Huawei Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro: All the rumors in one place (Updated August 5)
Update, August 5, 2019 (4:39PM EST): There’s new information on the Mate 30 Pro’s rear camera system and software. Read on to learn more!
Original article: The Huawei Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro are the next expected flagship smartphones from the Chinese manufacturer. The Huawei Mate 30 Pro, in particular, should continue on the legacy of being the top-tier smartphone from Huawei.
Similar to how Samsung organizes the releases of its flagships, Huawei tends to release a killer flagship in the P series early in the year and then follow that up with a new entry in the Mate series later on. As such, we expect the Mate 30 series to land sometime this fall.
However, Huawei is facing some extremely difficult problems right now with being on the United States government’s Entity List, which effectively bars it from doing business with U.S.-based companies — which includes Google and Android. We are not sure if the Huawei Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro will land in the same fashion as they have in previous years — or if they will land at all.
Either way, the following rumors are what we know (or think we know) about the Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro so far. Be sure to bookmark this page and visit often as we will be updating it with new information as we find it.
Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro: Name and release date
The most recent entries in Huawei’s P series — the Huawei P30, P30 Lite, and P30 Pro — stuck with the naming convention introduced with the Huawei P20 series by jumping up ten digits. We fully expect the next line of Mate smartphones to follow the same trajectory and ship as the Mate 30 series.
Last year, along with the vanilla Mate 20 and the Mate 20 Pro, Huawei also shipped the Mate 20 X (an enormous smartphone with a focus on gaming) and the confusingly named Huawei Porsche Design Mate 20 RS (an ultra expensive version of the Mate 20 Pro with Porsche design elements). We have no information to suggest one way or the other if Huawei plans to release 30-series updates for those latter two devices, but it’s a good bet it will.
It's very likely the new Mate phones will launch under the Mate 30 moniker and launch sometime in October.
For years now, Huawei has launched the latest Mate smartphones in October to best take advantage of holiday sales. Last year, October was jam-packed with releases such as the Google Pixel 3, the OnePlus 6T, the LG V40 ThinQ, and a few others. It makes perfect sense for Huawei to again release the Mate 20 series in October — however, we have no solid information to confirm that will actually happen this early in the game.
For what it’s worth, Huawei gave a launch window for the Mate 30 series as “in September or October,” so it’s a fairly safe bet we’ll see it around then.
Once again, Huawei’s troubles with the U.S. government cast a dark shadow on pretty much everything it does. There’s no telling how those troubles will affect the release of the Mate 30 phones.
Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro: Design
Since we’re so early in the rumor schedule at the moment, concrete information about the design of the Mate 30 series is tough to get. However, we can make some very safe assumptions based on the Mate 20 line as well as what Huawei did with the P30 line.
The biggest upgrade related to the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro was the triple-lens camera setup on the rear, which was arranged in a squircle formation. Judging by the great reviews for that camera — as well as the rumors that the 2019 iPhones and the upcoming Google Pixel 4 will have a very similar design — it’s a solid bet that Huawei will keep the same or similar rear camera design on the Mate 30 series.
It could even add an extra lens in there, as the P30 Pro’s quad-lens camera was also a big hit.
It's very likely the Mate 30 series will feature a similar rear camera setup as on the Mate 20 and will also probably feature gradient colorways.
The running premium smartphone trend so far in 2019 is to do away with the display notch and instead opt for one of two other design choices: a full-screen display with a pop-up selfie camera (such as with the OnePlus 7 Pro) or a punch hole front-facing camera (such as with the Samsung Galaxy S10 series). Since the Huawei Mate 20 had an iPhone XS-like notch at the top, we would be very surprised if Huawei didn’t do away with this to keep its design trendy.
We have seen some leaked renders that suggest Huawei will add a punch hole selfie camera to the Mate 30 series. However, these renders are dubious at best.
The P20, P30, and Mate 20 all also featured stunning gradient color designs. We fully expect to see new gradient colors with the Mate 30 series.
Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro: Specs and features
If some leaks out of China (via IT News) are to be believed, the specs for the Huawei Mate 30 Pro will be quite formidable. Since this is arguably Huawei’s most important flagship, that makes perfect sense.
According to rumors, the Mate 30 Pro will feature a 6.71-inch AMOLED display, which is enormous. That display could also feature a 90Hz refresh rate, which we saw earlier this year on the OnePlus 7 Pro. With a 90Hz refresh rate, scrolling through apps and web pages will appear much smoother and certain games will look crisper than on other phones, most of which feature 60Hz refresh rates.
The Mate 30 Pro could feature a massive display with a 90Hz refresh rate as well as the upcoming Kirin 985 processor.
Rumors also suggest the Mate 30 Pro could come with the Kirin 985 processor paired with the Balong 5000 modem. The former chip is a solid bet as we’ve seen plenty of rumors surrounding its imminent arrival. The latter chipset would afford the Mate 30 Pro with 5G connectivity, which is something we’ve heard Huawei suggest recently.
According to known leaker Ice Universe, the Mate 30 Pro will feature two 40MP cameras. While one will reportedly be the primary sensor, the second will reportedly serve as the phone’s ultra-wide sensor. There’s also talk of a third 5x telephoto sensor set at 8MP.
There seems to be a lot of people who don’t know how big the gap is. I’ll draw a picture to tell you that, in fact, Note10 has no chance of beating Mate30 Pro in terms of camera hardware. pic.twitter.com/f8W2kSTLqk
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) August 4, 2019
Elsewhere, we’ve heard rumors that the Mate 30 Pro will have a 4,200mAh battery, which is the same as the Mate 20 Pro. It would be strange if Huawei didn’t upgrade the battery capacity at least somewhat, but a 4,200mAh size is terrific, especially when paired with 40W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. Huawei might not think this needs much improvement.
The Mate 20 Pro shipped with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It’s very likely these specs would get upgraded, possibly to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, to better compete with Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, etc.
Finally, Huawei will reportedly ship the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro with Android Q underneath EMUI 11. Huawei will reportedly launch a Hongmeng OS-equipped phone in the same quarter as the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro’s launch.
Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro: Price
Since the Mate 20 series is arguably Huawei’s most premium line, you can expect each device launched to be expensive. How expensive, though, is unclear.
It’s very possible the U.S. government ban that Huawei faces could force it to alter its pricing strategy. If suppliers can’t work with the company and it needs to get parts from other sources, that could drive up prices. Conversely, Huawei could instead elect to cut corners and bring pricing down — or, at the very least, leave it the same.
Overall, the pricing of the Mate 30 series is something we can’t possibly predict this early in the game due to the Huawei ban. However, we can take a gander at last year’s pricing for the Mate 20 series and assume things won’t go too much lower. Here are those prices:
- Huawei Mate 20
- 4GB RAM + 128GB Storage — 799 euros (~$898)
- 6GB RAM + 128GB Storage — 849 euros ( ~$954)
- Huawei Mate 20 Pro
- 6GB RAM + 128GB Storage — 1,049 euros (~$1,178)
- Huawei Mate 20 X
- 6GB RAM + 128GB Storage — 899 euros (~$1,010)
- Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS
- 8GB RAM + 256GB Storage — 1,695 euros (~$1,904)
- 8GB RAM + 512GB Storage — 2,095 euros (~$2,353)
Huawei smartphones have never had a major presence in the U.S., but the Entity List ban makes us certain we won’t see the Mate 20 series launch in the States at all. It’s likely the phone will launch in Europe, the United Kingdom, Huawei’s native China, and other nations. Usually, Huawei staggers the launches throughout the globe, so you should expect that to happen this year, too.
Once again, any of this information and speculation could change due to the Huawei ban. It’s also very possible that we won’t even see the release of the Huawei Mate 20 series at all. The Honor 20 Pro, for example, still has no release date due to the ban. We’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out.
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