Tried & tested
WE ROAD TEST THE NEW HUAWEI P40 5G
THE new Huawei
P20 is certainly an exceptional smartphone to rival the very best – but it has one very significant flaw.
But first, the good stuff. The camera is sensational, as it should be for one built in collaboration with the German camera giant Leica. It has four cameras, the most important being a 50MP beast at 1/1.8inches (bigger than most), which features a unique RYYB colour filter array – designed to capture more light.
There’s a 12MP telephoto lens, and a 40MG ultra-wide cine camera – optimised for video and capable of capturing 4K footage. Finally, there’s a depth-sensing camera that helps the unit mimic the depth of field of a traditional camera.
And the results are stunning – great low-light capture, superb sharpness across the image, and a very passable portrait mode background blur effect. There’s cool AI trickery built into the software, too – Golden Shot analyses facial expressions and posture to capture the best image in the moment, offering up three possible good shots for you to choose from. There’s even an AI setting that will remove reflections from images taken through glass.
Other positives include a beautiful wrap-around screen and a fast Kirin 990 chipset (that also allows 5G if your data plan has it).
Now the big problem. Despite running a variant of Google’s Android OS, this phone has no access to the Google Mobile Services.
This is a problem because there’s no Google Play store from which to download your apps, just a Huawei branded app store that doesn’t feature all the apps you expect.
You can transfer apps from another Android device, and some headline apps can be downloaded from the web – Facebook for example.
But there’s no Instagram, and obviously no Gmail, YouTube, or other Google apps (although you can access the mobile web versions of these apps via the built-in browser).
This limitation is down to the US government’s ban on Huawei products, compounded by Android’s tightening security around apps.
The Huawei P40 Pro costs £899 from consumer.huawei.com.
At the moment all orders come with a free case and Huawei Watch GT 2.