Huawei Mate 9 vs LG V20: The Flagship War Continues

The Great Dual-Lens Camera War

Dual-lens camera is the latest trend and both the companies are well versed with the technology. While we cannot comment on the camera performance of both the handsets until we review them, a look at speculations gives a good idea.

LG V20 sports a dual-lens camera setup, which houses one 16MP 75-degree lens and an 8MP 135-degree wide angle lens. The camera is also equipped with LG's hybrid autofocus technology that combines laser autofocus, phase detection autofocus, and contrast autofocus to give amazing imaging results. Besides, LG is also offering Qualcomm's Steady Record 2.0 EIS for smooth video recording. The smartphone has a 5MP 120-degree wide angle lens at the front.

Coming on to the Huawei Mate 9, the smartphone is no less than LG V20 and might beat it in low-light photography because it is powered by Leica-certified lenses.

Huawei Mate 9 has a 20MP monochrome sensor and a 12MP RGB sensor, both with f/2.2 apertures. The combination is designed to offer improved colour accuracy, depth perception, and better overall contrast. The rear camera features optical image stabilization (OIS), Hybrid Zoom, dual-tone dual-LED flash, and the first of its kind Huawei's i4-in-1 Hybrid Autofocus system, which combines contrast, depth, laser, and phase detection autofocus technologies. Compared to LG V20's 5MP front shooter, Huawei Mate 9 has an 8MP sensor with an f/1.9 aperture.

LG has an edge over Huawei in Display department

LG clearly wins here as its V20 sports a dual-screen display, which was first seen on its predecessor LG V10. LG V20 has a 5.7-inch QHD display with a pixel density of 513 PPI along with a secondary 2.1-inch display that acts as the "Always On" display. The secondary display can be used to check notifications, launch applications, and tweak quick settings.

On the other hand, Huawei Mate 9 sports a 5.9-inch full-HD display giving out a 1080x1920 pixels resolution. It's quite clear that LG V20 will serve better for watching videos and playing games.

Top-of-the line hardware

Both the smartphones have high-end processors and the latest software. Huawei Mate 9 is backed by company's in-house HiSilicon Kirin 960 octa-core SoC with four Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.4GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. The SoC is paired up with the recently announced ARM Mali-G71 GPU, coupled with 4GB of RAM.

On the other hand, LG V20 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, which is coupled with the same amount of RAM, i.e. 4GB to support multitasking.

Both the smartphones have fingerprint sensors at the rear side, however Huawei Mate 9 will offer added functionality.

The latest Android Operating System

Both the handsets run on the sweetest Android OS. Huawei Mate 9 runs EMUI 5.0 based on Android 7.0, while V20 runs LG's customized UI on Android 7.0 Nougat.

Battery, Storage and Connectivity

The Mate 9 comes with 64GB of inbuilt storage that's expandable via microSD card by up to 256GB. The smartphone is powered by a 4,000mAh battery with SuperCharge technology, which as per Huawei delivers a day's worth of charge in 20 minutes.

LG V20 also has 64GB of internal storage space but unlike Mate 9's 256GB support, it can go as far as 2TB via a microSD card. In terms of battery, LG loses to Mate 9 as it is backed by a smaller 3,200mAh removable battery unit. But it does offers support for Quick Charge 3.0 technology.