Huawei Mate 20

Great performance ; Fully featured camera ; Tidy notched design

EMUI is a bit ugly ; Facial recognition isn’t secure ; Too many gimmicky camera modes

The Huawei Mate 20 offers lightning-fast performance and a comprehensive list of features, with a clever bill of compromises to help meet its £500 price tag. It’s a genuine OnePlus 6T rival.

Excellent battery life ; Incredible power for the price ; Versatile stills and video camera

Full HD+ screen resolution is low ; IPS screen inferior to flagship AMOLEDs ; No IP68 water and dust resistance

The Huawei Mate 20 distills much of what makes the Mate 20 Pro an excellent phone into something that’s different, though not necessarily inferior. It costs less, offers more screen and has a headphone jack. If you crave the cutting-edge bells and...

Triple rear camera arrangement arguably best capabilities on the market ; Huge battery capacity with fast-charge and Qi wireless charging ; Heaps of power on tap for a solid flagship experience

Square camera arrangement doesn't look great ; EMUI software still divides opinion ; Some AI camera features are overzealous or flawed ; We find it too wide in the hand

The standard Mate delivers a strong innings, but the Pro model outshines it in every department. When it comes to future-facing features the Pro is the way to go.

well-built ; accurate and fast location services ; LTE Cat.16 ; MIMO Wi-Fi ; 3.5 mm jack ; Android 9.0 Pie ; decent call quality ; dual VoLTE ; impressive triple rear-facing cameras ; bright IPS display ; flagship SoC ; long battery life ; quicker...

only IP53-certified ; no wireless charging ; no IR facial recognition ; PWM flicker ; nano-memory card instead of microSD card

The Huawei Mate 20 is a premium flagship just like its more-expensive sibling, the Mate 20 Pro. Huawei has equipped the Mate 20 with its Kirin 980 SoC, which makes the device as powerful as the Pro model. Moreover, the former’s lower resolution display...

But for canny internet buyers who may not be able to afford the Mate 20 Pro, the Mate 20 looks like it could provide a tempting, more affordable alternative. All we need now is for Huawei to change its mind and launch it officially in the UK.

Flagship-grade performance ; Latest version of Android ; Capable, flexible cameras ; Actually has a headphone jack

Outshone by the Mate 20 Pro in almost every way ; Proprietary expandable memory format frustrating ; Limiting choice between models is anti-customer

The Mate 20 does a lot of what makes the Pro so great – but not enough. Unless you’re unlucky enough to live somewhere Huawei has deemed the Mate 20 Pro to be off-limits, this isn’t the version to buy.

Incredible, 2-day battery life ; Android’s most advanced 7nm chip ; Plentiful 128GB internal storage

Pricey for what it is ; LCD screen is not quite as great as some AMOLEDs ; Camera is just decent, not on par with the best ; Unclear future software update situation ; Gesture navigation is not perfectly polished ; Loudspeaker is too quiet

Gorgeous fit, finish, and design ; Outstanding battery life ; Perfectly placed fingerprint scanner ; 3.5mm headset jack, FM radio, and IR receiver

Minimal level of dust/water resistance ; No support for wireless charging ; Proprietary nano memory card format