hi guys it's Toddy here from tech advisor and I just got back from Munich which
you might have already heard me say if you saw our Huawei Watch GT2 unboxing
but I also picked up this the Huawei mate 30 pro which as you might have
heard it in the news is in a bit of hot water anyway we're going to unbox this
phone see what it offers and talk a little bit about the implications of
whether or not you buy this thing okay so the mate 30 pro so while I actually
unveiled two phones all four phones if you want to get technical at its Munich
launch event then mate 30 Pro is the main flagship but there is also a 5g
version which cost a little bit more actually a fifth phone if you think
about it there's also the mate RS which is the Porsche design special edition
which for the most part is the same - a few design changes it's also the mate 30
and mate 35 G we have a hands-on with a mate 30 on the site right now if you
want to go read that but it's basically a more affordable version of this device
with a few things stripped out and a few tweaks and changes to things like the
camera but again you can read that on the site it's there when you're ready so
they mate 30 Pro is a lovely bit of kit on paper it's a really impressive set of
hardware again Huawei has kind of thrown everything in the kitchen sink in to
this its latest and greatest flagship this is designed to go up against the
likes of these Samsung Galaxy Note 2 n plus and so on
obviously the new iPhone 11 Pro Mac's as well
so this is I should also note a Chinese version of the device it doesn't mean it
doesn't come with English language but ok if the phone does come out in the UK
it would be a slightly different model but for the most part this all still
stands before I pull this off just notice that it does say NFC so the NFC
is actually at the top of the phone under it's very distinctive circular
camera rate which you can see here on this very nice I figure out what the
official name is but this purple back it's a gradiated purple they also showed
off a bunch of different color white color ways including ones with vegan
leather and also one which had a texture gradient so instead of a colour gradient
like we've seen on a lot of other phones the phone would actually transition from
a kind of satin finish sandblasted glass at the bottom like you've seen the
frosted glass on the new iPhone 11 series
transition through to shiny at the top I did being that it would help repel
fingerprints where you hold it a normal grip was also giving you that nice
aesthetic in the shiny portion it's quite a nice idea I'm gonna peel this
serial number QR code off because it's very unsightly it's a lot of stickers
too many stickers okay and there's no screen protector of course that we're
serving as the protection for all of it but yet this is the phone itself
it's a lovely looking device it's quite thick it has a very thin metal frame
part of the reason for the thickness is the display it's got what Huawei is
calling a horizon display and that manifests as a screen actually curves
over really aggressively at the corners we've also got a hands-on on the website
with the new vivo next three and that uses something very similar where this
aggressive curve design looks really cool it's a bit odd from it interaction
standpoint which I'll talk more about come the forward view but once I've
turned the phone on we can see that in more depth so there's the phone like I
said Chinese model so the charger is a little bit different but it still has
the same wattage that you'll get wherever you buy this phone typically
this is obviously pre-release there would be maybe a case in there I feel
like in the past what weight has included cases with the mate series
devices so usually a soft transparent case I wouldn't be surprised if that
fits in here and also there's your SIM tray removal tool always appreciated
pretty standard one I think - exciting I know Dom got really just about the one
that came out with the Moto action then we have what looks like a standard why I
say standard it is USB type-c two USB a nice good meets a long cable bollocks
with it but because of that signature purple that you might be able to see in
the actual connectors themselves this also denotes Huawei's fast charging
technology which if I pick up the power brick this is again non UK non-european
but the wattage should be the same it does offer a 10 volts it is the 40 watt
super charger so what we already introduced this but is also here on the
mate 30 series which is gray I think both from 8:30 and then 8:30
probe get this superfast 40 watt charging it's one of the quickest
standards in the industry right now which is really nice and it's TV
Rheinland certified all that good stuff so since our health and safety
standpoint and of your phone overheating it's covered also like oneplus is fast
charging tech most of the heat buildup happens in the plug not the phone so the
functions they cool what's your fast charging I forget the
figures quoted but yeah at 40 watts even with the big battery in there you get
more than enough for a day's use in under 30 minutes quite happily which is
really impressive the last thing in the box as well before I go onto the phone
itself is some USB C headphones so these are pretty standard that what way is
used for a few years now since they ironed out the headphone jack I think
with the p20 series or p20 Pro at least I am muddled they are white they have
these kind of pretty skinny stalks they have an Apple earpods style kind of
vented outlets pretty standard stuff you do have an inline remote with a mic on
the back so you have three buttons you have volume pause and play always good
and then as at the bottom USB see so the regular mate 13 does have a headphone
jack which is nice I think it's on the bottom in the left then Pro Series
they've gotten rid of the headphone jack so you just have type C on the bottom of
the phone it's not a big deal in this day and age most people that I've seen
now at least in London is using bluetooth headphones you can obviously
use any USB C to headphone jack adapter if you want to use existing cans that
are USB C capable and you can use any third-party u.s. PC have friends as well
so you're covered there it is a bit annoying but I think by this point most
people have kind of adjusted to the fact that phones like the iPhone don't ever
have phone jack anymore it's just one part the gig we also have a single
downward facing loudspeaker here which you can see and actually there's no
visible earpiece or speaker at the top of the phone there is no make 30 series
the mate 30 scuse me the mate 30 Pro uses the same acoustic to space
technology as the P 30 Pro so the whole screen is a speaker or effectively
there's the speaker behind the display initial just say it's not too bad excuse
me I will be testing it more thoroughly come before review there's also an IR
blaster on top might not make it two versions outside
of China we don't know but it has been a staple on most of always phones high-end
phones for a little while now so if you have your air conditioning unit your TV
you can set it up with the smart remote app that's probably installed on this
device on the back we have interesting lis we have a dual LED flash that looks
like a xenon flash at glance and that's actually what I thought it was I was
quite excited the last phone I remember that used the xenon flash was the Lumia
1020 the Windows Phone Nokia from a few years back which actually bears another
resemblance to this in the circular camera arrangement that phone just had
one sensor on its circular camera set up the bump is not too pronounced actually
and it's extended by this what Huawei is calling the halo ring it's designed to
evoke they used a Leica camera on Sage because the company has maintained its
like a camera partnership but it's just a nice looking thing if you get the
Porsche mate RS version the fancier version with this yeah she doesn't use
the halo ring at all it has a straight band of color down the middle I kind of
liked it it's a bit gaudy but that's kind of the deal with the Porsche
version so that's personal preference as for the camera setup itself it's a
really impressive setup it's different to what while we was doing with the P
Series this year they haven't gone for insane zooms there's no periscopic zoom
camera the phone will still give you up to 30 times digital zoom which is still
pretty good there is a three times telephoto on there with optical image
stabilization which is still pretty good then the two main cameras which I
believe in this one in this one are both 14 megapixels which is the first time
we've seen that on a Heuer device or any device actually using two of the same
sensor size at that resolution is really impressive and really promising always
kind of built itself into the camera phone brand to beat and this doesn't
look like it's gonna drop the ball any time soon you have a standard main
sensor with I believe it's an F 1.6 aperture and OIS and then you have an
ultra wide-angle with an 18 millimeter lens that is again also like I said 40
megapixels one of those uses the ryy be sent through our arrangement which is
something that while we introduced with the P 30 series it just means you have
different color pixels and it like differently should give you better
color representation but then the secondary sensor has RGB pixels so you
actually get best of both and because you have four sensors while we can do
that so you have a main super wide telephoto the main and the telephones
have an OS or two M stabilization and then there is a 3d t RF sensor in there
as well which helps with depth and oka one of the big focuses this phone does
in its camera is video so instead of just being able to shoot really faraway
objects with a still camera this phone like the notes' m+ has super stable
video but also video bokeh so you can actually background blur around your
subjects in real time as you're shooting I think in 4k which is really really
promising stuff and what's more super stability when you're shooting handheld
shots so as well as that optical image stabilization you also have always a is
or a I assisted image stabilization I believe is how they're phrasing it which
based on the demo stuff looks really good so we're gonna test that out and
we'll know for sure once it's up and running I already mention colors B and
the purple is really nice there is a black version there are a bunch of other
colors emerald green looks pretty good and then the two LED versions are I
think a green and an orange which is very punchy while is quick for pointing
out the fact that it's vegan leather which I thought was interesting
considering the mate RS the Porsche model uses standard leather so they kind
of go up against the whole environmental thing anyway despite there not being any
physical buttons on the side light as in volume rocker there is still a physical
power button here in red which is a signature mark of always flagship phones
of late and for a person all that hopefully we have some power
so you'll see on the splash screen here it says emotion UI and also like I said
this is a Chinese model so I've got to find the English language setup so I
know what I'm doing but the software is the biggest sticking point right now
with Huawei's devices this is actually the first phone that the company has
launched since the US government's block has been imposed upon them that means
that things like Google Play services and all of Google's native apps that you
usually find on any Android phone pretty much anywhere outside of China all on
present on this device this is the Chinese model this is how the phone
would have launched anyway in China but the company is planning a European
launch and if the phone rolls out into European markets without Play services
that's the big challenge that is facing right now if the company can sort things
out in time with the US government it says it already has an update ready to
go to reinstate those things onto the device but as it stands you don't get
Google experiences out of the box and you have to figure out a way to sideload
them i'm just running through the setup right now you have fingerprint and face
recognition this phone has a 32 megapixel front camera in its knotch as
well as a 3d depth sensing camera and it can use 3d face unlock so it's more
secure then standard RGB front camera I think on the standard mate 30 it just
uses an RGB and simplify like the 1 plus 7 for example uses just a single RGB
camera for face unlock so it should also work question low light because of that
and also you have an in display fingerprint sensor as you have before
why is it pretty good they're pretty snappy I'm gonna skip all that for now
so just jump through the setup process one of the things that highlights on the
way through is that you can have gesture navigation all three button avocation as
is typical on Android so despite not having Google services this phone is
still running Android it just doesn't have the Google Play Store YouTube Gmail
maps all of those things so there's something to bear in mind right now if
you're getting the device early as a Chinese import or something along those
lines also as well as gesture navigation which is what I've opted for which makes
for quite a clean aesthetic with regards to the look of this phones interface
because of this horizon displayed screen actually curves over at the sides
at 88 degrees which is a really severe it's almost flat on the sides because of
it it looks very space-age when you see like the icons curving around the screen
as you swipe along but from an economic standpoint it has some implications
Huawei has imposed this gesture-based feature where you if you double tap on
the sides on the horizon edges as they were and it the good thing is it's
ambidextrous because you can do it on either side of the screen but you double
tap to get things like the volume rocker and then you can slide your hand up and
down on the side of the phone so even though there's no buttons here I am
changing the volume just by double tapping and swiping
it's nice when it works at the launch it didn't work 100% of the time and gesture
replacement for physical controls are a thing that lots of manufacturers have
tried and failed to do well companies like HTC with the U 12 series
did it and it didn't always work so it's something to consider if you can try the
phone out before you buy definitely worth feeling that horizon
display tap side control feature it does mean you have more fertility in some of
the controls that you typically think of as physical so in the camera you can use
that whole side gesture as a sharp shutter button also in gaming instead of
air triggers like on the rug for Anurag referring to you can use the edge of the
horizon display as a touch sensitive area for certain actions in game like
aiming down a scope in pub G mobile or something like that so it does give you
extra flexibility in a way but it's a very specific way of engineering Android
and the user experience with Hardware controls you just have fewer of them
they're not sure isn't too bad it's thinner than on the original phone
on the original mate seriously mate I should say last year's mate series and
mate 20 pro and yeah it looks good as for the display itself it's a six point
five three inch display with an 1176 by 2400 resolution it's beautifully crisp
and clear it's quite an unusual aspect ratio wise it's an 18 point 4 by 9
aspect ratio it looks like it will work well for video and enjoying media but it
will have slight bars on two of those edges on the upside because of the
horizon display you get basically zero bezel either side when you're holding
the phone in portrait so it's quite nice as for the display itself it is HD are
compatible HDR 10 compatible it supports the four DCI p3
the gamut and as we're looking at here the user experience is I mean it's very
punching colorful but it is also the latest version of emotion UI so
especially without any Google influence this is more important than ever before
why is work hard to ensure that it's phones run the latest version of Android
and this is one of the first phones that we have handled running Android 10 but
it's also got the latest version of a motion UI or M UI on top Mui 10 the main
differences are a few more customisation options but also a system-wide Darkrai
that third-party developers can make use of which is a nice touch and also the
addition of new always-on display features so you have because this is an
only display you use very little power when the screen is the phone is locked
you can still use the clock and notifications without disrupting power
speaking of power as well as that fifth 40 watt fast charging this phone also
features a huge 4,500 million power battery and it supports wireless
charging at up to 27 watts and reverse while it's charging like its predecessor
but now it's been improved so it's more efficient beyond that the inside of the
phone is the current 990 this is the first phone on the market with while we
don't care 990 chipset backed up by 8 gigs of ram and 256 gigabytes of storage
I believe in some markets this phone can come with 128 and they made 30 series
the standard mate desi excuse me does also come with 128 if you folk up for
the fancy mate RS model you get 12 gigs of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage but
that's the only way you can get that there is my SD expandability sorry not
SD there is memory expandability but it uses huawei zone nm cards so you can
either have dual SIM with two nano Sims or replace one of those nano Sims with
the proprietary media platform that Huawei introduced I think earlier this
year these really small memory cards that look really neat and they just pop
into the sim slot so you have a flexibility for expandability if you
want to sacrifice or a second sim if you're planning on using this with
multiple networks across the world but it is there plenty of storage out the
box anyway though I think that's plenty for most users and yeah that is in a
nutshell everything that the huawei mate 30 brings to the table
the big question outside of China whether or not this phone is going to
see success without Google Play services I'm gonna be putting a piece together on
how to put those services on there after the fact but really until the phone has
it out of the box it's going to have a tough time selling at least that's what
I think right now well no more once we've had a full review and things have
progressed along between the US government and Huawei until that point
if you have any questions about this phone drop us a line down below in the
comments and you can read more on tech advisor
see you there thanks
you