Huawei Mate 30 release date: Huawei launches five new handsets in Munich

UPDATE: As expected, Huawei has launched the Mate 30 series in Munich, Germany. There are five new handsets to admire – the Mate 30 and 30 Pro, plus two 5G variants and a Porsche RS edition – and we’ll have the details soon; for now, you can use the link below to visit our dedicated news story.

Read more about the new Huawei Mate 30 series here

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The Huawei Mate 30 series is launching this month, on 19 September in Munich, Germany. So far, we know surprisingly little about the Mate 30 or its big sibling the Mate 30 Pro; rumours currently suggest that Huawei has some major updates in store for the Note 10 rival but even now, mere weeks from launch, information remains relatively scarce.

We’ve gathered everything we do know about the new handsets and published it here, saving you the hassle of searching through endless leak sites and Twitter posts in the process. Here’s everything else we know about the Huawei Mate 30.

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Huawei Mate 30: Everything we know so far

Huawei Mate 30 release date: When will it launch?

After Huawei’s consumer business software president Dr Wang Chenglu spilt the beans during a press conference, Huawei has officially confirmed that the Mate 30 series will launch on 19 September in Munich. The announcement was made on Twitter, and includes the tagline “rethink possibilities.” Presumably, this refers to Huawei rethinking its entire operating system in light of the US government-imposed sanctions.

We’ll have boots on the ground in Berlin for IFA, where Huawei will almost certainly shed some light on the Kirin 990 processor that will power the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro. You can read more about the event over at our guide to IFA 2019.

Huawei Mate 30 price: How much will it cost?

There’s no confirmed price for the Huawei Mate 30, so the best way to hazard a guess is to look at previous Huawei releases. For instance, the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro, which both released last year, sold for £499 and £899, respectively.

While this could be used as a rough estimate for the Huawei Mate 30 and its potential Pro equivalent, it’s likely that both versions will end up costing more than what’s come before when it releases.

For example, if we look at the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, which launched in 2017, we can see that it cost £799. With a £100 price increase the following year for Huawei Mate 20 Pro, it would not surprise us to see the Mate 30 line of phones receive a similar treatment.

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Huawei Mate 30 specs and features: What will the new phone offer?

Rumours about the Huawei Mate 30 are becoming more prevalent with each passing leak, meaning we have a lot to work with on the speculation front. Our current best look at the Mate 30 comes from Ice Universe, who discovered what appears to be a legitimate poster for the handset:

The image seems to lend weight to the rumour that the Mate 30 series will have a circular rear camera layout, potentially offering up to three/four sensors depending on the model. In this scenario, the Mate 30 Pro would have four rear sensors: a regular lens, telephoto lens, ultra-wide lens and 3D Time of Flight lens, if the rumours are to be believed.

In addition, the poster reveals the front face of the Mate 30 (or Mate 30 Pro – we can’t be certain). If this depiction is accurate, the new handsets will have a long, slim notch and a “waterfall” display that slides over the edge of the handset a la Samsung Galaxy. Oh, and of course, we catch a glimpse of the colours available for the Mate 30 series. Pearlescent silver and a funny shade of green, it looks like.

Further leaks from a SlashLeaks contributor, @Rodent950, suggests the Huawei Mate 30 pro will have a 6.6in or 6.8in “waterfall display”, an enormous 4,5000mAh battery and “superWirelessCharge” amongst many other updated features.

As per usual, we always have to take these “leaks” with a pinch of salt but it does ring true with previous speculation. The inclusion of the Kirin 990 chipset, for instance, is something we had already assumed as discussed below.

Kirin 990

While speaking to journalists at an EMUI 10 media session, Huawei’s consumer business software president Dr Wang Chenglu quite innocuously mentioned that the turbo-charged handset (and its sibling the Mate 30 Pro) will use Huawei’s brand-new Kirin 990 chipset, which is normally not information shared lightly.

5G support

Huawei’s most recent phone, the Huawei P30, didn’t come with 5G compatibility, but that probably won’t be the case for the Mate 30. At the P30 launch event, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, Richard Yu, said the company was in the process of deciding whether or not the next line of Mate phones would come equipped with 5G compatibility.

As luck would have it, the next range of expected phones just so happens to be the Huawei Mate 30 and 30 Pro. What does this mean, exactly? As Yu himself put it, he believes 5G networks will be all good to go by the end of the year, “ready for the Mate series”. Our guess? He’s talking about the Huawei Mate 30, which is also expected to release towards the end of the year.

Improved display

According to a leak from Chinese website IT Home, the Huawei Mate 30 will have an AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. If true, the phone would offer smoother animations, especially when compared to the Huawei P30 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, both of which use 60Hz displays.

This would make the Mate 30, alongside the OnePlus 7 Pro, one of the only non-gaming smartphones to provide a 90Hz refresh rate.

Long-lasting battery

Finally, the Mate 30 is rumoured to have a 4,200mAh cell with 55W fast charging. This is according to Android Central, making the handset’s battery both a similar and slightly improved version of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which also had a 4200mAh battery but only 40W wired charging.