Earlier today, the much expected Huawei smartphone, the P40 series were officially revealed and it was close to most of our speculations about the device in terms of the specs based on leaks and tips gotten online but then we have it officially anyway.
While the release is global, that doesn’t mean the device didn’t have the same debacle which the Mate 30 series had last year which is the lack of Google Play service making a device really hard to recommend to people from outside of China.
The launching took place online earlier today as announced and features interesting hardware tweaks though not the bleeding edge you’d expect but it’s obviously a great device with tons of features in the premium arena.
Being powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G Chipset means the device supports the not so general 5G technology in whatever region that supports it. Aside that, the design of the device is amazing featuring a not so big 6.58-Inch display with a Pill-shaped cut-out on the display which houses the ToF sensor and the front facing camera which are all an attempt to better enhance the security of the device.
An inclusion to the P40 series is the P40 Pro Plus (or P40 Pro+) which is a much higher end of the P40 Pro with extra camera and hardware improvements..
And speaking of the design of the devices, it now have this overflowing display which curves around the sides of the device and flows a little at the top and bottom of the display which seems quite new but not so amazing as the company had once put it. Even when leaked images were revealed online, the device felt as though it was super curved all through the face area of the device but the actual still has some slightly noticeable bezels at the top and bottom of the device.
The screen is an OLED display which under-display fingerprint sensor which Huawei claimed is much larger by 30% but that might not really be true based on little hands-on review by Marques Brownlee today where the Sensor doesn’t really seems too big until when we see JerryRigEverything tearing the device apart might we conclude if Huawei just like Samsung is faking some specs again.
Meanwhile Huawei CGG CEO, Richard Yu made the claims that “The Huawei P Series has always been about innovative aesthetics and making premium imaging hardware accessible, representing the very best of industrial design and technology,”
He also added that “With an outstanding sensor, camera systems that we co-engineered with Leica, powerful chipset and Huawei XD Fusion Engine, the Huawei P40 Series exemplifies our focus and offers an all-day Super Definition experience to help consumers realise their creative vision.”
Design of the P40 Series
Speaking of the physical specification of the Huawei P40 series, the device is definitely made for photography just as the company had always targeted it to be while the Mate series are somewhat targeted towards filmmaking.
This device more like other smartphones which had been released since the beginning of the year have also featured the rectangular camera bump right at the back which houses the multi-camera system which we’ll talk about in a moment.
As for the design, the back is made of shiny glass which feels quite different according to Marques Brownlee and the subtle finish is really world class. The sides of the device is made of aluminum while the device is IP68 certified making it water and dust resistant.
As for the display, it features an interesting 6.58-inch display throughout the entire series while the P40 Pro has a 90Hz refresh rate, the P40 Pro+ has a 120Hz refresh rate which is a leap as being the peak of the P40 series.
Under these displays, the P40 Series devices still include in-screen fingerprint sensors for faster biometric unlock capabilities. The company said the under-display scanner is much bigger this time around which if true, you just might need to put your finger anywhere at the bottom area of the screen and expect it to unlock but that’s not really the case. It only got faster than the P30 series.
P40 Series smartphones also include support for dual SIM and eSIM capabilities. At the bottom, we have the single speaker grill with no headphone jack but a USB Type-C while the top of the device houses the IR Blaster. The sides houses the volume rooker and power button so nothing much is going on as far as the device’s hardware is concerned.
The P40 and P40 Pro are both expected to come in five different colors which includes Black, Deep Sea Blue, Silver Frost and Blush Gold. The Huawei P40 Pro Plus will be available in Ceramic Black and White.
Interesting Hardware specifications
As expected, the Huawei P40 series are all powered by Huawei’s top-ranking chipset, the HiSilicon Kirin 990 SoC with a nice 7NM architecture and thanks to the OS now feature an interesting GPU Turbo and on-Chip AI processing all which are meant to enhance the capability of the device.
And speaking of the camera of this device, it feature the Leica setup. But let’s examine it one after the other.
The P40 for example has a triple rear camera system which is consist of a telephoto lens, a wide angle and an Ultra wide angle lens.
While the P40 Pro sports a quad camera setup which includes a Time-of-flight or ToF depth sensor which further enhance bokeh and does other high-performance functionalities to further improve on image qualities.
And then we have the peak P40 Pro Plus which has a penta camera setup that includes the periscope lens which has the 10x optical telephoto capacity.
The camera arrangement allows the device to produce a 100x digital SuperZoom feature allowing you to get close to objects even farther away from the device physically just as we’ve seen on the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
“This is the most powerful zoom on a smartphone ever,” Claimed Yu.
Other interesting specs on the device includes a 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage on the P40 Pro Plus model while the P40 Pro and P40 both have 256GB and 128GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM so nothing over the roof here.
Remember, No Google Play Service here again.
We all seems to already be used to it as Huawei devices can’t be sold in the US and some parts of the world while even places it can sell have no Google Play Service so it sort of shrink the market of the company to just China and some region except for true Huawei fans.
But anyways, the company is trying to do away from Google when it launched the Huawei AppSearch which expected to help side-load applications that aren’t on it’s App Gallery which is supposed to be the alternative of Google Play store. But well, there is the Huawei Mobile Service which replaces the GMS (Google Mobile Service) which is more solidified on the EMUI 10.1 which is released along with this device.
So with the HMS now taking over from GM on the Huawei device, users won’t be needing to sign in to their Google account upon starting the device but to their Huawei account as the company tries to build it’s own ecosystem which can better be widened and become a thing in the nearest future.
One interesting feature the company also launched along with the P40 series is a personal AI assistant which it called “Celia”…you know Celia is supposed to just act much like Siri, Alexa, BixBy or Google Assistant so as I mentioned earlier, Huawei wants to build it’s own ecosystem by incorporating several software into it.
Celia isn’t yet global so if you buy the P40 in some region, it might not work but “In future, we will launch the ‘Hey Celia’ AI assistant in more countries,” Yu said.
And do not forget about the P40 Lite, an entry-level model with a quad rear camera setup. It’s not a very interesting smartphone but it’s great in it’s own light.
These new Huawei P40 Series smartphones will be priced as follows:
- P40 – €799 ( US$ 882 / NG₦ 323,650 / SAR 15,267 )
- P40 Pro – €999 ( US$ 1,102 / NG₦ 404,663 / SAR 19,081 )
- P40 Pro+ – €1,399 ( US$ 1,544 / NG₦ 566,786 / SAR 26,721 )
The specifications of these new smartphones are listed below.
P40 Pro+
| Huawei P40 Pro+ | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 10.0 |
| Display | 6.7-inch 3,160 x 1,440 OLED 120Hz |
| Processor | HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Storage | 128GB/256GB, Nano Memory Card |
| Front Camera | 32MP, TOF |
| Rear Camera | 52MP + 40MP + 8MP + 8MP Periscope + TOF |
| Biometrics | In-screen fingerprint sensor, facial recognition |
| Connectivity | 802.11ax Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, USB Type-C |
| Network | LTE/5G |
| Battery | 5,500mAh |
P40 Pro
| Huawei P40 Pro | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 10.0 |
| Display | 6.58-inch 2,640 x 1,200 OLED 90Hz |
| Processor | HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB/256GB, Nano Memory Card |
| Front Camera | 32MP, TOF |
| Rear Camera | 50MP + 40MP + 12MP + TOF |
| Biometrics | In-screen fingerprint sensor, facial recognition |
| Connectivity | 802.11ax Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, USB Type-C |
| Network | LTE/5G |
| Battery | 4,200mAh |
P40
| Huawei P40 | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 10.0 |
| Display | 6.1-inch 2,340 x 1,080 OLED |
| Processor | HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB, Nano Memory Card |
| Front Camera | 32MP |
| Rear Camera | 50MP + 16MP + 8MP |
| Biometrics | In-screen fingerprint sensor, facial recognition |
| Connectivity | 802.11ax Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, USB Type-C |
| Network | LTE/5G |
| Battery | 3,800mAh |
P40 Lite
| eHuawei P40 Lite | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 10.0 |
| Display | 6.4-inch 2,310 x 1,080 IPS LCD |
| Processor | HiSilicon Kirin 810 |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Storage | 128GB, Nano Memory Card |
| Front Camera | 16MP |
| Rear Camera | 48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP |
| Biometrics | In-screen fingerprint sensor, facial recognition |
| Connectivity | 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, USB Type-C |
| Network | LTE |
| Battery | 4,200mAh |
Until 7th of April, we wont be getting the P40 and P40 Pro in the stores as the company’s CEO already assured the lockdown due to Coronavirus will not affect the sales of the device worldwide. And as for the much expensive P40 Pro+, it will ship by June. While we wait for our own review units, we will continue to post everything you need to know about the Device. You can visit our Phone Finder page to see more about these devices.
