Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Check “Mate”, Samsung

Ever since its global announcement, Huawei’s Mate 20 Series has been in the news for all the right reasons. Successors to last year’s Mate 10 Series, the Mate 20 lineup consists of three devices – the Mate 20, the Mate 20 Pro, and the Mate 20 X. Only the Mate 20 Pro, however, has officially made it to India. Huawei has traditionally refrained from launching its flagship Mate series devices in India and have instead concentrated more on the mid-range and upper mid-range offerings for our price-sensitive nation. That approach, however, seems to have changed in 2018 after the company launched the Huawei P20 Pro (Review) in India. While this handset was not the first P Series handset to have launched in India, what stood out with this phone was its INR 64,990 price tag, which made it compete with other flagship devices of the time.

Although the Huawei P20 Pro had one of the best camera setups of all time, there were a few rough edges when it came to its overall appeal as a flagship-class device. This included the overall lack of polish of EMUI and the fact that the video capability of the handset lagged behind that of other flagships. With the Mate 20 Pro – which as I mentioned earlier – is the only variant among the new Mate 20 Series to make it to India – Huawei has attempted at ironing out some of those issues. Apart from featuring an improved version of EMUI, the phone also boasts of several innovative video-centric features. But, does it have what it takes to challenge the biggies such as Apple and Samsung?

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Huawei Mate 20 Pro: What’s Inside The Box

As the case is with most modern smartphones, the box that the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is very unassuming to look. Thankfully, the company includes almost everything you need to start using the phone right from day one. The contents of the Mate 20 Pro box are:

1. Huawei Mate 20 Pro
2. USB Type-C Cable
3. Huawei SuperCharger
4. SIM Ejector Tool
5. Transparent Plastic Case
6. Documentation/Quick Start Guide
7. Huawei Earphones

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Design, Build Quality and Looks

As far as the aesthetics are concerned, the Mate 20 Pro improves a lot over its predecessors. Thanks to the curved glass treatment at the front, the phone closely resembles the Galaxy S9 twins – especially with the notch turned off. As the case is with most premium handsets on sale today, the Mate 20 Pro gets a glass-clad rear panel. Holding the front and rear glass panels is a sturdy metal frame at the center. Even though Huawei claims that the curved panel at the front is toughened glass, it is susceptible to cracking when subjected to undue stress as JerryRigEverything’s video showed.

The Gorilla Glass layer at the front, however, was very capable and I was able to keep the handset scratch-free for almost an entire month of use as my primary smartphone. This was quite surprising, especially for a guy like me who treats his smartphones with utter carelessness. At this juncture, I should also talk about the in-display fingerprint scanner that the Mate 20 Pro gets. This is the first device from Huawei to feature this technology, and the company has done an excellent job of making it reasonably fast. While it is a few milliseconds slower than your traditional fingerprint scanners, only the most demanding of users (your’s truly, for example) will complain about it being ‘slow.’ What bothered me more, however, was that the in-screen fingerprint scanner was also not accurate 100% of the time.

the mate 20 pro is the best-looking smartphone huawei has ever made

The rear panel of the Twilight color variant that I received features the same gradient color scheme that we have seen on other Huawei/Honor devices. My favorite color option, however, is the Emerald Green version with a textured rear panel that improves the overall grip. Staying with the rear panel, it is here that you will find the triple camera accompanied by an LED flash housed inside an interesting little ‘module.’ It did take me a while to get to used to this unconventional camera setup. In fact, do not be surprised if people stop by and ask questions about the camera once they see this unique camera layout.

Other design highlights include the lack of a speaker grille at the bottom and the stylish red-colored power button on the right side. The SIM tray and the memory card slot are both housed inside a single tray that can be accessed from the bottom. Huawei, for reasons best known to them, decided to use the lesser-known Nano-Memory card format on the Mate 20 Pro. The issue with the NM card is that no one actually sells the card as yet. The least Huawei could have done here was to actually ship an NM card with the handset or sell it themselves as an optional add-on. That said, you can still use the second slot as a regular SIM card slot to use the handset in dual-SIM mode.

Like the P20 Pro, the Mate 20 Pro also boasts of stereo speaker setup. However, the bottom-firing speakers are housed behind the Type-C port. The issue with this arrangement, however, is that the sound is muffled from the speakers when you charge the handset. And now that we are talking about the ports note that like the P20 Pro, this handset also lacks a 3.5mm jack. Thankfully, unlike Apple, Huawei ships a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box. Another thing that you get inside the box is a decent rubber case. The Mate 20 Pro is perhaps the only flagship handset that still gets an IR Blaster.

In my opinion, the Mate 20 Pro is by far the best-looking handset that Huawei has ever made. Even the beautiful P20 Pro looks somewhat ordinary when placed alongside its newer cousin. Adding to the Mate 20 Pro’s appeal is the fact that it is IP68 certified for water and dust resistance. Huawei also showcased an interesting underwater case for the handset that is yet to be officially released in India.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro: Display

The Mate 20 Pro gets a large curved 6.39-inch AMOLED display with a prominent notch at the top. With a resolution of 3120 x 1440 pixels, and a tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio, this is the sharpest display that Huawei has ever shipped. The AMOLED panel is among the better ones I have seen on a smartphone and is sharper than the P20 Pro’s display. Being a flagship, the display on the Mate supports both – the DCI-P3 and sRGB color spaces along with HDR10. Unlike the P20 Pro that shipped with a Samsung AMOLED panel, the Mate 20 Pro primarily uses panels made by Chinese vendor BOE. Some models of the phone also use Pro panels made by LG.

The Mate 20 Pro gives the user an option to switch between two color models – Normal and Vivid. Within these two options, you can choose to use the phone in three modes – Default, Warm, and Cold. By default, the display is set to Vivid mode. In case you are the kind who prefers the typical saturation of AMOLED panels, this is the setting you will prefer using the phone most of the time. Switching to the ‘Normal’ mode immediately results in muted colors which most of the “aam junta” would not prefer. For those of you finicky about their displays, you have the option to play around with the color wheel for some rudimentary calibration options.

Even though the panel has a maximum resolution of 3120 x 1440 pixels, Huawei does give you the option of switching to lower resolutions for better battery life. The other two screen resolution options are HD+ (1560 x 720 pixels), and HD+ (2340 X 1080). You also get the option to let the phone automatically choose the resolution. For the most part, I used the phone in the HD+ resolution. In all the display modes, the AMOLED panel offers good viewing angles and offers excellent visibility even in direct sunlight.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Camera Hardware

Like the P20 Pro, the Mate 20 Pro gets a formidable triple camera setup at the rear. Things, however, are not the same. While the primary 40-megapixel camera and the 8-megapixel telephoto camera were lifted straight from the P20 Pro, the third monochrome camera wasn’t. Instead, the Mate 20 Pro gets all-new 16mm, f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens mated to a 20-megapixel sensor. This ultra-wide-angle camera also enhances the macro capabilities of the phone and quickly locks focus on objects that are just 2.5cms away from the lens. The combination of these three cameras gives the Mate 20 Pro an effective range of 16mm to 81mm (multi-camera zoom) – which for a phone, is incredible. If you also count the Mate 20 Pro’s hybrid zoom capabilities, the effective zoom range spans an amazing 16-270mm!

To talk about the camera hardware of the Mate 20 Pro warrants a dedicated article and would actually make me digress from this review. For the same reason, I will now get into the other aspects of the camera – including some of the feature additions you will see on the Mate 20 Pro compared to the P20 Pro. And lest I forget, the handset also bundles a 20-megapixel front-facing camera which usually had a difficult time playing catch up against its more illustrious brethren located at the rear.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Camera UI and Features

Upon first glance, the camera UI on the Mate 20 Pro looks almost identical to the one you have seen on the Mate 20 Pro. There are subtle differences, though, if you look closely. The UI is intuitive and easy to use and defaults to the normal “Photo” mode when you open it for the first time.

In this mode, you can switch between various zoom modes with the simple click of an on-screen button. By default, the phone is in the 1X zoom mode. Clicking the 1x button will take you to the 3X mode and subsequently to the 5X mode – which is when the phone switches to the Hybrid Zoom mode. One more click to the zoom button will invoke the ultra-wide-angle lens (marked as 0.6X). These fixed zoom points apart, you can simply swipe along the zoom indicator to choose any intermediate point along the zoom range (3.7X, for example).

In the photo mode, the phone defaults to the primary 40-megapixel sensor for image capture, but will not necessarily capture a 40-megapixel image. This is because you can use the 40-megapixel sensor to capture smaller 4:3 10-megapixel photos (along with 1:1 7-megapixel and 18:9 6-megapixel shots). Because the Mate 20 Pro’s sensor borrows the Quad Bayer filter technology from the P20 Pro, it is advisable that you switch to the lower resolution option to make use of the built-in HDR capabilities of the sensor.

Within the primary ‘Photo’ menu, you can choose between ‘Standard,’ ‘Vivid,’ and ‘Smooth’ color modes. The side panel also gives you the option to toggle the ‘Moving Image’ mode. There is also a quick access button to access Huawei’s AI-based Hi-Vision settings

Video Mode

Once you swipe to the video mode, you can choose to capture videos in several resolution + frame rate modes with the highest setting being 4K (30fps). You also get two FHD+ modes (18:9 and 21:9 aspect ratios) and two FHD modes (1080p60 and 1080p30 in 16:9 aspect ratio). You can turn the beauty mode on in the video settings. This, however, restricts the video capture to 720p.

Perhaps the most interesting video options are hidden within the ‘magic wand’ menu. Clicking this menu option will let you choose between various filters that you can apply to your videos in real-time. The feature that impressed me the most was the ‘AI Colour’ mode that recognizes people in the frame and keeps just them in color while the rest of the video is in monochrome. This mode is best used when you have only one or two people in the frame. There is a dedicated background blur mode as well, which I did not like that much. In fact, you will get better (and more realistic) background blur using the dedicated aperture mode that also happens to be a separate camera menu. The only drawback here is that the video quality will be restricted to 720p in this case which is not really a bad trade-off. The other three options within the magic wand menu are ‘Vintage,’ ‘Suspense,’ and ‘Fresh.’

Another impressive feature of the Mate 20 Pro’s video mode is the lens switching in the midst of a video. This option is available even in the 4K mode. This feature allows you to start a video using the ultra-wide-angle lens and then zoom in to 3X or 10x in the same video. The only area where this feature needs improvement is the abruptness felt when switching the lenses. Then again, it is still very impressive for what is essentially in its first generation.

THE MATE 20 PRO MIGHT NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO RECORD 4K 60 VIDEOS, BUT MORE THAN MAKES UP FOR THIS OMISSION WITH OTHER VIDEO FEATURES

It is worth noting that the Mate 20 Pro captures excellent slow-motion videos. Another neat aspect of the slow-motion mode is that you have the entire zoom range at your disposal in the 120fps and 240fps modes even after you hit the record button. One thing I did not understand, however, is the rationale behind capturing audio in slow motion mode. It sounds weird and is best done away with in my opinion. In the 960fps mode, please make sure that you turn the ‘Auto’ mode off which forces the camera to capture videos irrespective of what you have in the frame. If the auto mode is turned on, the camera ‘looks’ for motion and does not record anything until the camera detects some movement.

Camera Modes

Apart from the standard ‘Photo’ and ‘Video’ modes, the other camera modes on the Mate 20 Pro include the following.

Aperture Mode: In the aperture mode, you can manually choose the aperture before and after capturing an image or video.

Night Mode: Huawei carries forward its excellent night mode on the Mate 20 Pro. In the night mode, the phone detects the ambient lighting condition and automatically selects the exposure and keeps the shutter on for a few seconds to create a bright and balanced image. This mode competes with Google’s new Night Sight mode.

Portrait Mode: The Mate 20 pro gets a decent portrait mode with a lot of features. For example, you have several background modes to choose from ranging from circles to swirl and then select various lighting modes to illuminate your face. Unsurprisingly, there is also a customizable beauty mode. All these modes are available for both the front and rear cameras.

Pro Mode: If you are the kind of person who likes to manually control all the aspects of a shot before you capture one, the Pro mode should keep you happy. The Mate 20 Pro boasts of a comprehensive Pro Mode that lets you adjust almost all parameters that you can think of to get that perfect shot.

More Modes

Apart from these standard modes, you can dive into the ‘More’ menu to access even more modes. These include a dedicated HDR mode, panorama, and not to mention a separate monochrome mode. This is also where you will find other modes like Timelapse, AR-Lens, 3D Panorama, and documents. Another interesting mode hidden in this menu is an underwater mode. This is meant to be used with a dedicated underwater case that Huawei has designed for the Mate 20 Pro. This accessory, however, is not available in India yet.

One gripe I had with the UI was that you could not use the swipe motion to easily switch between the various modes (similar to what we have on Apple’s camera UI). Instead, you will need to swipe across the area where the names of these modes appear, which requires a lot more precision. The zooming functionality could also have seen a better implementation, in my opinion.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Image Quality, Samples

The very fact that the Mate 20 Pro shares its camera underpinnings with the P20 Pro meant that my expectations from the phone – as far as the image quality is concerned – were sky-high. Needless to say, the Mate 20 Pro did not disappoint me on this front. Since the phone uses three different lenses to weave its imaging magic, I have divided this section into three separate ones where I showcase images captured using these three lenses.

Ultra-Wide-Angle Camera

I will start things off with the 20-megapixel, f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera. One of the first things I noticed with images captured using this camera was that images captured using this lens had a lot less detail when compared to the primary camera. In bright daylight, however, this won’t be that noticeable to the average user. However, things go for a toss when you use this camera for low light shots. You will notice the same phenomenon when capturing videos. That being said, Huawei’s superb Night Mode chips in here as a savior. You will get much better low light shots by going into the night mode and then sliding the zoom slider to 0.6x. As mentioned earlier, you can use this camera to also capture excellent macro shots.

Here is a gallery of images captured using the ultra-wide-angle camera on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

Primary Wide Angle Camera

The primary wide-angle camera on the Mate 20 Pro uses the main 40-megapixel sensor. However, to take full advantage of the sensor’s excellent HDR capabilities, it is best used in the lower 10-megapixel resolution. Images captured using this camera during the daytime offer excellent details and stack up well against any flagship smartphone out there. Where this camera single-handedly mauls the competition – including the mighty Pixel 3 series-  is during challenging HDR shots. For example, take a look at the two image comparisons below. The first image is captured using the Pixel 3 XL while the second one is from the Mate 20 Pro.

The above images were captured with the bright sun directly shining against the lens and not only was the camera able to capture the foreground, but even the blueness of the sky is captured in its full glory. For comparison, I have also posted an image captured at the same time using another excellent cameraphone – the Pixel 3 XL with the HDR+ mode on.  Currently, I am pretty sure there is nothing else in the market except the P20 Pro that can match this.

Another area where the primary camera shines is low-light scenarios. Note that I am talking about low light shots without invoking the night mode. With the night mode enabled, you can capture shots you never thought were possible using a mobile phone. The only other comparable night mode is Google’s Night Sight mode. I am planning to do a separate article comparing these two modes very soon.

Meanwhile, take a look at some images I captured using the primary camera of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

Telephoto Camera

The telephoto camera on the Mate 20 Pro uses an 8-megapixel sensor and boasts of f/2.4 aperture. What this camera loses out in resolution and f-stop value, it makes up with optical image stabilization. The telephoto camera is invoked when you hit the 1X button on the screen, and the camera zooms to 3x (81mm). In this mode, the Mate 20 Pro offers lossless zoom and excellent details. You also have the option to switch to 5X zoom (135mm) where the phone switches to hybrid zoom. Even in this mode, you get usable images with great details. Moving the slider even further, however, incrementally decreases the overall image quality and you can, if you wish, go up to 10x zoom (270mm). However, in good lighting conditions, it is possible to capture decent looking shots. The zoom range you get on a device this tiny is mind-blowing. Look at these sample images.

Front Facing Camera

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro uses a 24-megapixel, f/2.0 front-facing fixed focus camera for selfies. This is the same setup we saw on the P20 Pro. The fact that this is a fixed focus camera also implies that the background blur achieved in portrait mode is entirely software dependent. I also felt that Huawei could have improved this setup since most other flagship devices (save for the iPhone models) now use either a dual front camera setup or a single camera with autofocus.

While the front camera takes decent images, it simply cannot match the results you get from the Pixel 3 XL – a smartphone that I was using alongside the Mate 20 Pro. I cannot at this point compare the front camera of the Mate 20 Pro with some other flagship-class handsets and will do another article centered around this soon. Anyway, here are a bunch of selfies captured using the front-facing camera on the Mate 20 Pro.

As for video capability, the front-facing camera can also capture full HD videos at 30fps.

Low Light Shots

Like the P20 Pro, the Mate 20 Pro excels in low light imaging. The 40-megapixel sensor is the key reason for the Mate 20 Pro’s excellent low light imaging capabilities. Like the P20 Pro, however, the handset does have this tendency to over sharpen low light shots. This is also the case when the Master AI option is on. Here is an entire gallery of low light images that I captured using the Mate 20 Pro.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro: Chipset, Performance

There is so much to talk about the Mate 20 Pro’s camera, we almost forget about the fact that it is powered by one of the most powerful mobile chipsets on the planet – the Kirin 980. The successor to the Kirin 970, the chipset, this chipset brings in several improvements to the table over its predecessors. The Kirin 780 is currently the only chipset on the Android platform to be based on TSMC’s 7nm manufacturing process (the Snapdragon 855 is yet to arrive on a smartphone you can purchase in India as of this writing).

The Kirin 980 carries forward the 8-core CPU design from its predecessor. Only this time, there are four Cortex-A76 cores and four Cortex-A55 cores instead of the A-73 and A-53 combo seen on the Kirin 970. Based on ARM’s new DynamIQ architecture, the Kirin 980 can use any combination of cores to work together based on the workload you throw at it. The new manufacturing process also means that the GPU sees an upgrade in the form of ARM’s Mali-G76 MP10. The new GPU, while based on the now two-year-old Bitfrost architecture, is also quite different from last year’s G72 iteration. The G76 is 30% faster than the G72, and this is reflected in the way the Mate 20 Pro performs when you play graphically intensive games on the phone. These things aside, the Kirin 980 is also the first chipset that supports 2133 MHz LPDDR4X memory.

The Mate 20 Pro comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space. The Porsche Design edition which is set to be released sometime later gets 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The Kirin 980 also improves upon the AI capabilities of its predecessor and now features dual NPU’s that enhances the handset’s neural processing abilities.

Let us now check out how the mate 20 Pro fared in our benchmarks.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Software, Multimedia, and Biometrics

As expected, the Mate 20 Pro runs the latest version of EMUI (version 9) atop an Android 9 Pie core. The newest version of EMUI features several improvements over its predecessor (EMUI 8). These changes, however,  would be noticeable only if you have extensively used previous EMUI versions. Some of the changes include a cleaned-up interface with lesser-used options hidden under an advanced menu. What I like about EMUI is that it still offers users an option to use an app drawer for oldies like me. Also, invoking the universal search menu is quite easy with a short swipe from the upper part of the display.

For navigating through the menu, you get several options to choose from. The first option is the gestures based navigation method that uses a series of swipe gestures to navigate the menu, use the back key, and to launch Google Assistant. While I personally did not find myself using this method of system navigation too much, most people I spoke to found it very easy to use. They also went on to add that switching to this method only involves a minimal learning curve. The second option for menu navigation is using the standard three-key navigation menu. The last option is to use a navigation dock method which I did not find that appealing but could be useful for folks who like it that way.

EMUI also integrates GPU Turbo 2.0, an enhanced version of GPU Turbo that promises quick app launches and an overall improvement in graphics and touch response for games that support GPU Turbo.

While everyone might not like EMUI’s user interface, there is no denying that it is among the most feature-packed UI’s currently available. Some of the useful features I found on EMUI include the App Lock, PrivateSpace, and File Safe options that allow you a higher degree of control of the contents on your device. EMUI 9 also integrates a Digital Balance Setting which is basically Huawei’s implementation of Android’s Digital Wellbeing feature. Other useful features that I found myself using frequently include Huawei Share that allows you to share files with other Huawei devices and computers on the same network. Huawei Share also allows wireless printing of documents directly from the handset.

EMUI has evolved over the years, and is currently in its best avatar

Customizing the look of your phone is quite easy with EMUI as it supports several themes. You can also change the default fonts to new ones that can be downloaded from Huawei’s store. You also get a lot of wallpaper options to choose from – including some live wallpapers. These, however, cannot match the newer live wallpapers you get on the Google Pixel phones. Another feature I quite liked on EMUI was the Health App that is a very comprehensive health monitoring tool. The app can be connected to any existing smart band or smartwatch to monitor your daily workout regime accurately. Even without these accessories, you can use the inbuilt pedometer to count the number of steps you have taken every day.

Biometrics

The Mate 20 Pro is the second handset from Huawei (after the Mate RS Porsche Design) to feature an in-display fingerprint scanner. Typical of first and second-generation in-screen fingerprint scanners, this method of unlocking is noticeably slower than your traditional fingerprint unlocking method. This is one of the reasons I did not find myself using the fingerprint scanner much during my time with the phone.

The other biometric option you get on the Mate 20 Pro is the Face Unlock feature. As expected of a flagship-class handset, the Mate 20 Pro boasts of a 3D Face Unlock mechanism. This unlock method uses a dedicated IR camera and an IR flood illuminator to map your face with millimeter-level accuracy and read your facial features in three dimensions. This method is similar to what Apple uses on its iPhone – and also happens to be a lot safer compared to the standard camera and image-based unlocking methods. This method is also the faster of the two biometric unlock options, and I found myself using this method most of the time. The fact that this unlock method is Infrared based also means that you can use this unlock method even when it is pitch dark.

Music and Multimedia

While several Android smartphone makers have chosen the easier way and let people use Google Play Music as the default music player on their devices, Huawei ships the Mate 20 Pro with a music app of its own. The music player app is pretty basic in nature and comes with support for Dolby Atmos.

The Mate 20 Pro is perhaps the only flagship-class handset that offers an IR blaster. This means you can use the Mate 20 Pro to control your appliances and IR enabled gadgets using the pre-installed Smart Remote application. While not a must-have feature, this could prove helpful in some situations.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Battery Life, Supercharging

The 4,200 mAh battery on the Mate 20 Pro is the biggest battery currently available on a flagship-class device. It is even bigger than the 4,000 mAh unit on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Additionally, the Mate 20 Pro supports the latest version of Huawei’s SuperCharge fast charging technology that enables the charger to deliver up to 40W of power to the battery.

In our tests, the Mate 20 Pro consistently managed to charge from 0 to 100% in just one hour! In fact, the handset reaches nearly 70% charge in less than 35 minutes. Needless to say, the Mate 20 Pro is by far the best flagship-grade smartphone when it comes to battery charging speeds. Another thing I noticed was that the Mate 20 Pro did not tend to heat up during fast charging. Wireless charging is officially supported using the Qi standard, and Huawei even sells its own 15W wireless charger as an optional accessory. What, however, sets the Mate 20 Pro apart from other smartphones with wireless charging support is the fact that it is currently the only smartphone that can reverse charge other devices wirelessly.

The Mate 20 Pro is ahead of every other flagship class device released in 2018 when it comes to battery life

The massive 4,200mAh battery coupled with EMUI’s aggressive app management (which has improved by leaps on the Mate 20 Pro) also means that you get excellent battery life with the phone. In fact, I will go to the extent of saying that of battery charging speeds and battery life is of prime concern to you; no other flagship handset can match this device as of this writing. The Mate 20 Pro consistently lasted for more than 1.5 days of mixed usage. Even if you happen to be a heavy user, continuously hooked to your phone, the Mate 20 Pro will last you one full day. I was able to consistently get over 6 hours of screen on time with the Mate 20 Pro.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review: Conclusion

The Mate 20 Pro is currently one of the best flagship smartphones you can buy in India. It is more than capable of giving the likes of the iPhone XR (Review), the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (Review), the Pixel 3 (Review), and the Pixel 3 XL (Review) some severe inferiority complex. It is also among the best camera phones that I have used in my decade-long career as a reviewer and outclasses even the Google Pixel 3XL in some areas. The Pixel 3 XL, however, is better when it comes to taking pictures of people and portrait mode in general. Overall, though, the Mate 20 Pro is still the better choice for me considering it is cheaper than both – the  Pixel 3 XL and the Pixel 3. The Mate 20 Pro takes better images than all the other flagships mentioned here – including the iPhone XS Max.

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro finds a place among the best camera phones that I have used in my decade-long career as a reviewer

The only handset that seems to be competitive against the Mate 20 Pro is the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 which offers blazing fast performance and decent battery life and also has the advantage of being the only handset to come with a stylus. It is also priced pretty close to the Mate 20 Pro and also has the Samsung brand name working to its advantage. Since Huawei has just started embarking on improving its brand perception and recognition in India, brand-conscious folks with deep enough wallets might still choose to stick to their more ‘trusted’ brands. This is an unfortunate reality and will continue to hurt Huawei for the foreseeable future. However, there is no denying that among all flagships currently on sale in India, the Mate 20 Pro offers the best bang for your buck.