Huawei launch the new Mate 20 Pro, and it looks like a hell of a phone

The company say they've a dual-flagship policy, and this phone is evidence of that.

Earlier this year, Huawei overtook Apple to become the second biggest-selling smartphone company in the world, with Samsung remaining in the number one seed. The launch of the Huawei P20 Pro among others helped contribute to this jump ahead of Apple and the company shifted 95 million devices in the first half of 2018. As we stated in our review, the P20 Pro is one of the best phones of the year for a fairly reasonable price, and don't get us started on the outstanding camera. But now, it seems like Huawei have taken all the best bits from the P20 Pro, improved them, then added some new features, and put them into the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro which officially launched in London on Tuesday. JOE briefly got our hands on the phone at the pre-launch in London last week and we were impressed with what we saw, although there will be a more thorough review coming up on our site in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled. Here's the lowdown: Huawei has unveiled the latest members of its Mate smartphone series: the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. The mate series would historically have been intended as competition to Samsung's Note family, but with their dual flagship approach means that it's just packing in more features that weren't available on the P20 Pro. The Mate 20 Pro (which is what we'll focus on in this article) has a 6.39-inch OLED HDR display that's sharp thanks to a  high resolution (3,120 x 1,440). The screen stretches out to the handset's edges in all directions, aside from the obvious notch, and falls over the curved sides. There are traditional polished glass offerings in pink gold, black, and twilight gradient. But the company has made another option in the form of its new "hyper-optic pattern," available in midnight blue and emerald green, which they say has more grip in your hand and on other surfaces. Similar to the P20 Pro, it's got a triple rear camera. A 40MP wide-angle (f/1.8) camera and the 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom (f/2.4), but the 20MP monochrome sensor has been swapped for a color, super-wide-angle (f/2.2) replacement. The Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 will also include Huawei's new artificial intelligence chipset called the Kirin 980, which includes a so-called seven-nanometer processor. The chipset is smaller but despite the smaller size, Huawei says the chips are faster than ever with the ability to recognize 4,500 images per minute. If battery is what you need, the phone includes a 40W supercharge battery. The company says it can charge the phone to 70% of battery life in just 30 minutes, although this is only with the charger that comes in the box. It also includes 15W wireless charging option. But the big news comes here. The Mate 20 Pro is also the first Huawei flagship to include Qi wireless charging. Huawei has brought a reverse wireless charging feature, so that the mammoth 4,200mAh battery can actually charge other Qi-compatible phones. Let us repeat. It can charge other phones wirelessly. As mentioned above, we'll have a more in-depth look at all the different features in our upcoming review. But while Huawei have been known for premium smartphones at a mid-tier price, their latest offering can't be considered anything but a premium price as Huawei look to see if consumers will pay and shift their loyalty from traditional powerhouses like Apple and Samsung. For Huawei's most powerful Mate 20 Pro, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of memory, it can be bought SIM free in Ireland for €1,049 in Harvey Norman (pre-order started on 16 October). You'll also get a free Huawei Watch GT and wireless charging dock worth €249 with this purchase. It will also be available on bill pay with Vodafone from €199 while prepay will be available from €899, both of which will also come with a free Huawei Watch GT and wireless charging dock. Meanwhile Carphone Warehouse will charge the standard network price and Three Ireland have yet to confirm their cost at the time of writing. Both will also have the same offer of the watch and charging dock.