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The HUAWEI Mate 20 will have a tasteful little notch, thank gosh
- New HUAWEI Mate 20 renders reveal the first details about its design.
- The Mate 20 will come with a waterdrop notch and a triple camera.
- Other details include the glass back and presence of an audio jack.
With Galaxy Note 9 reviews going up – and some suggesting it’s totally fine to spend up to $1250 on it – you may be tempted to take the plunge and buy one. You should probably wait though. A formidable alternative is coming from HUAWEI in just a couple of months and new renders from XDA-Developers suggest it may be worth the wait.
The renders recreate photographs of an alleged HUAWEI Mate 20 engineering sample that a source shared with XDA-Developers. Because the publication didn’t have access to the actual device, the dimensions and general placement of the design elements are approximate.
The most striking HUAWEI Mate 20 design element is the “waterdrop” notch at the top of the screen. It’s mercifully small and much better looking than notches on some other recent devices. Pocophone F1, I’m looking at you.
Smaller notches are not just better looking. They also take up less space, so they are less likely to interfere with the status bar. With larger notches, the Android status bar can become almost useless. Again, POCOphone F1, I’m looking at you.
The design of the notch matches a graphic asset found by XDA in the HUAWEI Mate 20’s firmware files. If the renders turn out to be correct, the Mate 20 would follow the lead of several phones from OPPO and vivo that feature the same drop-shaped notch. See: OPPO R17, vivo X23.
The other cool visual element is the triple-camera module on the back of the HUAWEI Mate 20. Unlike the vertically aligned cameras of the P2o Pro, the three cameras on the Mate 20 are grouped in a squarish module, together with the flash.
(If you get a weird off-putting feeling when you look at the camera module, you’re not alone. Trypophobia is a real thing. Don’t google it.)
The renders also show that HUAWEI is still firmly in the headphone jack camp. The Mate 20 gets dual speakers and a glass back, as well as a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. XDA chose not to include the latter feature in the renders, because it wasn’t visible in the images they’ve seen.
From previous leaks and reports, we expect the HUAWEI Mate 20 to feature a Kirin 980 processor, at least 6GB of RAM, at least 128GB of storage, and a beefy 4,200mAh battery. Check out more details about the Mate 20 family here, and let us know how you feel about these renders!