4 things my 3-year-old phone does better than some 2021 flagships

It’s hard to argue that modern flagship smartphones aren’t impressive pieces. Between cutting-edge silicon, high refresh rate screens, ultra high definition cameras, and sleek designs, there’s definitely a lot to like.

Some flagship phones are still lagging behind much older devices in certain areas. Do not believe me? Well, I’m still rocking a 2018 Huawei Mate 20 Pro, and here are a few things this phone can do better than some current flagship devices.

What my older flagship does better than some modern flagship phones

1. Fast wired charging

The Mate 20 Pro was the first Huawei phone to offer 40W wired charging, which promises charging times of around an hour and 70% capacity in 30 minutes. That doesn’t sound great compared to new devices like the OnePlus 9 series, Oppo Find X3 Pro, and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, which all charge faster.

However, we have seen many flagship phones over the past 12 months that offer slower charging speeds and times. Devices like the Samsung Galaxy S21 series, Google Pixel 5, iPhone 12 Pro, Asus Zenfone 8, and Sony Xperia 1 III all take longer to reach 100%.

Slower charging speeds usually result in better battery health, but we’ve seen many OEMs offer fast charging as well as smart charging features to slow down battery degradation. And being able to significantly charge your phone in the blink of an eye (e.g. just before going out) is one of my favorite things to do with fast chargers.

2. Camera flexibility

LG and Huawei were the first two companies to offer a truly flexible triple rear view camera system with the LG V40 and Huawei Mate 20 Pro. This allows for standard shooting, ultra-wide snapshots, and telephoto photography, resulting in a versatile platform.

It’s 2021, and while we’ve seen many flagship phones offer this type of setup or better, many high-end devices are lagging behind in that regard too. For example, the Pixel 5 and iPhone 12 both use dual camera systems (the telephoto camera is omitted), while the Xiaomi Mi 11 and OnePlus 9 have more cameras but no telephoto shooters.

Some devices like the Mate 20 Pro also have more flexible ultra-wide cameras thanks to the integrated autofocus. Not only does autofocus generally open the door to higher quality shots, it also enables macro modes that are much better than those of most dedicated macro cameras. We’ve seen these versatile ultra-wide cameras appear on more and more devices (e.g. Galaxy S21, OnePlus 9 series), but Google, Realme and Apple haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet.

3. Water resistance and wireless charging

Two hallmarks of premium flagships tend to be water resistance and wireless charging, and we’ve seen these features on devices from LG, Oppo, Samsung, Sony, Google, and Apple for years. My 2018 Daily Driver supports both functions no differently and is the first to offer reverse wireless charging as well.

But there are still a plethora of flagship phones out there that lack wireless charging and / or adequate water resistance. Some examples of phones that lack one or both of the features are the Xiaomi Mi 11, Vivo X60 Pro Plus, Sony Xperia 5 III, Asus Zenfone 8, and the unlocked OnePlus 9.

There are a number of reasons why manufacturers may not want to adopt these features, such as a desire to keep costs down or design considerations. The former often lack wireless charging and water resistance in affordable flagships. In the latter case, manufacturers could ditch wireless charging for a larger battery or thinner design (aside from versatile form factors like foldable devices).

4. Face unlock or fingerprint unlock? Why choose

The Mate 20 Pro was part of the first wave of phones to feature an in-display fingerprint sensor in 2018, and the scanner isn’t actually bad. It’s not the fastest unlock, it has read errors every now and then, and the actual scanning area is pretty small. But it’s solid enough, and not so slow or prone to error, to be disruptive.

Nowadays almost every flagship smartphone comes with a fingerprint sensor in the display and almost all of them are faster and / or more accurate than my current device. But the Mate 20 Pro has another form of authentication in 3D Face Unlock.

Face unlocking like this has lost its relevance thanks to COVID-19 and the wearing of masks, but it is still a generally fast and reliable form of authentication that is sometimes useful (e.g., in fact, Huawei’s latest Mate phones are among the few modern phones that support both fingerprint scanning and 3D face unlock.

Where this old flagship falls short of new devices

There are a few key areas where my three-year-old flagship doesn’t compare well with modern high-end devices. The first and most obvious area is performance as the Kirin 980 chipset is still performing well but is lagging behind in both benchmarks and tasks like emulation. Today’s chipsets like the Snapdragon 888, Exynos 2100 and even mid-range chipsets like the Snapdragon 780G deliver more performance overall.

Another area where the phone has not performed as well is in cellular connectivity, as 5G has quickly become a matter of course on today’s high-end devices. 4G LTE is still fast enough for my needs when I go outside and there isn’t 5G coverage in my area, but that means the Mate 20 Pro is not future proof in that sense.

Read more: The Best 2020 Phones Still Worth Buying in 2021

Then the question of software updates arises as the phone is still hanging on Android 10 despite an upgrade to the EMUI 11 skin. This could be a big problem if I stick to the phone for a few more years as apps gradually target newer versions of Android.

Finally, there are a ton of small features that are missing or needing improvement on my older device, like the in-display fingerprint sensor (2019-era devices like the Mi 9T Pro are faster), the lack of a high update speed, and the use of NM -Memory instead of microSD cards.

Are there other ways your much older smartphone is better than some of today’s flagship devices? Let us know via the comment section!