Huawei P40 Pro: the full Review

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Testing the Huawei P40 Pro was frustrating. With its large quadruple curved OLED screen, its powerful but economical Kirin 990 processor, its 5G compatibility and, above all, its quadruple competition camera module, this device has, on paper, everything from the best smartphone on the market. Like last year with its P30 Pro, Huawei shows us that it is no longer an outsider and that it is now one of the masters of innovation just like a Samsung or an Apple, which it exceeds sometimes.

Unfortunately, Huawei is in a funny situation. Become the instrument of the American government in an economic war against China, the manufacturer no longer has the right to work with a US company without a special license issued by the Trump administration which, you can imagine, is not not very cooperative. This situation deprives it of Google and its many applications, which is highly problematic in a market as mature as that of the smartphone, reluctant to make room for a third ecosystem after more than ten years of duopoly.

For two weeks, we made the Huawei P40 Pro our main smartphone. Can Hardware Excellence Make Up for Software Gaps? Here is our Review of the new Huawei star smartphone, sold for 1,099 euros excluding promotion.

Life without Google is possible… but complicated  

If you are a regular reader of artbzen.com, you may know that our tests usually start with an analysis of the design of the device. In an exceptional situation, we decided to change our habits. We will therefore approach this Review with our opinion on the alternatives to Google that Huawei offers. This will allow us in the second part of our Review to focus exclusively on the hardware after we have, let's be clear, got rid of this black spot.

On the bright side, in just a few months, Huawei has made huge strides. Using a Huawei P40 Pro without pulling your hair out is possible, which was not the case with the Huawei Mate 30 Pro released at the end of the year. For good reason, the brand has considerably improved its health home ecosystem. The AppGallery application store (with a design that is still not very Western), supposed to replace the Play Store, is no longer content to list the few applications it offers but also directs you to alternatives. For example, if you search for "Google Calendar", it now redirects you to the mobile site calendar.google.com. Same thing for "Uber". As the application is not compatible with the brand's new mobiles, it adds a quick link to your health home screen m.uber.com. It doesn't offer the same flexibility as the apps available on other Android smartphones, but it already is. In some cases, a referral is even offered to sites for downloading APK installation files such as APKpure or Telecharger.com. Huawei finally understood that a store that answered "no results" to a query as simple as "Facebook" was not worthy of a large manufacturer. The user is now, for this request, directed to an APK. So much the better, even if unfortunately (very) many applications are still missing. Remember also that downloading an APK does not allow, after installation, access to automatic updates. The Chinese brand, however, is preparing a notification system to detect the arrival of a newer APK, but it is not yet ready.

Huawei’s unprecedented situation allows us to realize how Google has made its proprietary operating system “free” in recent years. For example, an application like Citymapper uses Google localization APIs and therefore cannot open on a Huawei P40 Pro, even if you install its APK illegally. Same thing on the ehealth streaming side where the digital rights management (DRM Widevine) necessary for the proper functioning of a Netflix or myCANAL only works with Google services. Disney + and Prime ehealth work, however, normally, but finding them is complicated. This makes some applications incompatible with the P40 Pro, even if you multiply the tricks to install them … Recently, Huawei offers alternative APIs to developers but many are still slow to adopt them. No doubt that over time all of this should improve. The majority of the developers we contacted before writing this Review told us that they were in contact with Huawei. A number of them told us, however, that they intended to refuse to switch to the brand's APIs.

The good news is that, of the 40 apps incompatible with our Mate 30 Pro at the end of the year, more than half are now working. Huawei sends its teams to the big developers to convince them to join its ecosystem and some are tempted by the adventure.

To take advantage of most of our usual applications on the P40 Pro, we opted for a third-party store – in this case Aurora Store, which lists lots of APKs, installs and updates them. Problem, each installation must be done manually. In other words, updating thirty applications requires … more than thirty steps. What hell. Another example of strange behavior is that in Twitter (which you install yourself via APK), touching a tweet sometimes prompts you to open your browser rather than staying in the application, possibly due to a missing API. Some apps also send you late notifications. As it stands, there is no simple way to enjoy your Huawei P40 Pro like any other Android smartphone. Using it as your primary smartphone is possible but, again, not for everyone. Besides, don't trust the opinion of many influencers on the subject. Huawei has, according to our information, spent more than 100,000 euros in the sponsorship videos to calm critics. The best is to form your own opinion.

To conclude this first part, we will say that with its P40 Pro, Huawei succeeds in proving to us that life without Google is still possible if one is ready to make some concessions and, above all, to waste time. If you are a fan of the business or more generally of new technologies, you should be able to get used to it … even reduce your dependence on Google, which can only be a good thing. It is, however, still too early for us to recommend the Huawei P40 Pro to a very large audience. Hopefully, by the end of the year, Huawei will have made even more progress. A third ecosystem at the height of Apple and Google can only be beneficial to the market … provided it really succeeds in becoming a serious competitor of Android.

Sumptuous design  

Now let's tackle the much more complimentary part of this Review since, as you will see, we really like this P40 Pro. Its 6.58-inch OLED screen, curved on the sides but also at the top and bottom, is the first of its kind. This makes the design of this smartphone extremely modern and it makes borders a concept that belongs to the past (we love the way the corners of the screen are rounded in passing). The curvature of the P40 Pro panel is sublime, without being restrictive. This is Huawei's first show of force: finding the perfect balance between a fully curved screen and normal use. The palm of our hand never inadvertently interacted with this screen, which is a real feat.

The only flaw is the punch. We do not understand why Huawei decided to make it so wide … At the top left of the mobile is a huge oval that houses two cameras and an infrared sensor. Their mission is to improve the quality of selfies in portrait mode, since the second camera module only measures the depth of field. We would have greatly preferred to have an ultra wide-angle camera like on the Pixel 3. On the other hand, advantage of the infrared sensor, facial recognition works at night. It's better than nothing.

Finally, let's talk about the back of this Huawei P40 Pro. The “frosted gray” color of our Review mobile is, hold on, the most beautiful that we have had in front of us in recent years. Admittedly, all this remains subjective, but we are really fans of it. It looks like looking at a cloud. The quadruple camera module of the smartphone, rectangular and of a fairly large area, does not disturb the balance too visually. Huawei's design teams have worked well!

A screen that curiously lacks brightness  

To our surprise, the screen of the Huawei P40 Pro is less bright than that of its predecessor. Our laboratory has measured a maximum brightness of 592 cd / m2, against 697 cd / m2 for the P30 Pro. This measure is not bad but still makes the P40 Pro the least bright high-end smartphone of the moment, a title that Huawei would certainly have preferred to leave to a competitor. In daily use, this should not, we reassure you, be a problem. It is only in the middle of summer, in full sun, that you may need to squint to decipher what is displayed on the screen.

When it comes to color fidelity, Huawei is in the middle of high-end smartphones. By default, we tend a little too much towards bright colors (Delta E = 4.52), but by opting for the display called "normal colors by default", it's already more satisfactory (Delta E = 2.56) . Huawei nevertheless does worse than Samsung and Apple, the calibration of OLED screens is not an art in which the brand stands out the most.

Excellent autonomy

In terms of autonomy, Huawei is one of the best. Its Kirin processors are among the most energy efficient on the market and EMUI, its overlay, is particularly aggressive towards background software likely to consume excessively. Everything is done to allow you to continue your activities as long as possible, without the need to run behind an electrical outlet.

Without equaling the excellence of a P30 Pro, the Huawei P40 Pro perfectly manages to pass the course of a classic day of use on a single charge. With a versatile autonomy of 2:23 p.m., it becomes the first 5G smartphone tested by artbzen.com with as good a battery life as a 4G device. In streaming, it is possible to watch 12:22 p.m. videos in a row without interruption. Finally, in communication, the Huawei P40 Pro resists 9:13 p.m.. Again, this is very satisfying. Samsung's Galaxy S20s are far less fortunate.

Finally, note that the Huawei P40 Pro takes only 1h02 to fully charge thanks to its ultra-fast 40W charger supplied in the box. In 10 minutes, we even recover 30% of battery, enough to hold an entire evening easily. The mobile is also compatible with 27W wireless charging. It can even give autonomy to another smartphone or headphones placed on its screen thanks to its reverse charge Qi function.

Equipment at the top of the top  

Without being as powerful as the Apple A13 Bionic or the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 according to our benchmark tests, the Kirin 990 5G processor of the Huawei P40 Pro delivers exceptional performance. Everything works wonderfully on the smartphone, which does not surprise us given Huawei's know-how. This SoC is also the first with integrated 5G modem, which should reduce its energy consumption once the 5G network is launched in France. Wi-Fi 6 is also supported.

To unlock its P40 Pro, in addition to the infrared facial recognition mentioned above, Huawei offers an optical fingerprint sensor under the screen of its smartphone. Very fast, the latter is one of the best we have tested in recent years. Only defect, it does not work very well with wet fingers (that of Samsung, ultrasonic, is much better on this aspect).

In terms of haptic feedback, Huawei's proposal is, in our opinion, less convincing than that of the competition. The smartphone has a good vibrator but very rarely interacts with your fingers. What OnePlus and Apple offer is much better.

A speaker that hurts the ear

The equipment of the P40 Pro is perfect, except for one detail. Like its predecessor, the smartphone does not have a speaker grille above its screen. Sound travels through the panel, technically making it possible to place your ear anywhere when you are on the phone. A real technological feat, a little annoying in some cases.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that we would have preferred an old-style speaker. This new configuration degrades the stereo rendering of the speakers and, above all, produces a strange sound to the ear. It’s as if our interlocutor is yelling at us. Some will not see a problem, for our part, this choice has been inconvenient to use.

The king of the photo retains his throne

Of course, how to Review a Huawei smartphone without talking about the photo. The P range has established itself as one of the best in the field in just a few years and continues to impress us every year. When it's not customary, Huawei is bringing out the big game. The P40 Pro has a giant 50 Mpix sensor (1 / 1.28 inch, a record) with its technology SuperSpectrum. This consists of replacing green photosites with yellow photosites, we then speak of RYYB (Red Yellow Yellow Blue) rather than RGB (Red Green Blue). The SuperSpectrum improves the quality of photos in low light mode, which is quite magical. The P40 Pro sees in total darkness where competing smartphones need a little light to decrypt something, with less precision. Here we can read on labels.

Like last year, there are still some colorimetric difficulties at night. The images turn a little too yellow, which suggests that the SuperSpectrum has difficulty performing white balance. This is all the more visible since by quickly passing from one photo module to another, we notice that the colors are no longer the same. The sharpness nevertheless remains highly superior to the competition despite the absence of light.

By day, the P40 Pro is excellent. It's hard to be disappointed with the quality of your photos. Again, we only blame him for a lack of color consistency between his camera modules. Apple's iPhone 11 Pro, the best student in this field, does much better.

The P40 Pro's second sensor is borrowed from the Mate 30 Pro. It measures 1 / 1.54 inches, offers a resolution of 40 Mpix and is used both for taking ultra wide-angle photos (in 16: 9 format!) And for ehealth. It is the only one on the market capable of filming in slow motion at 7680 frames per second, which is completely incredible. We admit to being amazed by its ability to film at night, far superior to certain competing smartphones. We can fully exploit these images!

Of course, what would be the successor to the P40 Pro without an exceptional periscopic zoom? Attached to a 12 Mpix sensor, the latter offers a 5x optical zoom, a 10x hybrid zoom and a 50x digital zoom. Its main novelty is the introduction of a modified Bayer matrix similar to that of the main sensor. So we go from RGB to RYYB to see better at night, even from a distance.

By day, the zoom of the P40 Pro is undoubtedly the best on the market. Its stabilization surpasses that of Samsung and the quality of the photos is really excellent until x10. At night, despite the SuperSpectrum, we are disappointed. The problem is not only in the color fidelity but also in the sharpness (above x10, it becomes impossible to look at). Something tells us that software patches should be able to improve that, but at the moment, it's really not that great. It may be quite logical given the opening f / 3.4 of the periscopic module, we hoped for a miracle thanks to the RYYB. This is not the case. Hopefully Huawei will fix it in time for our full photo Review to benefit. The fact remains that, if we are tough on certain points, we recognize that the camera module of the P40 Pro is really exceptional. Few, if not none, smartphones are as versatile.

Finally, let’s mention the presence of a ToF sensor dedicated to measuring distances and depth of field. Huawei has also added a few new software modes, such as the "Golden Snap" mode which allows you to "save" a photo where someone has yawned or closed your eyes. Passers-by can also be deleted thanks to the long exposure. Everything is very efficient and once again shows the know-how of the Chinese giant.

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