The Huawei P20 Plus will feature an always-on display and have a 4,000mAh battery, XDA Developers reported Friday, having based its conclusions on a teardown of the upcoming smartphone’s firmware files obtained by the developer behind the FunkyHuawei tool for rebranding and unbricking Huawei and Honor-made handsets. The battery capacity of the Android flagship has been mentioned on multiple occasions by the APIs packaged inside the software meant to be pre-installed on the device, whereas the same files also revealed that the smaller P20 will be powered by a 3,320mAh battery. While both phablets are expected to sport the HiSilicon Kirin 970 chip, the P20 should have a more compact screen and possibly won’t support a QHD+ resolution but instead ship with an FHD+ panel taking advantage of an elongated 18:9 aspect ratio.
The always-on display functionality is also a relatively new addition to Huawei’s devices that has so far only been supported by the Mate 10 Pro. The relevant parts of the code describing the feature suggest it will be extremely similar to that of the company’s 2017 flagship, though it’s currently unclear whether its inclusion means the P20 Plus will have an OLED display like the Mate 10 Pro did. The previously released phablet was Huawei’s first mobile device with such a screen that directly enabled the addition of an always-on display. While the same feature can be emulated on LCD panels to a degree, most original equipment manufacturers are avoiding such implementations as OLED screens can support it much more efficiently, being able to light up individual pixels while not wasting their energy on the rest. The smaller P20 is still expected to have an LCD panel and hence isn’t likely to support an always-on display. Both smartphones are rumored to debut with triple-camera setups and an iPhone X-like display notch.
While the Chinese company was initially planning to introduce the successors to the P10 and P10 Plus at MWC 2018 later this month, the unveiling of the duo ended up being pushed back to March 27 as Huawei reportedly wanted to avoid launching its new flagships simultaneously with Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus. Huawei is still set to attend the Barcelona-based trade show where it’s planning to unveil a rebranded version of the Honor 7X, according to recent reports.