Huawei Mate 40 Pro embodies the best of smartphone technology. It has the industry's best screen, large set
What is in the box
The new flagship comes beautiful and clean,discreet black box. By lifting the top, you can see the smartphone itself, wrapped in protective plastic. Right off the bat, we see the phone's branded round camera module, which has been the focus of many rumors over the past few weeks.
But there's a lot more in this box than expected.— The Mate 40 Pro also comes with a clear, soft protective case that covers its entire back and sides, as well as a USB Type-C charging cable. We also have wired headphones that connect to the phone via USB Type-C, since yes, it doesn't have a headphone jack. These appear to be standard Huawei headphones, like the ones that come with the Mate 20 Pro.
Speaking of chargers — Huawei MateThe 40 Pro also comes with a very impressive 66W charger. The rest is in the box — SIM card removal tool and the usual paperwork. Now 66 W — this is much more than Samsung or Apple smartphones. For example, Samsung's flagship Note 20 Ultra only supports 25-watt fast charging, while Apple's latest iPhone 12 Pro Max only supports about 20-watt. So having a 66W charger out of the box — it's something.
Display and design
The first inclusion of the Mate 40 Pro reveals to us that it is almost bezel-less and has a dual selfie camera cutout at the top left of the screen.
You may be disappointed to know that the display hasthere are curved edges, which is really pleasing visually, but often does not benefit the user and even creates problems such as accidental touching. However, Huawei noted that the Mate 40 Pro has “improved algorithms for preventing erroneous touches,” so for now, we'll take the company's word for it.
As for the overall design of the Mate 40 Pro, it ispretty standard. Its power and volume buttons are on the right side, as on most phones, and the back of the Mate looks very neat apart from the camera module. The case back is made of frosted glass and the Mystic Silver color really brings life to life. It has a cool effect, transforming your phone into a real chameleon under various lighting conditions.
At the bottom of the phone we have a tray forSIM cards, as well as the charging port and speaker grille, and at the top we see something that doesn't often appear these days — IR port! It can be used to control your TVs, air conditioners and any other home appliances that use infrared signals directly from your phone.
Let's talk about the display, it deserves a lotattention. It is a 6.76-inch OLED panel with 1344 x 2772 pixels and 90Hz refresh rate. It's great technology, and if you don't mind curved sides, you will be very pleased to look at it around the clock. As you can see from the tests, the display of the Huawei Mate 40 Pro is very bright and the color accuracy is almost unparalleled. Clearly this is one of the best features of this phone.
Performance
At first glance, this phone is smooth and fast. There are no stutters during use, but that's to be expected given the processor and GPU inside.
Mate 40 Pro runs on its own processorHuawei Kirin 9000 and 8 GB of RAM. This processor also supports 5G, which means the Huawei Mate 40 Pro is a 5G smartphone. The Mate 40 Pro and 40 Pro + also feature the most powerful GPU ever on a Huawei device, according to Huawei.
The test results put the Huawei Mate 40 Pro on par with other modern flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and Sony Xperia 5 II.
Camera
The main attraction of this phone,perhaps there is a large camera module on the back, with a large Leica logo standing proudly in the center. The camera app itself is intuitive and easy to use. You've got 50x zoom as well as an ultra wide-angle camera, which is to be expected from a 2020 flagship.
Along with Night Mode, there is also a Pro mode in the Mate 40 Pro's camera app that lets you manually adjust your photo settings if you want to.
The camera setup consists of three cameras, two ofwhich are borrowed from the P40 Pro — wide-angle main camera and telephoto lens. The all-new ultra-wide-angle shooter uses a 20MP sensor with a regular array of RGB pixels (the RYYB magic can be found in the main camera with a 50MP wide lens).
Photos taken in broad daylight lookVery good. There is a lot of detail, the dynamic range is simply excellent, not simple and boring, but also unrealistic at first glance. The ultra-wide-angle camera, which is new, was a pleasant surprise — it matches the quality of the main camera without any visible color shift or other interference when switching between the two.
The telephoto lens offers 5x optical zoom,but what's really impressive is the 10x hybrid zoom. Sometimes it's even better than the optical zoom, the glory of Huawei and all the software algorithms that are used behind the scenes. Speaking of software algorithms, Master AI takes care of all the settings depending on the scene you are shooting (if you let it) and the results are great.
Low light photography has always been oneone of Huawei's greatest strengths. It's the same with Huawei Mate 40 Pro — The night mode algorithms work flawlessly, and the results are sometimes comparable to regular daytime shots. Remember that you will need a steady hand and a little patience because shooting in night mode takes about 6 seconds.
The selfie camera on the front allowsget beautiful photos with healthy skin tone and decent amount of detail. You can easily turn beauty mode on and off, but the results are pretty good anyway.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro can shoot 4K video fromat 60fps, and you can zoom in and out while recording. This setting is usually resolution dependent, but here you can use it at 4K or 1080p — no problem. Videos are great too, and the image stabilization isn't too aggressive while still preventing the occasional shake.
OS and applications
The phone runs Huawei's EMUI 11 on topAndroid 10. EMUI — This is Huawei's own Android user interface, similar to how Samsung has OneUI. The Mate 40 Pro's home screen is nothing fancy and features nice, clean icons, a news feed, and useful quick-toggle buttons for taking screenshots, screen recording, a flashlight, and more. It's always nice to have these features built-in instead of having to download third-party apps to record your screen, for example.
As expected, instead of the Google Play Store, we havethere is an AppGallery Huawei from where you can download our apps to this phone. There are a decent number of games and apps here, some of which are popular, like TikTok and Viber, although you won't find Facebook, Instagram or Skype, for example.
Since Huawei was banned from working withby American companies such as Google and Facebook, we cannot expect to see their apps and services on the Huawei app store anytime soon. And this is the biggest hurdle that anyone interested in this phone outside of China will have to overcome.
Battery life
The Mate 40 Pro is equipped with a 4400 batterya mAh battery that's more than capable of withstanding a two-day load of moderate to heavy use. You don't have to worry about the battery life of the Mate 40 Pro.
The phone comes with a 66Watts in the box. A full charge takes only 47 minutes, and up to 85% can be reached in less than half an hour. This is great and you will really save so much time with a feature like this. Come home, plug your phone into the charger, then change! By the time you are ready, your phone will probably be fully charged.
Advantages and disadvantages
pros
- Attractive design
- Fast performance
- Gorgeous OLED 90Hz screen
- Excellent camera system
- Amazing fast charging
Minuses
- No Google Services — that's a bummer
- A bit bulky and heavy
- Limited availability outside of certain markets