Huawei has pretty much had the best smartphone technology for a good number of years now, combining bleeding edge hardware into an attractive package that has a heck of an ecosystem which ties everything together with a pretty bow. That’s not just hyperbole, that’s me putting my money where my big fat mouth is because I’m currently on my third Huawei P-series phone and have loved every annual upgrade so far.
This year’s latest model is a big one. The Huawei P40 Pro and P40 Pro Plus are flagship to the max, boasting some killer new specs. Inside of them, you have a brand new Kirin 990 processor kitted out for 5G and a max 90Hz display which can transmit images that your eyes can’t even see but Huawei is going ahead with using those screens simply because they can.
The construction of the screen also looks pretty amazing. It’s even more curved than the P30 Pro screen, has a bezel which is as thin as a Parisian runway model and the screen resolution tops out at 2640 x 1200. As for the cameras? Huawei knows that the language of tomorrow is a combination of visual and digital, and this year’s models feature another hefty upgrade.
The base model P40 has a triple lens setup that combines a a primary 50-megapixel f/1.9 camera, a 16-megapixel f/2.2 17mm ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8-megapixel f/2.4 telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom to grab some pictures, the P40 Pro ups the ante with a ToF sensor and increases the wide-angle to 40 megapixels, ending the lens tour off with a 12 megapixel telephoto lens with 5x zoom.
The P40 Pro Plus takes everything above and throws in a periscope lens for good measure, which boasts a 10x zoom. That boils down to you having two telephoto cameras to play with, a 50 megapixel primary snapper and that delightful 40 megapixel ultrawide lens with the aforementioned ToF sensor. On the front is a small hole-punch camera that can grab 32 megapixel selfies.
I could wax lyrical all day about the hardware, but the real question is: What software will these phones run? With Huawei’s partnership with Google constantly on thin ice, the company has moved ahead to create its very own ecosystem seeing as how the P40 series won’t have access to the Google Play Store or any of the various apps that users rely on.
Huawei is basically working around these restrictions, making as many alternatives as possible while heavily investing in the creation of a new AppGallery store that’ll lure developers in. These include new AI assistant apps, more first-party apps and a partnership with TomTom to come up with a Google Maps replacement. There’s no denying that the Huawei P40 series is going to have some stunning hardware under the hood, but getting a new suite of software options that’ll bring in consumers is a challenge that will take time.
Local pricing hasn’t been revealed yet (I’ll update as soon as I receive official word), but the international retail rates make for a reaction that necessitates a long whistle when you read them out: The Huawei P40 Pro starts at €999 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, whereas the P40 Pro Plus will set you back €1399 for 8GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage.
Last Updated: March 27, 2020
CodeDisQus
March 27, 2020 at 14:02
So frustrating the the most innovative company in the industry is being cut off at the knees for such silly reasons!
The tech in Flagship huaweis is top of the class….