Huawei Mate LCD Monitor Review
Having a cracked LCD screen or malfunctioning touch panel on your Huawei Mate series phone can be quite frustrating. Luckily, it’s easy to fix these problems at a low cost with a bit of patience and the right tools.
Wireless*Real Colour Monitor supports HDMI, USB-C, MiniDP wired connections. Supports 1.07 billion colours. Passes TUV Rheinland low blue light test.
Color accuracy
The Huawei Mate LCD is a gorgeous display that has a lot of style and substance. It uses a unique screen that looks like a traditional QuadHD panel but offers more vertical space. It also has a wide viewing angle and can be used in portrait mode. Its unusual 3:2 aspect ratio won’t be a good fit for all users though.
Its IPS panel can reproduce a very wide range of colours, supporting 100% of the sRGB colour gamut and 98% of the more extensive DCI-P3 video color gamut. Its pre-calibrated colour accuracy is impressive, with a Delta E under 2. However, it’s not as accurate as some competing monitors.
A factory brightness level of 185 nits combines with a black point of 0.14 nits to create an excellent contrast ratio of 1,321:1. The default colour temperature is 5996K and is a little warm, but not oversaturated.
The screen’s pixel density is very high, which makes images look crisp and sharp. The screen’s backlight is LED, which gives it a nice glow when you’re using it. It also has a decent range of connectivity options, including HDMI and USB-C for both data transfer and display inputs. The only real downside is that it has no swivel adjustment or VESA compatibility.
Brightness
The display is very bright with over 600 nits at its peak brightness, which is quite impressive for an LCD. This makes it easy to use the phone outdoors in direct sunlight, but it’s not as bright Huawei Mate LCD as an AMOLED screen. The display also has a good contrast ratio, which makes colors pop without looking oversaturated. It also has a very uniform backlight, making it easier on your eyes than other LCDs.
Huawei continues to struggle with its display calibration, and this shows up in our testing. The Mate 9’s default white point is over 8,000K, which results in poor grayscale accuracy and a noticeable aqua tint at lower brightness levels. Its color accuracy isn’t great either; its sRGB mode exhibits red overshoot and the “Natural” mode veers far too blue. Using the custom settings with their better RGB balance improves the color accuracy, though.
The new Mate 20 Pro has a much better display, with a more accurate sRGB mode and less red overshoot. It also has a better gamma profile, although it still drifts a little high from the target. The colors are more vibrant than the previous generation, but they don’t look oversaturated like some other wide-gamut displays do. The Mate 20 Pro’s display also supports 120 Hz, which is a nice feature. It also uses DC dimming, which is better for your eyes than PWM (pulse width modulation) used in some other phones.
Contrast
Huawei is better known for its phones, tablets and laptops but the company does make a small range of desktop monitors. These feature curved and flat VA panels and can support the sRGB and DCI- P3 gamuts. They also have AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync, which means they are suitable for Huawei Mate LCD gaming as well as work and creative applications. They have a high contrast ratio, a low black point and a large sRGB coverage. They are also very affordable, making them an excellent choice for casual users.
The Huawei Mate 9 has a wide-gamut panel, but it suffers from poor calibration, which degrades its grayscale and color accuracy. Its default settings produce a blue tint that is not ideal for IPS displays. Using the Cold and Warm white point settings improves this imbalance, but it still fails to reach an acceptable Delta E. The sRGB mode offers a much more neutral white point, but its colors do not have as much saturation.
The display can be adjusted with a touch-sensitive bar that is located on the bottom of the screen. Its OSD menu includes choices for the sRGB, Native and HDR modes. It is easy to navigate but does not allow for as much customization as other monitors. You can move between choices by sliding your finger on the screen or by tapping.
Response time
Huawei’s latest monitor has a lot to offer. The curved panel has a 4K resolution and supports both sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts. It also has a high brightness level and excellent contrast ratio, which makes it a great choice for those who need a good display for gaming or work with photos and videos. The only downside is that it doesn’t have a local dimming feature, which means its HDR performance will be lower than other comparable displays.
The display uses a VA panel and has a refresh rate of 165Hz, which is good enough for most games. However, its pixel response time of 4ms isn’t impressive for a gaming monitor. This can cause ghosting in fast-moving graphics or dark scenes. Fortunately, the display has five overdrive modes that can help improve motion blur.
Unlike most other monitors, which have their ports in the back, Huawei has moved them to the bottom portion of the monitor, which makes it easier to access them. You’ll find a pair of USB-A and C ports, HDMI, a mini DisplayPort, and a headphone jack in this area. This change is a small but useful design tweak that other manufacturers should implement. It will be especially helpful if you have a tight space in your office or desk. The panel also has a low blue light mode and complies with TUV Rheinland’s eye comfort tests.
