Huawei Mate 20 Pro review: amazing battery, performance, and display, but it isn't available in the US, software has some bugs, and camera isn't top notch
Huge battery, slick design, and a superb processor, constrained by bad software and international relations
Context & Ripple Effects
This review lands mid-arc in The Verge's Huawei Mate/P-series run. The Mate 10 Pro review eight months earlier flagged the same split verdict — excellent build, battery, and performance undermined by buggy software at an $800 price — and the P20 Pro had already been crowned the best Android phone of 2018 on the strength of its battery and low-light camera.
So the Mate 20 Pro's pattern is familiar: another hardware step forward (battery, display, processor) with software polish still trailing, and a new constraint hardening around it — no US availability, which the review ties to international relations. The later Mate 30 Pro review shows where that constraint leads: missing Google services turning great hardware into a deal breaker.
First-order effects
- US buyers are simply locked out of the device — Huawei's strongest hardware of the cycle competes only in Europe, Asia, and other markets where it is actually sold.
- Huawei's recurring software criticism carries over from the Mate 10 Pro generation, so even impressed reviewers can't give the flagship an unqualified recommendation despite the battery, performance, and display gains.
Second-order effects
- With the camera not yet top-tier here — before the P30 Pro's low-light and zoom leap — Huawei's pitch rests on battery and performance alone, letting rivals win the spec argument in markets where both are sold.
- US unavailability caps the brand's stateside momentum regardless of product quality, pushing Huawei to double down on the European and Asian launches where reviews like this one do the selling.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Huawei's flagships become regionally excellent products: hardware that leads global reviews but whose addressable market is decided by political access and ecosystem services rather than by the devices themselves — a trajectory the Mate 30 Pro's Google-services problem makes explicit.
The trend: Huawei's flagship line keeps closing the hardware gap with each Mate and P generation while software polish and, increasingly, market access and ecosystem services become the binding constraints on its global ambitions.