Huawei has had a sharp rise to become one of the top Android manufacturers – but the Huawei Mate 30 Pro may be a bit of a turning point. We put it up against what could be Huawei’s last true Android flagship – the Huawei P30 Pro. Let’s take a look at Huawei Mate 30 Pro vs Huawei P30 Pro.
Huawei’s reveal of the Mate 30 range was usurped by a number of leaks showing off almost all of the products set to be announced. The leaks showed off the mobile phone range along with the Huawei Watch GT 2 and the Huawei Vision.
Despite knowing what the devices were going to look like, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro and its siblings are a particularly interesting offering due to the lack of Google Play Services support.
The flagship pro device the Mate 30 Pro is replacing – the Huawei P30 Pro – came with Google Play Services and continues to do so.
The difference in software makes a comparison of these two phones a lot more interesting and complex… let’s dive in.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro vs Huawei P30 Pro – Specs and features
When it comes to sheer horsepower, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro inevitably wins out here – being the newer phone.
The Mate 30 Pro comes with Huawei’s latest flagship Kirin 990 chip while the Huawei P30 Pro had the previous top dog – the Kirin 980. The performance isn’t like to be remarkably different but we’ll make a more in-depth judgement in our full review of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro.
The Huawei P30 Pro was a standout phone when it came to camera performance as one of the few cameras on the market to truly go toe-to-toe with the Google Pixel 3.
Huawei is building on this with a radical camera redesign on the Mate 30 Pro – introducing a circular camera module with four sensors.
The new setup of the Mate 30 Pro includes 40-megapixel “Ultra Wide Cine” camera, 40-megapixel wide-angle, 8-megapixel telephoto cameras and 3D depth sensor.
While the P30 Pro comes with a 40-megapixel sensor, an 8-megapixel periscope sensor and a 20-megapixel wide-angle sensor. A ToF (time of flight) sensor is also located alongside the three sensors.
The Mate 30 Pro has also been given a battery boost from the P30 Pro. The Mate 30 Pro comes with a 4500mAh battery on-board – a significant jump up from the P30 Pro’s 4200mAh. The battery will require some testing before we can determine how big the difference is in practice.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro vs Huawei P30 Pro – Design and display
Huawei’s two different flagship ranges tend to have different designs – similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines – and this year is no different.
Before we get onto the differences, there a couple of similarities with the build of both phones.
Both phones have a design similar to the Samsung Galaxy S range that Huawei has employed for quite some time – including a curved edge display. The metal frame of both phones also seems basically unchanged.
The most noticeable differences come in the form of the notches and camera setups.
The Huawei P30 Pro has a small teardrop notch for just one camera sensor while the new Mate 30 Pro has employed a much wider notch to house a whopping three cameras on the front.
There’s a slight change when it comes to the quality of the displays. Both phones come with a Full HD+ display but the Mate 30’s a 6.53-inches with a 2400×1176 resolution and the P30 Pro display has a 6.47-inch screen with a lower 2340×1080 resolution.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro vs Huawei P30 Pro – Price and release date
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro pricing was announced as €1099 (~£974) for the base model – no release date information was provided during the launch event.
Having been less than a year since the Huawei P30 Pro was released, the price has not dropped greatly. You can currently pick up the P30 Pro for around £700-£800.
Huawei Mate 30 Pro vs Huawei P30 Pro – Early verdict
There isn’t a whole lot to choose between these two phones on paper. We are yet to get our hands-on the Mate 30 Pro but when it comes to stats it looks like an iterative update.
The new camera setup intends to add a new dimension to the Huawei Mate 30 Pro but this will play out in testing.
The pricing gap between the two phones remains so low that it seems hard to recommend against forking out the extra money to get the latest and greatest Huawei device.
However, the main issue is the software on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro – the phone doesn’t come with Google Play Services and makes it a much more awkward proposition for the regular consumer. Huawei is using its own apps to try to fill the gaps and is inviting developers to use its Huawei Mobile Services – saying over 45,00 apps are already integrated with its development tool HMS Core.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
