Huawei Announces 4 Mate 20 Phones
Huawei has already launched one flagship phone this year, but it’s closing out 2018 with another. The long-rumored Mate 20 family is official, consisting of four devices: the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 RS, and Mate 20 X. No one will ever accuse Huawei of launching too few phones. However, none of these new phones are destined for the US.
All four of the new Mate 20 phones include similar internal hardware with the new Kirin 980 ARM chip and 128GB of storage. Some of the specifics like RAM and water resistance ratings vary between devices, though. The Mate 20 is the base model phone in the series — it’s only IP53 rated for water and dust and starts at 4GB of RAM with a 6GB upgrade. This phone has a 6.53-inch 1080p OLED with a tiny “waterdrop” notch at the top for the front-facing camera. On the back, it has a triple camera array with 16 (normal), 12 (wide), and 8MP (telephoto) sensors. This phone starts at €799.
The Mate 20 Pro is probably the “real” flagship phone this time around. It has all of Huawei’s latest technology, and a price tag consumers can swallow. It has the Kirin 980, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and IP68 certification. The 6.39-inch 1440p OLED has a larger display notch on the front, but there’s a good reason this time: the Mate 20 Pro has 3D face recognition technology similar to the iPhone. There’s also a fingerprint sensor inside the display. The cameras on the back are upgraded to 40 (normal), 20 (wide), and 8MP (telephoto). This phone starts at €899.
Huawei’s Mate 20 RS (or Porsche Design Mate 20 RS if you want to get technical) is like the Mate 20 Pro but with a few design tweaks. It has a curved OLED along with 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. It’s also much more expensive, starting at €1,695.
The Mate 20 X (above) is probably the weirdest of the bunch thanks to its humongous 7.2-inch 1080p OLED display. It’s basically a small tablet that makes phone calls. It has a smaller waterdrop notch and almost no bezels. It has the same internal specs and cameras as the Mate 20 Pro, but the battery is larger at 5,000mAh. The price is the same as the Mate 20 Pro, €899.
Huawei is the second largest smartphone maker in the world by some measurements, but its attempt to expand into the US in early 2018 fell apart when members of Congress put pressure on AT&T and Verizon to cancel the Mate 10 Pro. Huawei seems to have the hint and does not plan to launch the Mate 20 series in the US at this time.
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