Cheating on my iPhone never felt right, until now

Don’t believe I ever left the Apple abandoned. I confess, when I started working at Tech News I was afraid to take my iPhone out of my pocket, but he was still there. After brief relationships with some Android phones from another planet, I would always return to what felt like home. The iPhone 7 Plus was chosen next, although at first I thought I was using a tablet rather than a phone. I flirted with the Nokia 6.1, the patriotic smartphones from BQ Aquaris, the X2 Pro and the Aquaris C, and the HTC U12 Life. All were satisfactory, I’m not going to lie to you. But they couldn’t make me forget about what I had at home.

Switching from Apple to Huawei

And then it came into my life. I did not have high expectations, I won’t deceive you, but my first impression was surprisingly good. So beautiful and shiny, so different… but I was wrong in assuming that it would not be the same as my beloved iPhone. After the initial doubts, it took very little time to conquer me. After a month, I had already forgotten most of the things I did with my Apple. Now, and after a lot of thinking – exchanging your daily companion for another was never an easy task – I am almost certain of that. But now I’ll take the Huawei Mate 20, at least for a while. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t also things I’m going to miss about my ex…

Size Matters

Let’s start with the bad, or the less good if you like. There’s still something that doesn’t convince me at all, even though I’m used to it. The size of Mate 20 line has gotten out of hand. The Mate 20 is even bigger than its older brother the Mate 20 Pro, so handling it easily with one hand has not been an easy task. I won’t even mention the size difference, more than considerable, with my former love the iPhone 5S, with its tiny 4-inch screen.

The Mate 20 has a great 6.53-inch Full HD+ LCD panel. And even though at first I thought I had a tablet in my hands, just like with the iPhone 7 Plus, now I feel comfortable. As one of my Tech News colleagues told me: “once you try one of the big ones it’s impossible to go back.” That’s the way it was for me. When I see my little boy at home, he almost seems like a toy to me.

And yes, it’s true that the new smartphones, both the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max, have slightly smaller screens, but it’s such a small difference that I’m not thinking about jumping if only for the money they cost. But we’ll talk about that later… And the notch? Well, it’s better not to talk about that at all.

iOS vs. EMUI

I know that when I finish this sentence I will regret it, but iOS seems to me to be the operating system of excellence. I admit that I don’t know if it’s just out of habit, but I find Apple’s software much more intuitive and simple, as well as being very minimalist, as I like it. Yeah, folks, I’m one of those ‘simplest is best’ people.

The Mate 20 comes equipped with EMUI 9.0 and Android Pie as standard. The most recent version of the Huawei customization layer reminds me very much of iOS, bridging the gap. This similarity has made everything easier in my day to day life… Although I still prefer Apple’s software at this point, EMUI gives me what I need.

Beauty is also on the inside

Mate 20 isn’t just nice on the outside. That’s just what’s obvious, but it’s on the inside where Huawei hides its most precious treasures. The Kirin 980 processor makes the phone as fast as a bullet and effective and a 4,000 mAh battery that can withstand whatever I throw at it, making the Mate 20 a real diamond.

The camera, my weakness

I confess that for many new features and watermarks in the world of smartphone cameras (I have talked about the bokeh effect and others that have not interested me at all until now), the iPhone camera, in general, has always seemed to me to stand out from the rest in its unique way of taking photos. No double camera or anything like that, I’m talking about its unique rear sensor that has allowed me to do almost anything for all these years. Needless to say, with just one camera you can do real wonders, and if not tell the owners of a Google smartphone: both the Pixel 2 and the latest Pixel 3 boast the crown of the best cameras in the business right now.

The three Leica cameras in the Mate 20 impressed me from the start. Having an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, a 16-megapixel wide-angle lens and a 12-megapixel main lens already wowed me. In daily use, I have not been disappointed even a little and have been given the opportunity to play around with it a lot. So many options have opened up an infinite number of possibilities for me.

The question of price

With everything considered, with all the good things, some not so good, what I do believe is that spending more than 1,000 euros on a smartphone is not an option for me. I think we’re entering a dangerous dynamic… Pay almost a monthly salary for a mobile phone? No, thank you. I’m fine. The 799 euros that the Huawei is worth already seems to me too much. I do not even want to think about the 300 euros extra that must be paid for the iPhone XS and at least 100 more again for its bigger brother the XS Max.

Maybe this is a fleeting love affair or maybe my fling with the Mate 20 will last longer, who knows. I’ll take things one step at a time… What is clear is that it has made me discover a new world to which, until now, I had not wanted to access. I do not know whether for fear of change or for addiction, call it whatever you want, Apple has always had me. You have to move with the times, that’s what they say…

Did you also fall into the temptation of Apple and then trade them for another? Share your smartphone love stories with us.