Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Huawei Mate40 Pro Hands-on

Last month, Huawei unveiled its latest and most powerful smartphones to date, the Mate40 Series. Sitting in the middle is the Mate40 Pro, packing a 6.76-inch FHD+ OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, triple rear cameras, Kirin 9000 SoC, and 5G connectivity. Check out our initial thoughts below.

The Huawei Mate40 Pro sports a familiar design and is like a merge between the Mate 30 Pro and the P40 Pro. We have a large screen that curves on the sides, although it seems like it has thicker bezels at the top and bottom.

Gone is the notch and is replaced with a hole-punch for the dual-front camera, similar to the P40 Pro. With its 6.76-inch screen size, Full HD+ resolution, OLED panel, and 90Hz refresh rate, it’s an immersive and vibrant screen with punchy colors, great viewing angles, and smooth animations and transitions.

On the right side, we have the volume buttons and the power/lock button with a red accent. The buttons are placed near the center, so it’s still easy to reach. The buttons feel clicky but firm and solid.

Up top, we have the earpiece, loudspeaker, IR blaster, and microphone.

Below, we have the loudspeaker, USB-C port, and the card slot for the nano-SIM card and NM card.

At the back, you will see a reflective glass back, along with the protruding circular camera module that houses the 50MP main camera, 20MP ultrawide, 12MP telephoto, Laser AF, dual-LED flash, and another microphone for video recording purposes.

As expected of a flagship smartphone coming from Huawei’s Mate lineup, the Mate40 Pro is every inch a premium device. It’s cool to the touch, has a decent heft, and the curves are seamless. It’s also a tall device but thin enough to be comfortably gripped.

We’re also glad that it already has a screen protector pre-installed and a clear case included in the package as the back panel attracts fingerprints and smudges like crazy. If you’re worried about water damage, you don’t have to, as the Mate40 Pro is IP68-certified.

Powering the Mate40 Pro is the new Kirin 9000 (5nm) SoC, with 8GB RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1. Running the software side is EMUI 11 based on Android 10 and uses HMS instead of GMS. For the battery, it has a 4,400mAh capacity with support for the 66W SuperCharge and 50W Wireless SuperCharge. We’ll know more about the performance and other details of the Huawei Mate40 Pro in our review, so stay tuned.

Huawei Mate40 Pro specs:
6.76-inch FHD+ (2772 x 1344) OLED display
90Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate
Huawei Kirin 9000 octa-core CPU
Mali-G78 GPU
NPU
8GB RAM
256GB storage
Triple-rear cameras:
• 50MP F1.9 Ultra Vision Camera (main)
• 20MP F1.8 Cine Camera (ultrawide)
• 12MP F3.4, OIS (telephoto)
13MP F2.4 Ultra Vision Selfie Camera + 3D Depth Sensing Camera
Dual-SIM
5G, 4G LTE
WiFi 6, 2 x 2 MIMO, HE160, 1024 QAM, 8 Spatial-stream Sounding MU-MIMO
Bluetooth 5.2, BLE, SBC, AAC, LDAC
NFC
GPS (Dual-band), A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS (Quad-band), GALILEO (Tri-band), QZSS (Dual-band), NavIC
IR Blaster
USB 3.1 Type-C
USB Type-C earphone jack
3D Face Recognition
Fingerprint scanner
IP68 water and dust resistance
EMUI 11 (Android 10)
4,400mAh battery w/ 66W SuperCharge, 50W Wireless SuperCharge
162.9 x 75.5 x 9.1mm (Glass) ~ 9.5mm (Vegan Leather)
212 g (Glass, Vegan Leather)
Mystic Silver, White, Black, Green, Yellow