20th October 2018
Samaung Galaxy Note 9, Google Pixel 3 XL or Huawei Mate 20 Pro. Which Should I Buy?!
I've had my Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for about a month now and I still really like it. There are a few things that annoy me a little, mainly around Samsung Experience, their own skin that replaced Touchwiz. Still, I thought I would take a look at the Pixel 3 XL and I would have one of my classic head to heads over Samsung's flagship and Google's flagship, pick my favourite and that would be my new phone into the new year. Then I watched a few videos on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro...
It really does look a pretty amazing device. The Huawei P20 Pro was widely acclaimed for having the best mobile camera on the market, better even than the Pixel 2 (and XL of course) so I shouldn't be so suprised that the Mate 20 Pro looks that impressive a device.
Anyway, lets take a look at some of the pros and cons for each device.
Samsung Galaxy Note 9
The phone I currently have as my daily. I have no real issues with it, in all honesty I should just be sticking with the Note 9... but if there's something better out there... I need to know!
- Great build quality
- 2 lenses, regular and 2x zoom
- S-Pen and DeX are cool
- Possibly the best screen
- Headphone jack
- Programmable Bixby Button (Not Bixby itself!)
- Samsung Pay
- Heaviest of the three
- Camera is 'average' compared to the other two
- Samsung Experience Launcher
- Still on Android 8.1
Pixel 3 XL
Whilst the original Pixel XL and then the Pixel 2 XL have been far from perfect, I love stock Android and I love the camera.
- Fantastic camera and camera software options (Top Shot, Night Mode)
- Instant Android updates
- Stock Android
- Wide angle front facing camera. Yes, I do take group selfies!
- Back of device marks easy (even if the marks can be removed with a good clean, they wont just wipe off)
- Actually the most expesive (if you compare 128GB versions)
- Smallest battery
- Mic sounds terrible on video recordings
- No expandable storage
- Worlds largest notch
Huawei Mate 20 Pro
A month or so back I thought it would be a two horse race, between the Samsung and the Pixel... then I saw videos on the Mate 20 Pro. I would be silly to ignore it!
- Possibly the best camera of the three
- Three lenses, 40MP main, 20MP Ultra Wide Angle/Macro and 8MP 3x Zoom Lens
- Reverese wireless charging! Charge someone elses phone, from yours, using wireless charging
- Based on Android 9.0
- Smallest bezels of the three
- Under screen finger print sensor
- Largest battery at 4,200mAh
- 40W SuperCharge, 30 minutes gives 75% charge
- 7nm Chipset (Should be more efficient, take less power)
- 3D Face Unlock
- Free Huawei Watch GT with pre-orders
- EMUI launcher/skin
- Likely very slow updates
- Overly aggressive RAM management
- Fingerprint Sensor is harder to find
On the face of it, the Note 9 comes out a few ahead of even, the Pixel 3 XL is down 2 and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is a long way up! That makes it look pretty clear. I guess it just matters how important Stock Android might be. At present I have both the Pixel 3 XL and Huawei Mate 20 Pro on Pre-order, so there will likely be videos on them all coming soon!