It could have been so beautiful

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro is the successor to the Mate 30 Pro and wants to conquer the crown in the smartphone market. Technically it also works, but it remains a big problem that Huawei is not controlling. How the Huawei Mate 40 Pro fared in everyday life, we reveal to you in the review.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro in the test: design and workmanship

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro is a real eye-catcher. It hugs the hand with rounded edges and creates a pleasant feeling. No sharp corner tarnishes the appearance – that’s how we know it from the Chinese manufacturer. Although the display has a diagonal of 6.76 inches, it doesn’t seem as powerful. The narrow edges around the screen ensure that the smartphone is relatively compact and easy to hold in the hand.

The silver version was made available to us, which creates a rainbow effect in the right light. With the matte surface, you don’t want to put a case around your cell phone at all. You should do it anyway, because the back is made of glass. In addition, the camera unit sticks out a bit. The height difference can be compensated for with a cover. Huawei kindly includes a transparent cover that does not destroy the effect of the back and protects the phone at the same time.

The huge hole on the front in the display for the cameras and sensors is not that great. This is very annoying in normal operation when this huge dead spot can be seen there. Of course it is useful, but it could have been much smaller for us. Otherwise the phone is immaculate. Huawei didn’t skimp on quality or design.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro in the test: display and speakers

Huawei uses a 6.76 inch OLED display with 90 Hertz for the Mate 40 Pro. This is less than the competition, which uses 120 and sometimes 144 Hertz, but in the end it is a good compromise to achieve improved performance and still a long runtime. The presentation of the content is on a high level and very close to Samsung phones such as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. The brightness is also high enough to be able to see something on the screen in direct sunlight when you are taking a photo and want to look at it afterwards.

The resolution of the OLED display is “only” 2,772 x 1,344 pixels. Here, too, the competition can do a little more. If you consider that Huawei charges 1,199 euros for the cell phone, you could have expected the top specs. But this property is also responsible for the fact that the battery life is so good.

Fortunately, Huawei has installed stereo speakers in the Mate 40 Pro. In the past, this was not a matter of course for high-end models. The integration on the top and bottom is well thought out, because even if you cover the top speaker, the sound is directed through the earpiece. A clever system that has proven itself in gaming, where one of the two speakers is almost always covered. The sound is pretty good for a cell phone. You can listen to music and fill a room with sound, if you want.

Start the photo gallery(18 pictures)

Huawei Mate 40 Pro in the test: performance and software

A Kirin 9000 processor works in the Huawei Mate 40 Pro, which was manufactured using the 5 nm process. It ensures extremely high performance and has become more efficient compared to older SoCs. You can feel the performance at every point. Be it in the browser, when playing games or when finishing a photo. Everything works faster than its predecessor. The cell phone does not get warm and there are no visible stutters at all. Hardly any other Android phone on the market can do that. Could of course also have something to do with the lack of Google services.

But that is also the main disadvantage of this cell phone. Due to the US ban, it cannot access Google services and apps. The Play Store cannot be used to install apps and games and some applications will not work at all without Google. Instead, you have to fall back on the AppGallery from Huawei, where you can find many apps and games – but not everything that you are used to. There are also many fake apps. The constant advertising when the AppGallery starts is just annoying. Huawei still needs to improve.

The only operating system running on the phone is Android 10. Huawei tries to hide this cleverly with the latest EMUI 11. There are many new features and improvements. The operating system is of course reminiscent of earlier cell phones, but has been optimized in detail. Anyone who has ever had a Huawei cell phone will find their way around immediately. There are no surprises here. The security level of Android is unsightly. We are in December 2020 and the security level is as of September. That must not be.

There could be problems with Android updates over time. Actually, the cell phone should have appeared with Android 11, just like the predecessor was released with the latest Android version. This did not happen due to the US ban and when an update will come is in the stars. Instead, one could maybe switch to HarmonyOS soon. The new operating system should be the silver bullet against Google. It will be exciting to see if that works.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro in the test: camera

Huawei has installed an ultra-vision camera with 50 MP, 1 / 1.28-inch sensor and RYYB color filter in the Mate 40 Pro. This should make for even better photos. In fact, the smartphone’s camera works reliably as usual. I couldn’t really determine a quality difference to the camera of the P40 Pro, because the results were excellent there too. I noticed, however, that the autofocus is a bit weaker during movement and the sharpness at night. It may be that it was due to the cold temperatures and my shaky hands, but the photos are not always as sharp as with the P30 Pro. If you want to take night photos, a tripod should be used for longer exposure times. If there is enough light, none of this is a problem. The zoom also works very well – you should zoom in a maximum of 10x, a maximum of 50x is possible. If the magnification is too high, the image quality becomes significantly worse. Below are some pictures that I took with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro in different light situations.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro in the test: battery life

This is where the Huawei Mate 40 Pro can really show off. In normal use, I can easily get over two days. More than a day can be achieved with intensive use. If you use the cell phone sparingly, then three days and more are possible. A 4,400 mAh battery is installed, which is charged extremely quickly with a 66 watt cable. Basically, you can watch the energy store fill up. It works wirelessly with 50 watts, but you need the Huawei charging station, which was not available to us.

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