Introduction
The P40 Pro is Huawei's latest flagship smartphone. The "P" range is always specifically targeted at photographers, with the latest model building on the successes of its predecessors such as the P20 Pro and the P30 Pro.
As we've seen for a few years now, Huawei's partnership with Leica continues, with the historic camera brand being responsible for the camera and lens construction inside the P40 Pro.
Being aimed squarely at photographers, we can of course expect the Huawei P40 Pro to have some impressive photographic specs. Such is the case, with a triple lens set up which includes a 50 megapixel "main" camera, a 40 megapixel super wide angle camera and a 5x optical zoom camera. Technically there's also a fourth "TOF" (Time of Flight) camera, which comes into play to create shallow depth of field effects.
As we've seen for a few years now, Huawei's partnership with Leica continues, with the historic camera brand being responsible for the camera and lens construction inside the P40 Pro.
Being aimed squarely at photographers, we can of course expect the Huawei P40 Pro to have some impressive photographic specs. Such is the case, with a triple lens set up which includes a 50 megapixel "main" camera, a 40 megapixel super wide angle camera and a 5x optical zoom camera. Technically there's also a fourth "TOF" (Time of Flight) camera, which comes into play to create shallow depth of field effects.
Other specifications relating to the P40 Pro's camera include 4K video recording, an LED flash, and a 32 megapixel front-facing "selfie" camera. General features include a 6.58-inch OLED screen, splash, dust and water resistance, and 256GB of inbuilt memory. You can expand the memory with a Nano Memory SD card.
It can't fail to have escaped many people's attentions, the problems that Huawei has been having of late. As a result of an ongoing feud with the US administration, new Huawei phones are not permitted to access the Google Play app store.
As a result, while the Huawei P40 Pro runs Android, many of your favourite apps are simply not accessible - this includes big names such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Huawei has its own App Gallery which gives you access to lots of other apps - and we can only assume that more on the way - but the lack of full integration with Android is likely to be a key sticking point for many.
It can't fail to have escaped many people's attentions, the problems that Huawei has been having of late. As a result of an ongoing feud with the US administration, new Huawei phones are not permitted to access the Google Play app store.
As a result, while the Huawei P40 Pro runs Android, many of your favourite apps are simply not accessible - this includes big names such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Huawei has its own App Gallery which gives you access to lots of other apps - and we can only assume that more on the way - but the lack of full integration with Android is likely to be a key sticking point for many.
At the time of writing, the Huawei P40 Pro price is £899.99, making it a cheaper option compared with some other flagship models on the market - most notably the Samsung S20 Ultra and the iPhone 11 Pro.
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Ease of Use
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| Front of the Huawei P40 Pro
With its 6.58-inch screen, the Huawei P40 Pro is on the large side for premium smartphones, but still fits comfortably in the hand - and it's not as ridiculously big as the Samsung S20 Ultra. We've been using the "Silver Frost" colour way, which has a very attractive translucent effect on the body.
The display takes up almost all of the screen, with just a small cut out in the top left hand corner for the selfie camera. As such there's no "notch" in the traditional sense - but there is always a small amount of display given over when viewing anything in full screen.
Launching the native camera app requires a simple swipe up from the bottom right hand corner of the lock screen. Anyone who has used a Huawei phone before will already know that the native camera app is very well-featured, giving you lots of shooting modes to experiment with.
Rear of the Huawei P40 Pro
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By default, the app launches in "Photo" mode, but you can swipe right or left to choose different shooting modes. To the left you'll find "Portrait", "Night",and "Aperture", and to the right you'll find "Video", "Pro" and "More". We'll go through most of these in more depth as the review continues.
Huawei was trying to 2020-ify the device and it's done exactly that.
Huawei has finally added a high-refresh-rate display to one of its flagships. The P40 Pro’s 90Hz AMOLED panel looks great. Despite its middling resolution compared to the competition, this looks like the best screen ever fitted to a Huawei device. Viewing angles are superb, with little to no color shift when tilting the device off-axis. At over 440 nits sustained brightness, it’s not topping any charts, but I found it bright enough for viewing in direct sunlight. I got to test that out in my garden during the annoyingly sunny quarantine period we’ve had in the UK.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. First, the shadowing caused by the curved glass edges is noticeable when looking at flat colors. This is particularly obvious on the left and right edges. Second, whilst 90Hz is an improvement, the lack of 120Hz and Quad HD resolution means that the P40 Pro doesn’t quite match the competition. This wasn’t an issue during everyday use for me, but it’s likely to put some buyers off.
Performance & hardware: Good enough
- Octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G chipset
- 8GB RAM
- 256GB storage
- NM card slot
- 4,200mAh battery
- 40W SuperCharge wired
- 27W SuperCharge wireless
- 27W reverse wireless
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