Huawei takes on iPhone 11 with Mate 30 smartphones

HUAWEI launched its Mate 30 smartphone range yesterday in a challenge to Apple’s iPhone 11, saying the Chinese firm’s new devices were more compact, their cameras superior and wraparound screens brighter.

Huawei’s top salesman Richard Yu showcased the Mate 30 Pro and Mate 30 phones at a glitzy event in Munich, Germany, its first unveiling of an all-new phone since President Donald Trump hit the company with an export ban in May.

“It’s got a large screen but it’s very compact in your hand,” Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business, said of the phone, whose fate in Europe will hang on whether customers buy a device lacking access to software and apps supported by Google.

The Mate 30 range will run on an open-source version of Android — and not on the current version licensed from Google. The smartphones will not be able to use Google Mobile Services like the Play Store and download apps like Gmail, Youtube or Maps.

Instead, Huawei will offer its own interface that will allow users to access some Google apps.

“Today because of the US ban... we cannot pre-install” Google’s applications, said Yu.

Huawei says the phone’s ‘brain’ — the Kirin 990 chipset unveiled at a recent tech fair in Berlin — outperforms the Qualcomm-powered 5G phones already on the market from market leader Samsung.

In particular, the ‘big coretiny core’ configuration of the hardware means it can run power-hungry applications like artificial intelligence or support online gaming, while saving battery on routine tasks.

(Reuters)