Bucket Tech: Huawei Mate 30 Series - First Impressions

While still under a huge cloud of uncertainty over their relations with the US, Chinese tech giants Huawei launched their much anticipated flagship device series in Munich, Germany yesterday. The event which was live streamed world wide was hosted by Executive Director Richard Yu who showcased the companies latest assets in the Mate 30 Series as well as new wearables, accessories and a television!

The biggest question on everyone's minds was what was going to power the new Mate 30 Series seeing that Google had put a trade block on Huawei due to the US sanctions, well the answer was given, Mate 30 features Androids open source OS, Android 10 which runs on EMUI 10, the user interface is identical to that of your normal Android device until you realise there is no Google Apps. So no Gmail, no Google Maps, no YouTube, and most importantly, no Google Playstore. Whether or not you can download these apps via a 3rd party remains to be seen but for now, it looks like you have to access some of these apps the old fashion way, via the browser. Huawei though have their own AppGallery which has over 45,000 applications already. 

Now with the device taking such a big knock already due to the US sanctions in terms of OS capabilities, the phone has to make up for it right? Well Huawei weren't going to take this lying down, the device is powered by the most advanced 5G chip-set on the market being the Kirin 990, the device also has the most advanced cooling system on the market making it up to 30% more cooler at run time. The Huawei Mate 30 Series also has the most 5G antenna's making it the best connectivity device on the market. The 5G speeds capable by the Mate 30 are phenomenal beating competitors in a speed test by almost 600mbps! That's over half a gigabyte more in the same amount of time. Huawei claim to have the best overall 5G experience with this Mate 30 device, giving you faster speeds, with a cooler device, with dual 5G sim slots and better battery performance. 

Speaking of the battery, the Mate 30 Pro comes fitting with a monster 4500mAh battery which the company claim can give you two full days of heavy usage. Being such a big battery you'd expect it to be big and heavy but its not, its actually smaller and lighter than any other competitors battery which is a major plus. Overall size to screen ratio is vastly improved on the Mate 30 Pro as it features fully bezel sides. The screen which extend over to the side has functionality too, and aren't just there for appearance. You can control the volume and has camera functions built in as well. 

The camera on the Mate 30 has stepped up big time and features a quad camera system developed with Leica in an exquisite halo ring design. Inspiration for this was taken from Leica camera lenses them self. The Mate 30 Pro camera features a 40MP (18mm) Ultra Wide lens, a 40MP (27mm) SuperSensing Wide lens, 8MP Telephoto zoom lens and a 3D depth sensing lens to give you those bespoke Bokeh shots. While it doesnt have the periscope lens of the P30 Pro, it still is able to give you up to 3x Optical Zoom with 45x Hybrid Zoom. The massive step up is on the video size, with Huawei saying that they're giving users the world's first 40 MP Cine camera that is capable of filming in 4K at 60fps, it has 4K HDR time lapse and ISO 512 000 which can shoot video in extreme low light, so not only low light photography but videography too. It has a real-time Bokeh effect recording with depth of field and dual OIS + AIS for more stable recording. The biggest surprise was its ultra slo-motion feature which captions video at 7680fps! that just blows the competition away by miles with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ only being able to achieve 960fps.

There's so much more to this device that really excites us and while the Mate 30 Pro is the one to have, the normal Mate 30 isn't too shabby either. Huawei also announced another Porsche Design Model with the Mate 30 RS. We will have to wait and see what the local offering and pricing is for the devices in the next week. So far its looking like the Chinese mobile phone manufacturer has steadied the tide against it with these but time will tell how the market will react to it. 

Bucket Tech: Huawei P30 Series

Today in Paris Huawei showcased its latest flagship smart phone, the P30 and the P30 Pro, along with other cool products and accessories to go with it. With Samsung having unpacked their artillery with the Galaxy S10 launch not so long ago, all eyes in the technology industry were keen to see what the Chinese had up their sleeve to match or beat the Korean's at and Huawei didn't disappoint. I won't be giving away too much in this post as I will be attending the local launch of the P30 Series next week and will have a more detailed analysis of the devices then but for now I'll just skim through the really cool features that was showcased at today's global launch.

The main feature or talking point about the P Series phones has always been it's camera, it was on the P9 that Huawei announced it's partnership with Leica and launched the world's first dual lens camera phone and it only got better from there. With the P30 much is the same with it having the world's first Leica Quad Camera, this helped  P30 Pro achieve the highest score ever by Dxomark Mobile of 112, the next  two phones on the list received 109 and those devices are also Huawei's, the Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro. Some of the main area's Huawei targeted with the P30 camera is taking pictures in low light, with P30 Pro's camera brings in as much light as possible into it's pictures to get the best quality imagines in low light or the dark and it does this on auto settings with just one click. No need for a fancy tripod or night mode. At the launch Huawei were blunt as ever, having two of their competitors devices to showcase live to the crowd how much better their phone is.

The camera functions don't just stop there, with incredible pictures being able to be capture in auto mode, the night mode feature just takes it to the next level with you being able to capture the galaxy with the P30 Pro and Huawei's Richard Yu was quick to point out that the Samsung Galaxy couldn't replicate the feat. Huawei's P30 Series also comes with phenomenal zoom capabilities, with hybrid zoom which means you can zoom in and not lose quality of the picture or video, it truly is astounding as proven again by their live demo at the event. It also has the option of a dual video function, where the camera uses a wide angle lens and a normal lens for a cinematic effect, it will add a new dimension to videos going forward.

The battery on the P30 Pro is pretty impressive and it also has all the same qualities as the Mate 20 Pro with reverse charging and fast charging. With the screen to body ratio being so minimal, Huawei have made an acoustic display whereby the speak sits under the screen, transforming the screen into your earpiece speaker, quite revolutionary for a device and will be featured in many others to come. The P30 Series comes in a few colour options, my favourite being Aurora which I presume will be one of the favourites when launched locally. Cost wise, the P30 launched at €799 and the P30 Pro starting from €999. We will have to wait till next weeks launch to find out the costing for us in SA.

Also at the launch Huawei took the opportunity to launch other products like their new watch and wireless ear buds but one that stuck out from the lot was their Smart Eyewear which is the world's first Smart Spectacles. Well, yes Snapchat did have their one but this makes that one look like a Fisher Price toy, mind you the name of Huawei's product also sounds like a kids today "Gentle Monster". It's design is fashionable and trendy, it has no buttons and operates by touch. Has a built in antenna, microphone and dual speaker so you can take a call with it while doing whatever it is you're doing. You can even ask it for info like you would for your phone and it will give it to you. The glasses comes in it's own unique pouch which serves as a wireless charging station for it and is the worlds first contact less wireless charging device.

Getting back to the P30 Series, we've only touched on just a few things that this device is capable of doing, we'll have a more indepth look at the device once it's launched locally, and have local pricing available for the phone and to see what cool accessories Huawei chose to bring to the country.