With Huawei"s P20 Pro last year and this year"s P30 Pro, the company pulled off some incredible camera innovations, at least in the photo department. In terms of recording video, it hasn"t done as much. Part of the reason for this is because the Kirin 970 and Kirin 980 chipsets don"t support recording video at 4K 60fps, a feature that you"d expect from such camera-centric smartphones.
Luckily, that"s about to change with the next generation. While I was in Shenzhen for the past week, Huawei confirmed that the Kirin 990 will indeed support recording video at 4K 60fps. Starting with the Mate 30 series, you"ll no longer have to choose between a high resolution and a high frame rate.
The ability to record at 4K 60fps is something that competitors have had for a couple of years now. Apple was the first to do it back in the fall of 2017 with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X. Later when Qualcomm introduced support for it in the Snapdragon 845 chipset, Samsung picked up the feature in the spring of 2018 with the Galaxy S9 series.
Huawei"s HiSilicon 990 is expected to show up in the Mate 30 series, which is rumored to launch on September 19. The company also confirmed that it will be in the foldable Mate X, and it should also be available in next year"s P40, along with a variety of other premium smartphones, such as those that arrive under the Honor banner.