Huawei Mate 20 Pro vs iPhone XS vs Galaxy Note 9: The Ultimate Flagship Champion Is…?

Chinese manufacturer Huawei launched its top of the line flagship model Mate 20 Pro in India yesterday. Packed by next-gen features, the smartphone will go against some of the top current flagships.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro will be available exclusively via Amazon India.

Priced at Rs 69,990, Huawei Mate 20 Pro will be up against the likes of iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy Note 9. In the premium flagship war, let’s find out who’s the real flagship king in India.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro vs iPhone XS vs Galaxy Note 9: In-Depth Comparison

All the three smartphones: Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Apple iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy Note 9 are currently available in India.

Let’s begin!

Design & Build

Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a curved glass sandwich body with tapered edges. It has a thin curved bezel with rounded sides. Apple iPhone XS has a similar glass design with a stainless steel frame surrounding the device. The iPhone XS is protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on front and back.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 on the other has a tall body in a more phablet shaped manner. There’s the new S Pen on the Galaxy Note 9 as well with Bluetooth LE wireless support.

Galaxy Note 9 comes with the 3.5mm headphone jack, missing on both Mate 20 Pro and iPhone XS. Galaxy Note 9 has narrow bezels not no notch unlike the other two.

Display

Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a 6.39-inch Quad HD+ OLED display offering a screen resolution of 3120 × 1440 pixels backed by a notch on top in a 19.5:9 screen ratio. Apple iPhone XS also has a notch but with in a smaller 5.8-inch OLED display having a screen resolution of 2461 × 1125 pixels.

Lastly, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 features the largest 6.4-inch Super AMOLED edge-to-edge Infinity Display.

Hardware

Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs on the top-end Kirin 980 processor. It’s the first 7nm processed Android SoC offering upto 20 percent better performance compared to Qualcomm’s current flagship Snapdragon 845 chipset.

Apple iPhone XS runs on its own A12 Bionic chip, the first 7nm designed chipset in the world. The smartphone packs in an 8-core neural engine offering one the best smartphone experiences backed by a new ISP and improved AI processor. On the other, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has its in-house SD 845 compatible Exynos 9810 processor.

In terms of multitasking, memory heavy apps, graphically intensive games or extended usage, all the three phones have done exceptionally well.

Storage

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is only available in a single 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage option in India. Apple iPhone XS on the other hand, has three storage options available in the country. You can buy a 64GB, 256GB or 512GB storage iPhone XS.

Galaxy Note 9 has two storage variants. You can get either 6GB RAM/256GB variant or the higher 8GB RAM/512GB storage variant.

Software & Connectivity

Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs Android 9.0 Pie out of the box based on its own in-house latest EMUI 9.0 UI. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 runs on Android 8.1 Oreo with Samsung Experience UX and iPhone XS on Apple’s own iOS 12 out of the box.

All the three phones support dual-SIM connectivity with iPhone XS supporting eSIM for a dual slot. Currently, in India, the eSIM facility is supported by Airtel and Reliance Jio.

Camera

Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a Leica-branded rear tri-camera set up comprising of a 40-megapixel RGB based primary sensor, 8-megapixel telephoto sensor and finally a 20-megapixel wide-angle lens for macro and landscape shots. Up front, it features a 24-megapixel front-facing f/2.0 shooter supporting infrared 3D facial recognition system like Apple’s Face ID.

Apple iPhone XS, on the other hand, features a rear dual camera system comprising of a 12-megapixel primary f/1.8 aperture lens coupled with a 12-megapixel wide-angle f/2.4 aperture lens. Up front, the iPhone XS has a 7-megapixel TrueDepth front-camera sensor supporting Face ID unlock.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has a similar rear camera configuration as Galaxy S9 Plus. It features a 12-megapixel dual rear cameras with inbuilt variable aperture option to choose between f/2.4 and f/1.5 aperture with dual-pixel PDAF. Both the sensors support OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). Galaxy Note 9 on the front has an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with autofocus feature and wide f/1.7 aperture.

All the cameras perform really well, but DXoMark has ranked Huawei Mate 20 Pro as the best camera smartphone in the world.

Battery

Huawei Mate 20 Pro has the biggest battery of all. The smartphone packs in a huge 4,200mAh supporting fast wireless charging, Wireless Reverse Charge and the new SuperCharge technology supporting upto 40W speeds.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 also packs in a massive 4,000mAh supporting fast charging and wireless charging.

Apple doesn’t disclose its batteries. As far as we know, the iPhone XS reportedly packs a  3,179 mAh battery supporting wireless charging.

Pricing

Huawei Mate 20 Pro is available at Rs 69,990 for the 6GB RAM model. While the Apple iPhone XS has three variants with a price starting at Rs 99,900 for the 64GB model going up to Rs 1,34,900 for the 512GB model.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 on the other costs Rs 67,900 for the 128GB base model and Rs 84,900 for the 512GB top model.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro vs iPhone XS vs Galaxy Note 9: CONCLUSION

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro does come with a ton of interesting features compared to Galaxy Note 9 and iPhone XS. The competitive pricing in India will help the new Huawei flagship stay ahead of its competitors like Apple iPhone XS, Samsung Galaxy Note 9, and Google Pixel 3 XL.

All the three phones offer a set of flagship features and top end specs.

If compared, the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro offers a host of new and coming of age features want in a premium flagship. If we had to pick one of the three, Mate 20 Pro is going to our choice for late 2018 in the premium flagship segment.