Introduction
The world doesn't end with this one escalating trade dispute, Huawei insists, so here's the Mate 40 series for you. We have the Mate 40 Pro for review, the high-end almost-flagship that sits just below the ultimate Mate 40 Pro+.
We say almost-flagship just because there's one better, but the Mate 40 Pro is nothing short of a top-tier handset. Immediately striking is the display - a 6.76-inch OLED that envelops the device's sides - similar to the Mate 30 from last year, but even more extreme.
Flip over to the back, and you'll be greeted by a camera arrangement that you haven't seen before - so it turns out distinctive design is still possible. A proper tri-set of cameras sits inside that circle with a 50MP main unit and 5x periscope tele, both coming straight from the P40 Pro, and a new 20MP ultra-wide.
That's what you can see. What you won't be able to see is the new Kirin 9000 chipset, the first 5nm SoC for Android (Apple's A14 Bionic inside the iPhone 12 has one). Powering things is a 4,400mAh battery, fairly unimpressive, but that gets charged by a 66W adapter over a cable and up to 50W wirelessly - those aren't rookie numbers.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro specsBody: 162.9x75.5x9.1mm, 212g; Glass front, aluminum frame; IP68 dust/water resistant; Colors: Black, White, Mystic Silver with glass backs, Yellow and Green with vegan leather backs.
Display: 6.76" OLED, 90Hz, HDR10, 1344x2772px resolution, 18.6:9 aspect ratio, 460ppi.
Chipset: Kirin 9000 (5nm): Octa-core CPU (1x3.13GHz Cortex-A77 & 3x2.54GHz Cortex-A77 & 4x2.05 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G78 GPU.
Memory:256GB 8GB RAM; NM (Nano Memory), up to 256GB.
OS/Software: Android 10, EMUI 11, no Google Play Services.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 50MP, f/1.9, 23mm, 1/1.28", 1.22µm, omnidirectional PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 20MP, f/1.8, 18mm, PDAF; Telephoto: 12MP, f/3.4, 125mm periscope lens, PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom. Leica optics, LED flash.
Front camera: Ultra wide angle: 13 MP, f/2.4, 18mm; Depth: IR TOF 3D; HDR.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, 720@7680fps, 1080p@960fps, HDR; gyro-EIS; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps.
Battery: 4400mAh; Fast charging 66W, Fast wireless charging 50W, Fast reverse wireless charging.
Misc: Stereo speakers, Infrared face recognition, fingerprint (under display, optical), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass; NFC.
Huawei hasn't skimped on the smaller niceties either, and the Mate 40 Pro comes with stereo speakers – two evenly matched units. The front-facing ToF cam provides secure face recognition, and there's another IR-based feature – a blaster up top to operate your old-school TV or AC unit. An IP68 rating is also par for the course in this segment. Sure, there's no 3.5mm jack, but does that really bother anyone at this point? Plus, there's headset in this box, unlike other, half-sized boxes.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro unboxing
The Mate 40 Pro's retail box is the same as what we've gotten with previous Mates - black cardboard, golden lettering, red Leica dot on the front. Inside, there's a full set of accessories.
A powerful 66-watt adapter, which is still reasonably compact, is included as is a cable to go with it - since both pieces use the in-house SuperCharge technology you better hold on to them to get the maximum charging speeds.
There is a pair of earbuds, too, ending in a USB-C connector - that's the only wired interface on the Mate 40 Pro. There's no USB-C-to-headphone jack adapter included.
A new addition this time is a protective case. It's a basic clear silicone one, but it's thick and provides protection straight out of the box. It also doesn't interfere with the touch operation on the curved display edges but does rob you of feedback when operating the physical buttons.
A month with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro
Introduction
Over the past few years, Huawei has always impressed with its flagship smartphones, which have all had a very good balance of specs, raw performance, subjective smoothness, and amazing cameras. However, since mid-2019, the Chinese company has been hobbled by the US Government's various sanctions and bans, which have resulted in Huawei losing access to Google services and apps. This means it has had to go at it alone on the software front, and it all started with last year's Mate 30 series.
We've taken a look at what it was like to live with the Google-free Mate 30 Pro in 2019, and then we touched upon the improvements we saw in this regard in our P40 Pro long-term review earlier this year.
Now that 2020 is almost ready to come to a close, we were wondering what (if anything) has changed over the past few months, and just how easy it is to get along with Huawei's Mobile Services instead of Google's, on an Android flagship smartphone.
We were lucky enough to have a Mate 40 Pro around, and thus decided to see what it's all about. This is not one of our normal reviews that focus on objectively measuring every aspect of the phone's performance.
We'll let you know what it's like to live with the Mate 40 Pro day in and day out, where it amazed us and where it disappointed, but we'll also focus a lot on the app situation and how you can get around that without resorting to installing Google Mobile Services from shady sources across the Internet. Sure, you theoretically also have that option if you buy a new Huawei smartphone, but we can't condone or recommend it, because random weird unheard of Chinese apps are still required, and who can tell how safe it is to put your digital life in their hands? Additionally, last we checked, notifications still won't work for Google apps, which for most people would render them quite useless.
So this is an experiment meant to let you know how things stand in late 2020 when it comes to using either Google apps or alternatives, on a top of the line Huawei device. But it's also going to give you a more subjective picture of what the phone is actually like outside of lab testing and the likes. If you're ready for the journey, make sure you join us over the next pages to find out if the Mate 40 Pro can really compete with other, similarly priced Android flagships that come with Google services.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro review
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro is a tremendously exciting and stylish handset, with a stunning design that you won’t see on many other phones, some of the best smartphone cameras around, loads of power, long battery life, and just about every other spec you could ask for.
It’s also a phone with a big flaw that means it definitely won’t be for everyone, but there will be some that the Huawei Mate 40 Pro is ideal for.
Read on for an in depth look at every key aspect of the phone, where we highlight its many good points and its single significant bad one.
Screen
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro has a 6.76-inch 1344 x 2772 OLED screen with 456 pixels per inch. So it’s one of the larger screens you’ll find on a phone, and a broadly comparable resolution to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S20 and OnePlus 8 Pro. Technically it’s slightly lower resolution, but not enough that you’re likely to notice. It’s certainly very crisp.
It also has a 90Hz refresh rate, which is a middle ground between the 120Hz of those phones and the 60Hz of most handsets – including the iPhone 12 Mini and the rest of the iPhone 12 range.
It’s high quality too, and supports HDR10, but the real highlight of the screen is the steeply curved edges, which puts the slight curve of Samsung’s phones to shame. But that’s as much about the design as the screen, so we’ll look at that more below.
Design
As noted, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro has steeply curved sides on its screen. It’s called a ‘Horizon Display’ and could almost bring to mind a waterfall tumbling off the edge of your phone. It’s a striking look, and with minimal bezels above and below the display this phone also has an all-screen look.
There is a large camera cut-out in the top left corner of the screen for the dual-lens selfie camera. We’re less fond of that, but there’s probably no better option for packing two lenses in.
As for the rest of the design, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro has an aluminium frame and a glass back. There’s also a version with a vegan leather rear, which is a bit more unusual, but seems a bit harder to get hold of, as not all stores stock it.
Another highlight of the design is its circular camera block on the rear. This looks a bit different to the camera blocks on most phones – which tend to be a square or a rectangle and stick out more. We’re fans. Oh, and you also get IP68 water and dust resistance, as you’d expect on a flagship.
Power
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro has a Kirin 9000 octa-core chipset. This is Huawei’s top chipset, so it rivals the top Snapdragon and Exynos rivals. It’s hard to say for sure whether it’s better or worse, but it’s certainly fast enough.
There’s also 8GB of RAM, which isn’t a massive amount for a flagship, but again it’s enough. This is a very speedy phone, even when multi-tasking or playing demanding games.
Camera
There’s a triple-lens camera on the back of the Huawei Mate 40 Pro, with a 50MP f/1.9 main sensor joined by a 20MP f/1.8 ultra-wide one and a 12MP f/3.4 telephoto one, offering an impressive 5x optical zoom.
While it has one fewer lens than a lot of phones, it has all the most important types covered, and they’re all capable of taking excellent photos. In fact, they’re up there with the best you’ll find on any phone, even coping well with tricky night-time scenes. It even has a mode designed for taking pictures of the moon.
The telephoto camera can manage up to 10x hybrid zoom or 50x digital, as well as the 5x optical – though we’d be reluctant to go much beyond 10x if you want a useable image.
The ultra-wide camera meanwhile does a great job of avoiding lens distortion, and video recording is handled well too – the Huawei Mate 40 Pro supports shooting in 4K quality at 60fps, and has handy features like Steady Shot and Tracking Shot, which help keep subjects focused and central in the frame.
On the front there’s a dual-lens camera, with a 13MP f/2.4 main sensor joined by a 3D depth sensing camera. While this is less impressive than the rear setup, it’s still capable of taking good selfies.
Features
While not a ‘feature’ as such, the main thing we want to note here is something the Huawei Mate 40 Pro doesn’t have – namely access to the Google Play Store or Google’s apps. There’s an alternative app store on the phone that has many of the apps you’ll want, but the selection isn’t as good as what you’ll find on most Android phones, and no access to things like Google Maps also hurts.
This is the one big flaw with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro, which runs Android 10 but without Google Play Services.
As such, it’s worth seeing if the apps you want are available before buying this phone, but in most cases there will be a decent alternative, even if you can’t get your usual app.
On a more positive note, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro has an in-screen fingerprint scanner. This isn’t unusual, but it’s a feature that we’re fans of, and it works well here.
Battery life, memory, and connectivity
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro has a 4,400mAh battery, which is a reasonable size but more or less average for a phone of this calibre. Its life is above average though. While it doesn’t excel, it will comfortably last a day or more between charges.
The real highlight of the battery though is that it supports both 66W fast charging and 50W fast wireless charging, both of which are far faster than most smartphones – even expensive ones.
As for storage, there’s 256GB built in and there’s also expansion potential, so space shouldn’t be a problem. Connectivity options meanwhile include 5G, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC.
Verdict
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro should be one of the very best phones of 2020, and for some people it will be, but the lack of Google apps and Google Play Store access means that for a lot of people it will be less ideal.
There’s hardly anything to fault about the hardware – the design is stunning, the cameras are excellent, battery life is good, it’s powerful and it has a great screen. So if you can live with a slightly restricted software experience then the Huawei Mate 40 Pro still comes highly recommended, just make sure you know what you’re in for.
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