Huawei Mate 30 Pro Unboxing and Hands-On: Killer Camera Game!

Huawei Mate 30 Pro Unboxing and Hands-On: Killer Camera Game!

Let’s Unbox Huawei’s New Flagship!

Every year, Huawei — together with their key partner, Leica — has been leveling up the mobile photography game. They were one of the pioneers that brought us more than one camera on the back of a device, they gave us amazing low-light photography with their Night Mode, and now they’re pushing the game further with 7 cameras that they now have on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro.


We finally got our hands on the device yesterday and we can give you our initial thoughts on the newly launched device but first let’s show you what comes inside the packaging.

What’s Inside the Box?

I do have to preface this part by telling you guys that the unit that we got is not the retail version. With that being said, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro comes in a black box that very similar to the P30 Pro that they launched earlier this year. Inside the packaging are the SIM ejector tool, Huawei’s 40w SuperCharger, a USB Type-C cable, and a pair of earphones.

Missing are the documents for the device and a case for the phone, which should hopefully come when you purchase the device.

Polarizing Halo Ring Design

While most phones change slightly with each iteration, Huawei has really changed things up with the Mate 30 Pro. It’s pretty hard to ignore at first glance but they’ve gone from the square camera array on the back and a gradient to the so-called Halo Ring display on the back of the phone and a single color that instead, plays with light to give it even more character.

Ever since the leaks came out for the renders of this phone, there has already been certain divisiveness about the new look of Huawei’s latest Mate series devices. We’ve been seeing the comment section of our YouTube Community Page as well as the comments on our Facebook Page and it’s certainly polarizing with people even saying that it looks like a  washing machine.

The ergonomics of the phone are definitely solid and you can use comfortably the one hand if your mitts are big enough but for safety, I would suggest using two. It does have all the curves in all of the right places including its display that we’ll get to a little later.

There is a bit of a camera hump with the camera array as well so it doesn’t lay flat on the table, which is something that’s easily corrected by using a case.

There’s only also one physical button on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro — the power button. They’ve made use of the curves on the display to give you a virtual volume rocker that you can double-tap to initiate then its just a matter of sliding your thumb up and down to control the volume. It takes some getting used to but the haptic feedback is a plus to this experience.

Them Curves on the Display Though

We’ve touched on the display a little bit but now let’s talk about its actual specs. You’ve got a 6.53-inch Flex OLED Horizon Display at a resolution of 1176×2400, which I guess still falls under the  Full HD+ classification.

Now we’ve seen other brands do and continue to do curved display before but this is the first time that I’ve personally one that goes nearly 90 degrees (88 to be exact). There’s some understandable concern over palm rejection but Huawei says that they’ve constructed their display in such a way that this should be an issue and so far, with our experience, we haven’t had any issues.

The colors look incredibly punchy as well so consuming content on this device has been a treat.

There’s Still A Notch

Unlike the Huawei Nova 5T, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a notch but it’s much smaller than we were expecting. It also houses a lot of stuff and by a lot, I mean,  a total of three cameras included its 32-megapixel selfie shooter and two depth sensors; alongside other sensors as well.

There’s definitely a lot tech tucked into that notch.

Raising the Camera Bar Once Again

Since we already touched on its cameras, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro has a total of 7. The three on the front that we already mentioned and four more on the back.

You have a 40-megapixel Ultra-Side Cine Camera at an aperture of f/1.8, a 40-megapixel SuperSensing Wide Camera at an aperture of f/1.6, a 3D Depth Sensing Camera, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera at f/2.4. We’ve taken a lot of sample photos already and they’re amazing.

Here are some sample photos but check back in a few days’ time for more.

Huawei is also giving the Mate 30 Pro even more video capabilities with a dedicated sensor for its 40MP Cine Camera as well. It’s capable of shooting 4K at 60fps and we’ll do a follow-up video dedicated to the cameras but feel free to check out the samples we posted on our hands-on video on the YouTube channel.

New Flagship SoC

Of course, at the core of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is their new Kirin 990 processor that they launched at IFA 2019. There are two versions of the chip, one that’s 5G capable and the other is limited to 4G. There shouldn’t be any difference in terms of performance, it’s just that Huawei didn’t want to pass on the cost of the 5G chip to consumers who don’t have 5G available to them yet. The chip is paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. We really haven’t been able to stretch out its legs just yet so you will have to stay tuned to updates on its performance.

The Kirin 990 is running on 7nm architecture though so you can expect much more power efficiency to go along with all the heavy lifting Huawei promises it can do.

Big Battery Capacity

The Huawei Mate 30  Pro also gets a 4500mAh battery to keep the lights on and we can definitely see this lasting more than two days since its sibling in the P series was heralded as one of the Battery Kings in the smartphone world.

When you do have to top it up, you’ve got support for Huawei’s SuperCharge that’s not at 40w and they’ve also bumped up wireless charging to 27w as well.

No Local Pricing Yet

Unfortunately, we only have pricing for the Huawei Mate 30 Pro here in Europe, which  is at 1099 or roughly Php 64,000 but before you exit the room because of the pricing, do note that  we do get Huawei devices at a better price point than our European friends so hopefully, we get this at around Php 50,000 to Php 55,000.

 

Make sure to click here to be updated about the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro’s availability in the Philippines.

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