the review of Cellulare Magazine

Huawei P40 Pro represents perhaps one of the biggest challenges of recent years in the world of smartphones. A top-of-the-range device with very high ambitions, a technical sheet of absolute excellence, extremely pleasant design, materials and colors, a powerful processor and a practically perfect build quality. In addition, a high-end price, since P40 Pro is sold for 1,049.90 euros, in the colors Silver Frost, Black and Blush Gold.
However, it is a flagship smartphone that for the first time accepts and relaunches the challenge of the lack of Google Mobile Services, following the American ban suffered by the Chinese manufacturer last May. The place of the GMS is the Huawei Mobile Services, concentrated in an ever richer app gallery, day after day, but not yet able to completely replace the lack of Big G apps. For this reason, Huawei has not gone too far for the slim and for its P40 Pro it has chosen the best display, the best processor and the best optical group available today and a renewed (and more convincing) emui 10 interface. For the launch of this model, the manufacturer from Shenzhen has also foreseen an interesting one promotion to support sales. All those who purchase a P40 or P40 Pro model by May 4th receive free the Watch GT 2 smartwatch.

Huawei P40 Pro is a smartphone equipped with a display 6.58 inch OLED with a refresh rate of 90Hz and a resolution of 1,200 × 2,640 pixels and a density of 475ppi. Below the display is a fingerprint sensor capable of offering 30% larger area and 30% greater speed and accuracy. Moving to the back we find four goals arranged as follows: a 50 Megapixel main sensor, a 23mm, f / 1.9, OIS; a 40 Megapixel, 18mm, f / 1.8 ultra wide angle cine camera, a 12 Megapixel periscope telephoto camera (125mm, f / 3.4) plus a ToF sensor. There is no lack of support for time lapse in 4K and slow motion up to 7,680 frames per second.

Huawei P40 Pro ei servizi di Google

Can You Live Without Google Services? The question sounds simple, but the answer is complex. Undoubtedly, for a product of this price, the absence of YouTube or Maps in the app version constitutes a gap, and it is useless to turn to meet them. On the other hand, the App Gallery, or Huawei’s content store, is gradually being enriched with all the main applications. The apps of some banks are still missing, perhaps the thing that is likely to be forcibly missing.
As for the use of Google services, which are not pre-installed, there is TrovApp, an app that works like a search engine and searches for available software in several directions: on APK Pureon store of Amon itnell’AppGallery itself and on the sites of the software producers. Finally, for contacts, Phone Clone comes to the rescue, which automatically transfers the address book to the setting of the new phone if you come from a Huawei device. Overall, is the App Gallery able to completely replace the lack of GMS? No, for now. But it offers a valid alternative and in perspective it is a candidate for an important role: and not only; even if the situation of impasse with the American administration were to unblock, nothing will be the same again and Huawei will continue to take alternative routes.

It displays the P40 Pro

P40 Pro offers a 6.58-inch OLED display defined by the manufacturer as Quad-curve Overflow: the screen has rounded edges on all four sides and this makes it beautiful to look at, thanks also to practically non-existent frames, because they are reduced to a few millimeters. It offers excellent color rendering, has a good contrast point, saturation is correct. From the settings menu you can also intervene to adjust the white balance, color saturation and contrast. There display curvature it is sweeter and less pronounced than that seen on the Mate 30 Pro and this prevents you from inadvertently touching an edge by activating some function. Furthermore, l’use of gestures it’s fluid and intuitive, unlike what happens on some phones where, the transition from the metal of the body to the glass (in particular in the vertical swipes), makes the function a little more difficult.

The hardware of P40 Pro

The hardware of the P40 Pro is borrowed from that of the Mate 30 Pro released last year: here we find the Kirin 990 5G processor, with 6 GB of Ram and 256 GB of Rom, more than enough to ensure performance always at the height. Moreover, the Kirin 990 5G integrates the 5G modem directly into the chipset, which leads to greater energy efficiency than Qualcomm’s 5G competitor. In some particularly stressful situations, the smartphone tends to slightly heat even if this has never affected the quality of performance or negatively affected autonomy. Fingerprint sensor and face unlock are reliable and lightning fast.

UI Experience

Huawei P 40 Pro offers the traditional Emui 10.1 interface which runs on Android 10 Open Sourse. There are those who love it and those who hate it. But it is a classic of personalization. Regardless of how you think, from a more neutral point of view, you cannot but appreciate the improvements introduced in recent months, the attention to security, the possibility of providing access to apps with a password, fingerprint or face recognition, to encrypt certain areas of the phone to protect files and to use a double account for WhatsApp or Facebook.

The camera: the strong point

Smart photography remains the cornerstone of the development of Huawei’s flagship smartphones. And the P40 Pro continues the road opened last year by the P30 Pro, with interesting technological and philosophical grafts. Let’s recap: on the back of the phone there are four goals with the following configuration: the main 50 Megapixel, a 23mm, f / 1.9, OIS; a 40 Megapixel, 18mm, f / 1.8 ultra wide angle cine camera, a 12 Megapixel periscope telephoto camera (125mm, f / 3.4) plus a ToF sensor. There is no lack of support for time lapse in 4K and slow motion up to 7,680 frames per second.

The value of the shots remains very high: we have always preferred to use the main camera which offers excellent detail both during the day and with soft lights, and a truly realistic color fidelity. The already excellent night mode appears even further refined. It can handle longer exposure times and the results are even more realistic and fewer artifacts.

The wide angle, although not too much extended (18 mm), is always comfortable to use, even if in some circumstances it tends to change the color of the image with respect to the main lens, more gradual and natural in the reproduction of tones.

The 5x optical zoom turns out to be excellent and returns excellent detail especially in the presence of a lot of light. Thanks to artificial intelligence you can get to shoot at 10x in hybrid mode (almost) without loss of detail, while you get to 50 with digital intervention.

Decisive improvement also for the video, considered one of the few Achilles’ heels of the P30 Pro model: there is no 8K resolution, but the clips shot in 4K at 60 frames per second, offer really satisfying results. Do not miss the ultra slow motion at 7680fps and the ability to add the bokeh effect in a progressive way to better highlight the main subject of the scene.

The audio of the smartphone

The speaker of the P40 is monaural and not stereo, but offers absolute quality sounds. As for the headset, the sound is diffused through the surface of the display and appears soft and well balanced even if a pinch less loud and ringing than traditional capsules. The 3.5 mm jack is missing, while the reception and transmission performance has always been perfect.

Battery

The battery is 4,200 mAh and, in fact, it manages to reproduce the excellent performance of the P30 Pro. It is difficult to arrive late in the evening with less than 30% of battery still intact, despite stressful and excessive use, far from what are the average daily uses. Full marks then! The phone supports 40W Huawei SuperCharge charging and 40W fast wireless charging.

Our Awards

Huawei P40 Pro is an undoubted champion of photography, a concentrate of power and offers a screen with four curved edges that is not only beautiful and elegant, but effective and comfortable in common use. It therefore wins the awards Photo Award, Hi-Tech Award e Display Award.

Cellulare Magazine’s judgment: Huawei P40 Pro

With the P40 Pro, Huawei reaches new technological heights: in the photographic field, without a doubt, but also in terms of the overall power of the smartphone, which includes 5G connectivity, the most recent Kirin 990 processor, a display as beautiful as it is effective in interactions and a autonomy that has no equal in this market segment. On the plate remains the unknown of the lack of Google services and the impact that Huawei Mobile Services will be able to obtain.
But there is no doubt that the Chinese manufacturer has once again been able to outdo itself, which is not obvious considering the near perfection of the P30 Pro, its 2019 flagship.

VERSUS

• The 3.5mm headphone jack is missing
• Audio is mono
• There are no native Google services