Huawei Mate 20 & Mate 20 Pro - An overview of all rumors, dates, configurations, and reviews

The Mate series’ success story began in January 2016 with the launch of the Huawei Mate 8 at CES in Las Vegas. Huawei then released a successor, the Mate 9, in fall that year and then followed this with the Mate 10 on October 16 last year. October 16 is also the date of this year’s launch too, the timing of which appears to be a deliberate move by Huawei to coincide with the date of Apple’s launch event.

Huawei will officially announce the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro at a launch event in London on October 16. We expect that Huawei will make these devices available shortly after that. Huawei has already released the Mate 20 Lite, a device that we are currently reviewing. 

HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC

Huawei officially confirmed the existence of the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC at IFA 2018 in Berlin and that the chip would be powering the upcoming Mate 20 Pro. Huawei speaks of the Kirin 980 as being the “fastest and most intelligent chip ever”. We expect that the SoC will combine a Cortex-A76 CPU with an ARM Mali-G76 GPU and should be manufactured on a 7 nm FinFET process. The Kirin 980 should also have a dual Neuromorphic Processor Unit (NPU) for the “AI” part of the device while supporting 1.5 Gb/s Cat. 21 connections and 2,133 MHz LPDDR4 RAM.

The Kirin 980 should be around 75% faster and 58% more efficient than the Kirin 970. Moreover, Huawei has indicated that the ARM Mali-G76 GPU will be 46% faster than the Mali-G72 integrated within the Kirin 970 and 178% more efficient.

Undoubtedly, the highlight of recent leaks and rumors surrounding the Mate 20/Mate 20 Pro are their camera units. Huawei introduced the first Leica triple rear-facing camera array with the release of the P20 Pro, a device that scored highly on our camera tests. Numerous leaks show the Mate 20 Pro with a triple rear-facing camera and an LED flash arranged as a square.

The Mate series’ success story began in January 2016 with the launch of the Huawei Mate 8 at CES in Las Vegas. Huawei then released a successor, the Mate 9, in fall that year and then followed this with the Mate 10 on October 16 last year. October 16 is also the date of this year’s launch too, the timing of which appears to be a deliberate move by Huawei to coincide with the date of Apple’s launch event.

Huawei will officially announce the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro at a launch event in London on October 16. We expect that Huawei will make these devices available shortly after that. Huawei has already released the Mate 20 Lite, a device that we are currently reviewing. 

HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC

Huawei officially confirmed the existence of the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC at IFA 2018 in Berlin and that the chip would be powering the upcoming Mate 20 Pro. Huawei speaks of the Kirin 980 as being the “fastest and most intelligent chip ever”. We expect that the SoC will combine a Cortex-A76 CPU with an ARM Mali-G76 GPU and should be manufactured on a 7 nm FinFET process. The Kirin 980 should also have a dual Neuromorphic Processor Unit (NPU) for the “AI” part of the device while supporting 1.5 Gb/s Cat. 21 connections and 2,133 MHz LPDDR4 RAM.

The Kirin 980 should be around 75% faster and 58% more efficient than the Kirin 970. Moreover, Huawei has indicated that the ARM Mali-G76 GPU will be 46% faster than the Mali-G72 integrated within the Kirin 970 and 178% more efficient.

Undoubtedly, the highlight of recent leaks and rumors surrounding the Mate 20/Mate 20 Pro are their camera units. Huawei introduced the first Leica triple rear-facing camera array with the release of the P20 Pro, a device that scored highly on our camera tests. Numerous leaks show the Mate 20 Pro with a triple rear-facing camera and an LED flash arranged as a square.

We expect that Huawei will equip the upcoming Mate 20 Pro with better camera sensors than the P20 Pro, not least because of the better AI NPU and the more powerful Kirin 980 SoC.