Huawei Mate 30 launches September 19, but question marks over Android remain

By Andy Boxall September 2, 2019

Huawei will launch the new Mate 30 series smartphones on September 19, at a special event in Munich, Germany. The arrival of Huawei’s new phones is marred by controversy, regarding whether or not the devices will use Google Android and all the related Google Services. Due to the continuation of Huawei’s well-publicized problems with the U.S. government, it may not have secured the correct licensing to use the software.

There have been conflicting reports on what’s going to happen with the Mate 30. While some have claimed Huawei does not have the ability to use Google Services on the Mate 30, Huawei has expressed confidence that it can do so. However, it has not gone into detail about how it will achieve this. As it stands right now, it’s presumed the block on U.S. companies doing business with Huawei prevents it from incorporating Google Services on phones not previously announced. This would include the Mate 30.

The Mate 30 is Huawei’s second major smartphone release of 2019, following the P30 Pro earlier in the year. The phone is usually promoted as a powerful productivity device, but the line between it and the P30 Pro’s fashion-forward design and camera-oriented features has blurred. We expect the Mate 30 and particularly the Mate 30 Pro to refine the P30 Pro’s excellent camera further, and to introduce new features too. Additionally, it’s almost certainly going to be Huawei’s first phone to use the Kirin 990 processor, which will launch at the IFA technology show in Germany this week. Regardless of the operating system the phone uses, it will also have the new EMUI 10 user interface over the top.

Even without Android or Google Services on board, Huawei will sell the Mate 30 in China, where Google Services are banned anyway. This means that the announcement of the launch event — revealed to the public in a tweet — is not evidence the Mate 30 will come with Google Services. However, it’s likely both Huawei and Google will be working hard to ensure that it does. The event will be one of the most talked about of the year; not just because of the phone itself, but also how the software situation will be solved, or not.

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Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

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