Huawei has four wild new P20 Pro colors — including leather backs and MORPHO AURORA

Even as we enter the Huawei Mate 20 hype season, Huawei hasn't forgotten the P20 Pro.

With its twilight gradient color option, the P20 was by far its best-looking flagship in years, and now there are fresh hues coming to that phone, along with the return of a smartphone trend we haven't seen since 2015.

The most striking new gradient pattern goes by the name morpho aurora, and is apparently named for the morpho butterfly. At certain angles, the morpho aurora P20 Pro appears almost pitch black. Viewed head-on in the right light, you'll see a rainbow pattern with sunset hues, similar to the twilight P20 Pro, but with an additional splash or orange and yellow.

The new Mother of Pearl hue has a subtle color-shifting effect similar to the white gold version of the regular Huawei P20. This version isn't as obviously iridescent as the other shades, but it has a clean, understated look. With its copper-hued trim, it's a little reminiscent of the white OnePlus 6.

That's not all, though. Remember when leather-backed phones were a thing? Huawei's bringing back this smartphone trend with black and brown P20 options clad in genuine leather. Like the LG G4 and Moto X2, the front and sides are unchanged, but the back swaps out shatter and scratch-prone glass for a more durable material. That said, it remains to be seen how well the leather P20s will age — that was a point of contention with many leather handsets in years past.

The leather P20 Pros will come with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, presumably to go head-to-head with the newly-introduced Galaxy Note 9, and will match Samsung's pricing at €999.

And, of course, the Huawei P20 Pro remains the best Android phones for low-light photography, as well as an impressive performer with multi-day battery life.

The four new colors will be available starting September 5, so you won't have long to wait for that morpho aurora magic.

Alex Dobie
Executive Editor

Alex was with Android Central for over a decade, producing written and video content for the site, and served as global Executive Editor from 2016 to 2022.