Huawei Mate 40 Pro
One of the best-built smartphones around, but software inconveniences lose it points From £1,099 consumer.huawei.com
he Huawei Mate 40 Pro finds itself with the same problem as other recent Huawei handsets: top-notch hardware but issues on the software front since the US stopped it from dealing with Google. That means you might not be able to run all the apps you need.
There are workarounds – you can get at your Gmail email through a different client, for example – but it continues to be a challenge for Huawei and its phones, even though the company is making progress in improving the app experience on its newest handsets.
What we can say is that the fit and finish of the phone is absolutely first class, as usual. With fantastic camera and battery performance, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro might just have enough in the positives column for you to be able to live with a few app inconveniences.
The screen plays a big role in the overall aesthetics: the large 6.76-inch OLED display runs at a resolution of 1344 x 2772 pixels and refresh rate of 90Hz, with curved edges at the side and minimal bezels at the top and bottom. It’s pleasingly sharp, bright and crisp, with HDR10 support.
While it’s not the thinnest or lightest phone that you’re going to come across, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro feels comfortable in the hand, with a finish that makes the phone feel as expensive as it actually is. The phone is fully protected against water and dust with an IP68 rating, and there’s a USB-C port for data transfer and
Tcharging. You don’t get a headphone jack, but there are stereo speakers.
There’s a triple lens 50MP wide, 12MP telephoto (with a 5x optical zoom that’s unbeaten on the market at the moment) and 20MP ultrawide camera on the back, and a 13MP ultrawide lens coupled with a 3D time-of-flight depth sensor on the front. The resulting images are first class.
The battery is similarly excellent, with two hours of video streaming at low volume and maximum brightness only taking 10% off. There’s 5G, a speedy Kirin 9000 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB or 512GB of internal storage you can expand with NM cards.
It may be unable to access the Google Play Store, but Huawei is working hard to limit the damage by making it easy to sideload apps. If you take the software side out of it, this is undoubtedly one of the phones of the year, albeit on the expensive side.