With ongoing rumors and leaks, the all-new Huawei Mate 30 Pro has gone official in Nepal at a dedicated event held in Kathmandu. And as expected, the flagship from Huawei ships without any Google Play Services at its helm but brings one of the best cameras to the pocket.
To talk about the camera at first, it’s not ordinary and you shouldn’t be fooled to think of it as an ordinary. It is the most impressive camera hardware we have seen to date. The phone’s rear with a big circle frame holds a Super Sensing 40MP camera alongside another 40MP sensor — Huawei likes to call it the Cine Camera — which is used to capture ultra-wide images. Both sensors are capable of making use of the 3D ToF sensor for bokeh effects in videos.
Alongside the two superior sensors is an 8MP telephoto lens that has a 3x optical zoom with 80mm focal length, and 5x optical hybrid zoom. The P30 Pro, in comparison, has a 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid zoom. However, unlike the P30 Pro, both of its wide cameras and telephoto lens has an Optical Image Stabilization.
Diving deeper on the phone’s camera at the back; nestled along inside a circle frame, both large sensors have wide apertures for capturing more light. The wide camera has a 1/1.7″ sensor with f/1.6 aperture, while the Cine Camera has a 1/1.54″ sensor with an f/1.8 aperture.
- Display: 6.53-inch OLED display, 1176 x 2400 pixels, 18.5:9 aspect ratio, 409PPI; Gorilla Glass 6
- Rear Cameras: Quad cameras — 40MP primary camera, f/1.6, PDAF, OIS + 8MP telephoto lens, f/2.4, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom + 40MP ultrawide lens, f/1.8, PDAF + 3D TOF sensor
- Front Camera: 32MP, f/2.0, wide, 0.8µm
- OS: Android 10, EMUI 10
- CPU: HiSilicon Kirin 990 (7nm+), octa-core (2 x 2.86GHz Cortex-A76 and 2 x 2.09GHz Cortex-A76 and 4 x 1.86GHz Cortex-A55)
- Memory: 8GB RAM, 128GB/256GB UFS 3.0 internal storage; expandable via NM (Nano Memory) up to 256GB (shared SIM slot)
- Sensors: Face ID, under-display fingerprint scanner, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer, compass
- Battery: Li-Po 4,500mAh with 40W Fast Charging, 27W wireless charging
On the video front, the phone bears as much prowess as its image capturing capabilities. The Mate 30 Pro can shoot 4K videos at 60fps, the first of its kind on a Huawei device. Recording slow-mo videos are equally fun as well with frame rates going up to a mind-blowing 7,680fps at 720p. Another exciting thing is recording 4K time-lapse with HDR+ colors. As for the low-light shooting, the phone can go up to ISO 52,000.
As for selfies, it offers a 32MP sensor that is accompanied by the new 3D scanning hardware. The dedicated sensor can detect hand gestures, cohesively working with Huawei’s Da Vinci NPU—one of the first in the market.
Inside the phone is a new Kirin 990 SoC based on 7nm+ technology which goes hand on hand with Mali-G76 GPU and Huawei’s GPU Turbo technology. There’s also a graphene film to dissipate the heat while doing heavy tasks.
Now to a look at the Mate 30 Pro’s another wonder — the display. The phone has a 6.53-inch screen with a ridiculous curve of up to 88-degree. Huawei likes to call it “Horizon Display”. It’s an OLED panel with HDR and DCI-P3 color gamut support. The display has Always- On mode and supports a stylus called “M-Pen” — a competitor to Samsung’s S-Pen — which offers a sense of 4,096 pressure level.
The phone having an insane curved screen means it compromises on the physical side buttons. Instead, Huawei has opted for virtual buttons for volume, power and camera shutters that somehow gives you the vibe of pressing a real button.
Also, the Mate 30 Pro comes with 21 antennas, out of which 14 are for 5G — yes, the phone supports 5G out of the box which is first in Nepal — with support up to eight 5G bands. To put things into perspective, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G has only three.
Powering such a powerful phone requires enough juice and the Mate 30 Pro certainly got it — a 4,500mAh battery that supports a 40W wired charging, which is the best to start with. Also, the wireless charging is now much more powerful with a charging capacity of up to 27W.
As for memory variants, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro offers 8GB of RAM with a storage option of either 128GB or 256GB. There’s also support for NM cards, if in case you need that expansion, albeit being a proprietary option.
The Mate 30 Pro boots on Android 10 with EMUI 10 on top but misses out on the most important aspect — the Google Play Services. It means you won’t be able to run Google-related apps like Gmail, YouTube and more out of the box. However, the phone has an in-built Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) with its own App Store which will somehow help you cope without Google’s beloved apps. Until then we gotta wait for the ongoing issue to settle down.
Barring the issue, if you are in the market for a smartphone that is a true prowess in terms of camera and hardware; and can live without Google’s ecosystem, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro should be on your list if it is what you can afford.
The price of Huawei Mate 30 Pro in Nepal is Rs. 1,29,900.
