Huawei P20 review

Performance

Huawei and its HiSilicon silicon branch, in particular, seem to currently be a few months behind the curve on chipset development. It's a release cycle issue, more than anything else, since news of the Kirin 980 and its most likely ambassador - the Mate 20, is already surfacing. In the meantime, however, the Huawei P20 is stuck with the Kirin 970. Don't get us wrong, while slightly dated, it still has plenty of power to go around. So, we can't really complain about the chipset choice.

That's if you don't count how abnormally hot the P20 got during our benchmark run. So hot, in fact, that it was actually uncomfortable to the touch, especially around the top frame of the unit.

The situation actually got so bad that we were forced to whip out our special peltier-based cooling setup and re-run the benchmarks with active cooling applied to the back of the unit. Examining the performance numbers in more detail reveals that the four 2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 and other four 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 units inside the Kirin 970 actually favoured quite well, even with the intensive heat.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  10215
• Apple iPhone 8
  10214
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  8883
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  8487
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  8349
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  6759
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  6739
• Huawei P20
  6722
• Huawei P20 Pro
  6679
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  6656
• HTC U11+
  6654
• Huawei Mate 10
  6625
• Nokia 8
  6568
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  6428
• LG V30
  6365
• Huawei Honor 7X
  3535

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  4256
• Apple iPhone 8
  4234
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  3771
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  2446
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  2199
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1991
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  1974
• HTC U11+
  1939
• Nokia 8
  1925
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  1915
• Huawei P20 Pro
  1907
• LG V30
  1901
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  1900
• Huawei P20
  1897
• Huawei Mate 10
  1882
• Huawei Honor 7X
  904

GeekBench reports scores quite similar to those of a Huawei Mate 10 and easily comparable to the previous generation of competing chips, like the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895. So, about what we expected.

AnTuTu scores seem mostly unaffected by the heat overall, although we are still seeing consistently lower numbers than the Mate 10. It is also worth noting that we ran AnTuTu 5 as well and saw noticeably bigger difference.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  265326
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  264044
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  246660
• Huawei Mate 10
  214037
• Nokia 8
  210323
• Huawei P20 Pro
  209884
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  207072
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  207016
• Huawei P20
  206906
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  203119
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  199022
• LG V30
  182374
• Huawei Honor 7X
  67636

Other compound benchmarks, like BaseMark OS 2.0 are less kind to a smouldering Huawei P20 and clearly showcase the adverse effects on performance.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  4708
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  4196
• Apple iPhone 8
  3934
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  3681
• Nokia 8
  3503
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  3487
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  3458
• Huawei Mate 10
  3415
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  3379
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  3376
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  3354
• Huawei P20
  3338
• HTC U11+
  3257
• Huawei P20 Pro
  3252
• LG V30
  2705
• Huawei Honor 7X
  1398

The CPU might be fine, but the Mali-G72 MP12 GPU, not so much.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 8
  85
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  83
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  82
• Apple iPhone X
  81
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  74
• Huawei P20 Pro
  66
• Huawei Mate 10
  65
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  65
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  61
• LG V30
  60
• Nokia 8
  57
• HTC U11+
  56
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  56
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  50
• Huawei P20
  47
• Huawei Honor 7X
  8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 8
  60
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  59
• Apple iPhone X
  59
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  56
• Huawei P20 Pro
  55
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  51
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  50
• Huawei P20
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  45
• Huawei Mate 10
  43
• HTC U11+
  36
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  36
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  36
• LG V30
  35
• Nokia 8
  33
• Huawei Honor 7X
  8.3

The difference in frame rate is clearly there in both off-screen and on-screen scenarios. The GPU clearly thermal-throttles, which can also be observed by monitoring the GPU core frequencies during tests.

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  35
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  35
• Nokia 8
  32
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  28
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  26
• HTC U11+
  25
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  25
• LG V30
  24
• Huawei P20
  23
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  23
• Huawei P20 Pro
  23
• Huawei Mate 10
  21
• Huawei Honor 7X
  2.8

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  33
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  24
• Huawei P20
  23
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  23
• Huawei P20 Pro
  21
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  20
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  14
• Huawei Mate 10
  13
• LG V30
  13
• HTC U11+
  13
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  13
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  13
• Nokia 8
  12
• Huawei Honor 7X
  2.8

Higher version OpenGL GFXBench tests report smaller, or even entirely non-existent scores, regardless of temperature state. The GPU's is clearly hitting some unrelated limitation that causes the fps cap.

But, believe us when we say, the adverse effects are still there. Take Basemark ES 3.1, for instance. Not only does it take into consideration a total rendered frame count, but it is also a very lengthy test to run, leaving the Mali-G72 MP12 plenty of time to get all toasty.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  1854
• Apple iPhone 8
  1690
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  1481
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1189
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  1177
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  1174
• Huawei Mate 10
  1142
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  874
• LG V30
  860
• Nokia 8
  855
• HTC U11+
  851
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  829
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  699
• Huawei P20
  538

Basemark X paints the exact same picture.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  44058
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  44013
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  42370
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  42134
• Huawei Mate 10
  40809
• Google Pixel 2 XL
  39143
• HTC U11+
  38315
• OnePlus 5T (Oreo)
  38248
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  37659
• Nokia 8
  37593
• LG V30
  36704
• Huawei P20
  26842
• Huawei Honor 7X
  8616

All that being said, in real world terms, you are quite unlikely to notice any slow-downs, even in the most demanding game titles. Modern engines are simply too good at adjusting to deliver the best possible experience. Playing games for extended periods of time didn't result in the colossal heat build-up which we observed while benchmarking.