The faster draw in the East

WITH THE highest-performing chipset currently available on the market, the new flagship smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Huawei – the Mate 20 Pro – offers everything you want in a personal device and a whole lot more. 
Its impressive performance comes from Huawei’s Kirin 980. Manufactured with the advanced 7nm process, it offers improved performance and an unprecedented smooth user experience.
The Kirin 980 has two Cortex A76 cores running at 2.6GHz, two Cortex A76 at 1.92 GHz and four Cortex A55 running at 1.8 GHz. And the new chipset also uses the ultra fast Mali-G76 MP10 graphic processing unit (GPU).

Compared to the Kirin 970 used in previous Huawei smartphones, the Kirin 980 has 75-per-cent better CPU performance, 58-per-cent better CPU power efficiency, 46-per-cent better GPU performance and 178-per-cent better GPU power efficiency.
Apart from the eight main cores, the Kirin 980 comes with a dual Neural Network Processing Unit (NPU). This new dual-core NPU can achieve 4,500 images per minute, which is an improvement of 120 per cent in the recognition speed. As a result, the Kirin 980 helps the Mate 20 Pro to quickly adapt to AI scenes such as face and object recognition, object detection, image segmentation and intelligent translation. The powerful object detection capabilities can also accurately identify a variety of objects. In comparison to the Kirin 970, the Kirin 980 is an impressive leap from image recognition to object detection, resulting in better performance of the Mate 20 Pro’s camera.
The Kirin 980 also has very fast Internet connection as it supports 1.4Gbps LTE Cat 21.
Mate 20 Pro has 6 gigabytes of working memory and 128 GB of internal storage. The phone uses a nano memory card, which is 45-per-cent smaller than a microSD card and shares a slot with a nano SIM card.
The smartphone runs on the latest Android operating system or Android 9.0 with Huawei’s EMUI 9.0 user-interface on top of it.
During the test, I was impressed by the speed of the Mate 20 Pro. Touch screen and menus were very responsive. Graphics games and HD videos ran fast and smoothly.
I used AnTuTu Benchmark V7.1.1 to measure the performance of the smartphone and it got an impressive score of 251,815 points.
I further tested Mate 20 Pro on TrueMove H’s LTE network and the connection speed was very fast. Apps were downloaded swiftly and my snapshots were backed up to my Google Photos cloud storage in no time.
I used Ookla Speedtest app to measure the connection speed and it reported an impressive download speed of 125 Mbps and upload speed of 38.1 Mbps.

Mate 20 Pro looks sleek with 3D glass covering both its front and back and smooth curves on both sides. Best of all, the special glass texture at the back is non-slippery and anti-fingerprint. 
And its 6.39-inch OLED display blends beautifully into the 3D-glass design and curved look. The display is bright and sharp with high resolution of 3120x1440 pixels.
During the test, I enjoyed watching Full HD movies from the TrueID TV and iflix apps, appreciating the vibrant colours and the sharp pictures.
On the negative side, Mate 20 Pro no longer provides a standard 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting to wired headphones though the phone does come with a USB-C-to-3.5mm jack. If you have Bluetooth headphones that support the high-resolution LDAC or aptX HD streaming protocol, you won’t need the adapter.
I tested Mate 20 Pro’s music playback with Sony’s MDR-1ABT headphones that support LDAC streaming and was pleased to find the music quality excellent with good music details and powerful bass.
The triple rear-camera system of Mate 20 Pro co-developed with Leica is also great and comes with Leica lens.
The triple camera is made up of a 40-megapixel sensor with 27mm f/1.8 lens camera, a 20MP sensor with 16mm ultra wide lens with f/2.2 aperture and an 8MP sensor camera with 80mm or 3x telephoto camera with f/2.4 aperture.
The design is very good, allowing the camera to be used in all shooting ranges from macro to telephotography and making the Mate 20 Pro such a handy travel mate that you can leave your camera at home. 
To cycle among the three cameras, you tap the zoom icon on the viewfinder screen. The default zoom is 1x, which is the 27mm equivalent normal zoom camera. Once you tap it, it changes to 3x for the 80mm or 3x zoom. The next choice is 5x, which is the 3x optical zoom plus 2x digital zoom. The last is 0.6x, which is the 16mm equivalent ultra wide camera.

I found during the test that 40MP resolution is available only for Photo, which is the AI auto-exposure mode, and Pro mode. Other modes, including Portrait, Aperture, and Night, restrict the highest resolution to 10MP.
The AI-driven Photo mode was really effective in helping me capture beautiful shots in most environments. Huawei says Mate 20 Pro’s AI can recognise more than 1,500 scenarios and 25 categories. The AI-powered Photo mode can now segment different objects and scenes in one photo and adjust colours, brightness, and contrast accordingly.
For example, during my test at Kenny G’s Jazz Night at the Ancient City in Samut Prakan, the Photo mode recognised that it was a stage performance and captured the beautiful lights of the concert.
The Photo mode also switched to Macro photography automatically when I took shots of objects at close range.
And the 16mm ultra wide lens was really good for capturing beautiful scenery. 
The Night mode is good for capturing the lights and colours of the night but you will need a tripod or something to keep your hand steady as the camera may expose the sensor for lights by up to six seconds, depending on the light environment.
And of course, you can use Aperture and Portrait modes to make your subjects look even more outstanding with a blurred background.
The Portrait mode not blurs the background but also provide three types of effects to further enhance the shots. If there is a light source in the background, you can use the Blurred effect to make that light source look stunning. You can choose to have the lights appear as circles, in heart shape, swirls or like discs. You can also set the level of beautification effect for your subject.
To add even more fun, you can select one of six Stage effects from no lighting to Photo booth, Stained glass, Folding blinds, Pop and Stage lighting.

If you are an advanced photographer, you will like the Pro mode that allows you to take control of the camera by adjusting several shooting parameters, including metering mode, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and exposure compensation.
The camera’s AI also helps you capture stunning video clips. Best of all, the AI video editor can identify faces and create separate video highlights for each person.
Opt for the classic 21:9 movie ratio and the record can be made with real-time HDR to make the clips clear. You can also adjust a range of filters like Fresh, Vintage, Background Blur and Suspense in real time while shooting. The AI Portrait Colour will detect the people and grey out the background for you.
Mate 20 Pro also captures beautiful selfies with 24MP f/2l0 camera with 3D Depth-Sensing technology.
Mate 20 Pro comes with biometric technology to make your phone safe. You can unlock Mate 20 Pro with the Face Unlock function that uses 3D Depth Sensing Camera to project over 30,000 points of your face. The technology allows Huawei Mate 20 Pro to recognise your face easily and unlock the phone swiftly. Your face ID can also be used to securely access your folders.
To scan your face ID, Mate 20 Pro will guide you to turn your face left and right and up and down.
During the test, I found the 3D Face Unlock was really fast for unlocking the phone.
You can also opt to use the fingerprint reader, which is embedded on the screen, to unlock the phone. It uses dynamic pressure sensing technology to quickly read your thumbprint.
Mate 20 Pro comes with a large battery of 4,200 mAh capacity with smart AI power management that allowed me to survive a day easily.
And the package comes with a 40-watts Huawei SuperCharge charger with TUV Safe Fast-Charge System Certification. That recharges Mate 20 Pro to 70 per cent capacity in just 30 minutes.
Moreover, the phone comes with Wireless Reverse Charging technology that allows you to recharge your friend’s Mate 20 Pro by touching their backs. You simply first enable wireless reverse charging on your Mate 20 Pro in the phone’s setting.
And the features don’t stop there. The Mate 20 Pro also offers precise GPS technology by using L1&L5 dual frequency simultaneously.
And Mate 20 Pro conforms to IP68-rated water and dust resistance so you can use it without worrying about spills and splashes.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro is available in black and emerald green and costs Bt31,990.
 

Network: GSM, UMTS, LTE (Cat.21)
>> OS: Android 9.0 with EMUI 9.0 user-interface
>. CPU: HUAWEI Kirin 980 cta-core CPU (2 x Cortex A76 2.6 GHz + 2 x Cortex A76 1.92 GHz + 4 x Cortex-A55 1.8 GHz) plus dual NPU
>> GPU: Mali-G76 MP10 
>> Memory: 6GB RAM
>> Storage: 128GB expandable with Nano Memory card
>> Display: 6.39-inch OLED2K (3120 x 1440 pixels)
>> Cameras: Front: 24 MP, f/2.0 with 3D Depth Sensing Camera; Rear camera 1: Leica 40MP ?(Wide Angle Lens 27mm, f/1.8); Rear camera 2: Leica 20MP (Ultra Wide Angle Lens 16mm, f/2.2); Rear camera 3: Leica 8MP (3x Telephoto 80mm, f/2.4)
>> Connectivity: 802.11 a/b/c/g/n/ac; Bluetooth 5.0; USB Type-C 3.1 Gen1
>> Battery: 4,200 mAh, Super Charge (Max 40W)
>> Dimensions: 157.8 mm x 72.3 mm x 8.6mm (H x W x D)
>> Weight: 189g