Interested in the upcoming Huawei P40? Well, we know that Google Play won’t be on there due to the Trump Trade Termination, but you do get the Huawei AppGallery instead. What we also know is that all phone launches, right now, are happening in a very uncertain world. The company, though, has still managed to see global revenues shoot up by 19.1% year-on-year in 2019. They’re investing heavily in their research and development too.
The new P40 series support 5G and incorporate three cameras, super slow-motion video, AI and a smart assistant. There’s three versions – a standard P40 model with a 6.1″ screen, a mid-range P40 Pro and high-end Pro Plus. The latter have 6.58″ displays.
Right now you won’t see to Pro Plus on the Huawei website. This is because it’s not being released until June. You can, though, get the P40 and P40 Pro. The likes of e2 Save and Carphone Warehouse have put their offers online and you’ll be able to get a “limited number” from Vodafone. Virgin Mobile are selling both the P40 and P40 Pro, Three will be selling the “Pro”, but we’re not hearing much from EE or O2.
Although their revenue is up, smartphone sales are down 38% year-on-year, and without Google Maps or YouTube, the experience is going to be very different to phones which do have the Google Apps.
The camera set-up delivers three cameras on the P40, four on the Pro and an five on the Pro Plus. The base model has a 50 megapixel main camera, plus a 16 megapixel ultrawide and an 8 megapixel telephoto lens alongside a colour temperature sensor. The Pro model has a 40 megapixel shooter, a 5x zoom 12 megapixel telephoto lens and a time-of-flight sensor to accompany the main camera.
That Pro Plus adds has a 10x optical telephoto lens, which is going to be a big thing for spies. 😉 When added to a 10x digital zoom it creates a 100x magnification which we saw in the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra.
There’s some big changes here, and the “Golden Snap” cleverness, which uses AI to delete unwanted people from shots, remove reflections and select “best shots”. There’s excellent low-light footage and 4K video quality. It also adds dual-view video, so you can film a wide-angle and close-up at the same time.
The P40 is going to be available in silver frost, blush gold, deep sea blue, ice white and black. It’s got that 6.1″ Full HD+ 2340 x 1080 screen (OLED 90Hz) and is IP53 “splash” resistant. It uses the Huawei Kirin 990 5G CPU which is a very quick octa-core chip. Based on Android 10, although the P40 is at the bottom of the “tree” it’s still got 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. You can whack a storage card in too.
In addition to the rear camera tech mentioned above, it also has a 32 megapixel selfie camera.
There’s a 3800mAh battery with Huawei SuperCharge (22.5W), dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C charging, GPS and NFC.
The Pro Plus comes in black or white and has that bigger OLED 90 Hz screen (2640 x 1200). It’s IP68 water resistant and has the same CPU but gets 512GB of storage with 8GB RAM. Again you can add a storage card if you wish. It has a 32 megapixel camera for your selfies.
Battery-wise there’s a 4200 mAh unit and 40W SuperCharge. Wireless charging is available on both.
Again there’s Bluetooth 5.1, dual-band WiFi, USB-C, NFC etc.
There’s Android 10 here but it remains to be seen how well these non-Google-filled phones will do in the market.
Get more info on the P40 Pro Plus here or the P40 here.
As for pricing, the Huawei P40 5G is £699.99 and the Huawei P40 Pro 5G is £899.99.