Huawei smartphones have always been a candidate due to it’s impressive photography features. Since the older P20 Pro, it has proven to be a serious challenger in the mobile market. Whether you are going for the best smartphone for taking impressive night shots or high speed internet access, Huawei P series has always been a top choice for many users.
Huawei P40 Pro launched at a time when they were not able to use the Google Services. That didn’t deter Huawei from implementing their HMS and AppGallery which replaces the Google Play Store.
Without the Google services, the P40 Pro is beefed up with feature – large 1/1.28-inch sensor has a binned pixel size measuring 2.44 μm to massively boost light intake for enhanced low-light performance, while a new periscope design realises 10x true optical zoom. Zoom to distant objects with it’s 50 MP digital zoom and still get good image stabilisation without a tripod.
Strong in the camera department are it’s
Rear camera:
50 MP Ultra Vision Camera (Wide Angle, f/1.9 aperture, OIS) + 40 MP Cine Camera (Ultra-Wide Angle, f/1.8 aperture) + 12 MP SuperSensing Telephoto Camera (f/3.4 aperture, OIS) + 3D Depth Sensing Camera
Autofocus mode: Autofocus
Image stabilization: OIS + AIS
Zoom Mode: Digital Zoom, Optical Zoom, Hybrid Zoom
Video recording: Support for 4K(3840 x 2160 pixels) 60 fps video recording
Image resolution: Support up to 8192 x 6144 pixels
Video resolution: Support up to 3840 x 2160 pixels
Front Camera:
32 MP Selfie Camera (f/2.2 aperture) + Depth Camera
Autofocus Mode: Autofocus
Video Recording: Support for 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels) 60 fps video recording
Image resolution: Support up to 6528 x 4896 pixels
Video resolution: Support up to 3840 x 2160 pixels
*Depth Camera also support face unlock with IR.
In terms of video, the 40 MP Ultra Wide Cine Camera in HUAWEI P40 Pro and HUAWEI P40 Pro+ has a focal length that is equivalent to 18 mm and a 1/1.54-inch sensor supporting the 3:2 aspect ratio.
HUAWEI P40 Series supports real-time Bokeh effects for videos. Similar to the results of a wide aperture lens, this feature adds progressive Bokeh to help highlight the main subject of the footage. The telephoto camera can capture high quality zoom footage as well as 4K time-lapse videos. Directional Audio Zoom, available on HUAWEI P40 Pro and HUAWEI P40 Pro+, allows users to zoom in on an audio source and amplify its sound at the same time.
Powered by the 7nm Kirin 990 5G and supports high-speed 5G and Wi-Fi 6 Plus. The phone runs liquid smooth when launching apps, browsing or in games. The 5G support also makes this phone future proof as Singapore is yet to commerically launch it’s 5G network. The 5G supports the 3.5 GHz. The Kirin 990 supports 4G / 5G (integrated) of speeds of 2300 Mb/s download and 1250 Mb/s upload.
The package also comes with a quick charger 22.5W charger which charges the 3800mAh battery within an hour.
15 mins – 35%, 30 mins – 67%, 45 mins – 91%, 50 mins – 95%, 63 mins – 100%
In the next few pages, we will check out it’s performance.
[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – Geekbench and 3DMark”]Geekbench
The score of 756 for single core is on par with the Samsung S10+. In multicore performance, it surpasses all the new Snapdragon 855 smartphones.
3DMark
In the 3Dmark test, it seems that the 3D performance is not as fast as we expected. The OpenGL benchmark performance is on par with the Mate 30 Pro and other Snapdragon 845 phones. Likewise, the numbers in Sling Shot Extreme shows that it is just as good as the the 4G variant.
As 5G network is not readily available, we could only test the LTE speed.
Using the Singtel mVNO sim from Grid, we managed to get a high score of 215 Mbps. 3 CA (900 + 1800 + 2600) was probably available boosting the speed to above 200 Mbps.
In fact, this speed is comparable to some of the NSA 5G implementation in some countries. Sometimes, I wonder do we need 5G ?
[nextpage title=”Life without Google Mobile Services”]Huawei P40 Pro is actually banned from using is Google Mobile Services (GMS), the suite of software and APIs licensed by other Android OEMs. It’s not just the apps themselves, but often the cloud services that power them. For example, Grab uses GMS to determine your location and for its mapping data.
So, without GMS, how does it affect the consumers ?
Basically, with GMS, your previous backups stored on your Google account cannot be restored to the P40 Pro. Thus you will probably have to manually install all the apps manually.
Problem arises as the phone does not come with Google Play services. Without Google Play Store, you can’t download the apps you are used to.
Huawei phone now comes with App Gallery which serves a similar function as Google Play Store. You can find most of the commonly used apps.
Well, this can be resolved with the help of Peta Search which comes with the phone. It basically searches different stores and allow you to download the popular APKs including banking apps, news apps.
Secondly, you can install Amazon Store and use that as your application store.
If none of the apps appear on both stores, you might want to do a Bing or Google search for the corresponding APK from sources like apksure.com etc.
As the Google maps is part of GMS and is not available on the P40 Pro, you would experience issues with apps that requires Google Maps. These include the popular Network cell info lite app that we commonly used for testing networks.
With no Google apps, you can still install the Google applications through the URL. e.g. m.youtube.com, m.gmail.com. If you intend to upload your photos to Google Cloud, you can still do that by accessing photos.google.com
Basically, you can survive without GMS, it is just a bit cumbersome and getting used to it.
Alternatively, if you really insist of Google Mobile Services, there are many guides on youtube and web that teaches you how to install it. By the time you read this article, the old guides might have already been rendered useless as patches could have been introduced to prevent GMS from being installed illegally on the phone.
[nextpage title=”Sample photos shot with Huawei P40 Pro”]Huawei P40 Pro comes with a 50 MP Ultra Vision Camera (Wide Angle, f/1.9 aperture, OIS) + 40 MP Cine Camera (Ultra-Wide Angle, f/1.8 aperture) + 12 MP SuperSensing Telephoto Camera (f/3.4 aperture, OIS) + 3D Depth Sensing Camera
Here are some samples images shot using the P40 Pro. The colours are a bit over saturated when AI is used. The colours tends to be warmer and reddish. The photos are taken under normal lighting. The moon is taken at 50X digital zoom.
What about night shots ?
How does a 50X Digital Zoom photo looks like ? Check out this video where the same location was taken using Wide Angle, 1X, 5X, 10X and 50X zoom.
Sample 4K Video recording
The video was filmed while walking down slope handheld (wide angle).
With the help of OIS, the video image captured is pretty stable with the need to invest in a gimbal.
Two videos were shot, one in the day and one at night.
[nextpage title=”AI Remove Reflection and AI Remove Passerby”]
AI Remove Reflection
Huawei P40 Pro comes with two unique functions. First, the AI Remove Reflection. As it’s name implies, it attempts to remove reflections. We did a test and we found it useful when taking exhibits inside enclosed panels.
One thing to note is, if the reflection is too bright, it may not be able to remove reflections that well.
AI Remove Passerby
AI Remove Passerby uses the AI capability of Gallery Edit to help you remove the passersby by combining several frames into one. So you can have a clean background and focus completely on the subject.
Another possibility is to select the best shots among the sequence of shots where the passerby is outside the frame.
We tried a couple of times but it didn’t really work very well. The algorithm might still not be able to handle multiple passer by.
Hopefully a new update will improve on that.
In Conclusion, the Huawei P40 Pro based on the Kirin 990 5G is speedy with an overall performance slightly better that of the models based on the Kirin 990. It is comparatively faster compared to the higher end Snapdragon 855.
With a score of 130 on the DXOmark, it proves that it is capable of taking superb photos day or night. Night shots and videography turns out exceptionally well without a tripod. Video recording is also pretty stable without a gimbal.
The only thing to note is that night mode shots tend to take up to 5 seconds which generally results in more light being captured. We did noticed a light greyish patch on our photos when we chose to select the night mode instead of auto mode.
In terms of design, the Huawei P40 Pro is pretty thick compared to other smartphones available in the market. A more compact and slimmer design is welcomed.
Downloading of the apps without Google services is an issue. The most noticeable thing is that you can’t restore your backup from your previous Android device. You might have to rely on PhoneClone software.
Certain applications like the Network Cell Info which requires Google mobile services and Google Maps doesn’t work no matter how we tried. Other apps, as mentioned can be downloaded from Huawei Gallery or you could go download Amazon Store or APKSURE to download. (It is safer to download APKs from official sources).
Since Google services are out, the NFC on board won’t work with Google Pay. I think it should work with Singtel Dash though.
Priced at a suggested retail price of S$1448, it is kind of steep. Furthermore, 5G networks are not ready.
Here is our verdict
Pros :
- NFC
- 50 MP Ultra Vision Camera (Wide Angle, f/1.9 aperture, OIS) + 40 MP Cine Camera (Ultra-Wide Angle, f/1.8 aperture) + 12 MP SuperSensing Telephoto Camera (f/3.4 aperture, OIS) + 3D Depth Sensing Camera
- 90 Hz screen
- IP68
- 40 W fast charge
Cons:
- No Google Services
- Colours oversaturation
Ratings
- Performance 10
- Design 10
- Features 10
- Usability 10
- Value for money 7
- Score : 9.4 / 10
