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The Kyalami racetrack and conference centre played host to Huawei’s South Africa launch of its new flagship smartphone, the Mate 20 Pro, on Tuesday evening.
The device, dubbed as the “king of smartphones” by Huawei, will retail at a recommended selling price of R18 999 and will also be available on contract from all four leading phone providers ranging from R699 to R1 399.
In his opening address to a couple hundred guests, Akhram Mohamed, Huawei SA’s head of technology, said that, when smartphones are launched, usually the company will say something like: this is the best smartphone we’ve ever produced, “but at Huawei today we bring you the best smartphone. Period.”
It’s quite a bold statement for a company that is only just celebrating 20 years in the South African market, but one that is not unwarranted.
During past few years, Huawei has overtaken Apple to claim second spot in global smartphone shipments behind Samsung, while in the South African post-paid (contract) market it is the number one phone claiming 38% of the market share.
That’s all well and good, but if your latest offering to the market flops then those numbers mean nothing.
After its European launch in London last week, the most talked about features for the new smartphone has been the camera and its 16mm Leica ultra-wide-angle lens. Like its cousin the P20 Pro, the Mate 20 Pro is fitted with three back cameras – a 40MP wide angle main camera, a 20MP ultra wide-angle camera and an 8MP telephoto camera – that provide the user with “spaciousness and adds a three-dimensional effect to your images”. Banking on its AI capabilities, the phone will also make it possible for novice filmmakers to create blockbusters with its new preset modes – like keeping the subject in colour while background turns to greyscale. The Mate 20 Pro also features a 24MP front camera.
With all this talk about how great the camera is, the only way to test it was to use the a Mate 20 Pro to capture the features of a Mate 20 Pro. Here is an Instagram story of some of the features we tested - City Press Instagram Mate 20 Pro highlights
Investing 10% of the company’s revenue in R&D, allows Huawei the freedom to be innovative and creative with their new devices. Among some of the innovative features include:
- Wireless reverse charging: hold the Mate 20 back-to-back with another wireless capable phone and you have an instant power bank;
- HiVision: point the camera at a landmark, menu or food and it will instantly tell you more details about the subject or translate the menu (but only Afrikaans and little isiZulu are available);
- Wireless charging: Huawei has finally entered the wireless changing space with the industry’s fastest wireless charging solution;
- Private space: you can set-up a partition-like feature where using one fingerprint will unlock access to all apps and media but another finger will unlock a different work space with only limited access;
- Macro shooting: you will be able to take photos of objects that are at a distance of 2.5cm with no blur at all, that’s nearly 5cm closer than the standard.
After spending less than an hour with the new Mate 20 Pro, my first feelings were positive towards it. It feels good in the hand, there are no buttons or fingerprint scanners (as that is designed into the screen) and the design of the cameras are not in a random position.
I was really impressed with the clarity and the crisp quality of the photos and videos, while also marvelling at the sleek curved screen.
When most of these features were announced there was a continuous stream of excited chatter from the crowd but, as the event moved on, the claps became fewer and the crowd seemed to be drifting. This might be because the features were already known from the London launch, and guests were just waiting to get their hands on the Mate 20 Pro.
Huawei has made great strides in the smartphone market and its phone camera quality has been setting the standard.
Will the Mate 20 Pro live up to the high moniker that it has been given? I’d be a jester in the king’s court if I answer.
Pre-orders start from October 24 to October 31, and the Mate 20 Pro will be available in all stores from November 1.
