A couple of images depicting what are said to be the screen protectors meant to be attached to the Huawei P20 leaked online earlier today, having originally emerged on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. The two photographs that can be seen above suggest the upcoming device will have an 18:9 display panel surrounded by relatively minimal bezels, though it’s still set to have enough room for a physical Home button which will presumably double as a fingerprint reader. The handset will also feature a compact notch housing its front-facing sensor array which may include as much as two selfie cameras, the same accessory indicates.
The Huawei P20 is expected to launch alongside the P20 Pro which might also be advertised as the P20 Plus. Whereas the former is rumored to have a dual-camera setup on its rear plate, the latter should debut with a triple-lens imaging system and lack a physical Home key, previous leaks suggested. The P20 Pro may also miss out on a display notch and have a higher-resolution screen, as well as a larger battery and a Porsche Edition model with 256GB of internal flash memory, according to recent reports. While the Chinese original equipment manufacturer initially planned to announce the successors to the 2017 P10 series at this year’s Mobile World Congress, insiders claim the company opted to push back their debut so as to avoid having to compete for the spotlight with Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus, both of which were introduced at the Barcelona, Spain-based trade show.
As was the case with the Mate 10 lineup launched late last year, the P20 series is expected to place a large focus on mobile photography and artificial intelligence applications, with the upcoming smartphones being set to feature Huawei’s in-house Kirin 970 system-on-chip, its first piece of silicon with a dedicated neural processing unit designed for on-device AI computing. Following its unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the U.S. smartphone market through a retail deal with AT&T, Huawei is now understood to be recommitting its international resources to Europe where the P20 lineup is likely to be advertised in an extremely aggressive manner once it’s released this spring. The smartphones are set to be announced on March 27 in Paris, France.