P20 Huawei Release Date, Price & Specification

An impressive camera is tipped for the Huawei P20 Pro, due to launch on 27 March, but Geekbench results suggest it can't touch the Galaxy S9 for performance. We explain all regarding the Huawei P20 launch date, price and specifications.

By Marie Black | 20 Mar 2018





On 27 March Huawei will announce successor to its P10 in the form of the Huawei P20 Lite, Huawei P20 Standard, and Huawei P20 Pro. Various marketing has already given away the naming, and Vodafone has even been in touch to confirm it will be selling the new smartphones soon.

Now with press renders leaked by @evleaks (shown above), we're starting to wonder whether there's actually anything we don't already know about the new Huawei flagship, which is possibly one of the worst-kept secrets ever.

The latest gem from the rumour mill concerns Geekbench scores for the Huawei P20 Pro. They're good, but they're not Galaxy S9 good.

When is the Huawei P20 release date?

The P20 will be announced in Paris on 27 March. We will have reporters at the event and nearer the time will embed both a live stream and live blog into this article so you can follow the announcements in real time.

The various press invites/save the date marketing has confirmed the name of the upcoming flagship, but also alluded to the heavily tipped triple rear cameras with the 'See MOOOre' tagline.

How much will the Huawei P20 cost?

According to respected tipster Roland Quandt, in Europe the Huawei P20 Lite, standard and Pro will cost 369€, 679€ and 899€ respectively.

It's never a straight conversion to Sterling or US dollars, though if it were we'd expect to see UK pricing at £329, £599 and £799, with US prices likely set at $329, $599 and $799.
Huawei P20 design

Previous rumours have suggested that the standard Huawei P20 will come in Ceramic Black/Twilight, the Pro also in Ceramic Black/Twilight, and the Lite in Midnight Black/Klein Blue/Sakura Pink.

There has been a lot of talk that the P20 will ship with three cameras, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that only the Pro model will feature this setup. It's definitely going to be the key selling point, however, as two new teaser videos big up the photography:

Press renders leaked by @evleaks now confirm this: both the Lite and Standard models feature dual-cameras at the back, and on the Lite there's also a centrally located fingerprint scanner. We suspect the Standard and Pro models integrate the fingerprint scanner to the home button at the front, which the Lite model does not feature.

We're not expecting to see a 3.5mm headphone jack in the Huawei P20, given that sister company Honor already ditched it in 2017 for its Honor 9. It's also becoming increasingly common for flagships to rely on USB-C audio.

From the images we can see much slimmer bezels with a notch-style tall screen. Whereas the iPhone X has an 19.5:9 screen ratio, the Huawei P20 (or at least one version of it spotted in benchmarks) will have an 18.7:9 screen. The phone in question has a full-HD screen, whereas we're expecting the P20 Pro to feature a Quad-HD screen.
Huawei P20 specifications

We expect the Huawei P20 standard and Pro to feature the Kirin 970, which also features in the Mate 10 and is said to deliver 25 times better CPU performance and 50 times greater energy efficiency.

The Kirin 970 is an octa-core chip (4x2.4GHz Cortex-A73 and 4x1.8GHz Cortex-A53 cores) with a 12-core GPU all built on a 10nm process. It's Huawei's first mobile AI computing platform featuring a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) and will be open to developers.

Early Huawei P20 Pro benchmarks from Geekbench suggest this phone is not as fast as the likes of the Galaxy S9 and Sony Xperia XZ2, however. It scored 6729 multi-core and 1921 single-core, while the Samsung and Sony turn in between 8- and 9000 points.
Huawei P20 (Standard)


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Kirin 970 octa-core processor
5.84in Full-HD+ (2280x1080) 'notch' screen
4GB/6GB RAM
64GB/128GB storage + microSD
Leica 12Mp + 20Mp dual-camera
Front fingerprint scanner
3320mAh battery
USB-C
Android 8.0 Oreo
Huawei P20 Lite



The Huawei P20 Lite's specification has been more heavily rumoured than that of either the Pro or standard models, but many of the rumours are contradictory. From sightings at TENAA, FCC, and even a Vodafone catalogue (spotted by Engadget Spain), we'd guess at the following specification:
Kirin 659 octa-core processor
5.84in Full-HD+ (2280x1080) 'notch' screen
4GB of RAM
64GB of storage
16Mp + 2Mp dual-camera
16Mp selfie camera
Rear fingerprint scanner
3.5mm headphone jack
2900mAh battery
Micro-USB 2.0
Android 8.0 Oreo
148.6x71.2x7.4mm
145g

GSMArena also reported a leaked blue version.
Huawei P20 Pro


Kirin 970 octa-core processor
6.01in Full-HD+ (2280x1080) 'notch' screen
4GB/6GB of RAM
64GB/128GB storage + microSD
Leica 12Mp + 20Mp + 2Mp triple-camera
Front fingerprint scanner
4000mAh battery
USB-C
Android 8.0 Oreo
Huawei P20 vs P20 Pro vs P20 Lite

Smart Phones Release in 2018

It's impossible for us to be sure until the phones are announced on 27 March, but based on rumours and leaked images it would appear the three new Huawei phones will all look very similar. The Lite will stand out for its missing home button and rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, while both P20 (standard) and P20 Pro should see a fingerprint scanner integrated to the home button.

The P20 (standard) and P20 Pro will be distinguished by the dual-camera on the back of the standard and triple camera on the Pro, although it would appear the extra camera is merely a 2Mp model. Performance will be largely the same between these two models - slightly lower for the Lite which will have a different processor - though the Pro will have a marginally bigger screen and higher-capacity battery.