The Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G is now available in the Philippines, both through a telco and off-contract at local retailers.

(Update, July 20: We finally got to test Smart Communications’ 5G network! See Tested: Smart 5G network on PH’s most affordable 5G phone.)

(Update, July 7: You may want to see a new speed test on Globe Telecom’s network, too! Read 5G on the Huawei P40 series: The future is here.)

You can pick it up with a Globe Telecom postpaid plan or in stores for P55,990, or roughly $1,106 in U.S. currency. The Mate 30 Pro 5G is the first 5G smartphone in the country, and it should be able to connect to both Globe and Smart’s 5G networks once they are officially rolled out.

5G, which is the new standard of fast, low-latency wireless network, is expected to come to mobile devices in the Philippines sometime later this year. We recently tried out Globe’s 5G network at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig using a Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G and compared it with 4G on a Mate 30 Pro 4G version. Here are our thoughts.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro 4G vs Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G: Connection comparison. 5G and 4G speed testing using the Speedtest app by Ookla, 4K video streaming on YouTube, and downloading of TikTok (about 70MB) on the Huawei AppGallery

5G is indeed super fast!

The 5G network at BGC is still being tested, we’re told, so naturally, the speeds we got were lower than the advertised multi-gigabit speeds of other countries. We’re okay with that, especially since the Mate 30 Pro 5G unit we used during the testing reached 292Mbps downloads, which is still more than 10 times better than the average speeds we get on our 4G devices.

The speed cap in the area is somewhere in the 300Mbps range, but we saw another Mate 30 Pro 5G unit (not ours, obviously) hit 1Gbps using the same network. The difference? That unit was using a special SIM card for testing purposes. It’s still unclear what the telcos will offer with their 5G connections, but let’s hope the speed and quality of their networks can live up to expectations.

One question is this: What’s the future of data capping after operators roll out their 5G services? The good news is that Globe’s existing Air Fiber 5G for residential customers comes with reasonable data caps

Another question mark is the future of data capping after operators roll out their 5G services. Will it be much higher, since the new standard can support more data? It has to be, right? The good news is that Globe’s existing Air Fiber 5G for residential customers comes with reasonable data caps. So if we use that as a benchmark, it may be fair to claim that local mobile 5G services will have decent caps in place to prevent network abuse.

To 5G or not to 5G

The Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G is the first 5G phone that’s locally available right now, but that won’t be the case much longer. Other smartphone OEMs are preparing to launch their own 5G models soon.

That said, should you upgrade to a 5G handset this year? Well, it really depends on your usage, but it’s also worth mentioning that buying a 5G phone now assures you that you can enjoy high-speed data connections when 5G is rolled out across the world. Call it future-proofing.

It’s important to choose a phone like the Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G, which is compatible with 5G SA and NSA networks to ensure better compatibility with 5G networks not only in the Philippines, but also abroad

On a related note, it’s likewise important to choose a phone like the Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G, which is compatible with 5G standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) networks. This will ensure better compatibility with 5G networks not only in the country, but also abroad.

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