versatility, we think the P30 Pro is a better deal today. Its x5 zoom makes it more complete.

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