The Huawei P40, Huawei P40 Pro, and Huawei P40 Pro+ are high-end Android-based smartphones manufactured by Huawei. Unveiled on 26 March 2020, they succeed the Huawei P30 in the company's P series line.
Design
The P40 and P40 Pro are constructed with anodized aluminum for the frame, while the back uses Gorilla Glass. The P40 Pro+ uses ceramic for both the frame and the back. The display is flat on the P40 or curved on all sides on the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+; Huawei calls this a Quad-Curve Overflow Display. The top left corner of the display has a pill-shaped cutout for the front-facing camera and ambient/proximity sensors; it also accommodates the infrared face unlock system on the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+. As on the P30 Pro, the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ replace the traditional earpiece speaker with an "electromagnetic levitation" speaker that vibrates the top of the phone's screen, and have an IR blaster on the top edge. The 3.5mm audio jack has also been omitted on all models. A rectangular module houses the rear cameras, which protrudes slightly from the back panel. The P40 and P40 Pro is available in Silver Frost, Blush Gold, Deep Sea Blue, Ice White and Black, while the P40 Pro+ is available in Ceramic White or Ceramic Black.
Specifications
Hardware
The P40 series is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G processor, meaning that all models will have 5G connectivity standard. However, only "sub-6" 5G is available, meaning the P40 series is not compatible with ultra-fast millimeter-wave networks. The Kirin 990 5G is assisted by the Mali-G76 MP16 GPU. The P40's display is carried over from the P30, a 6.1" 19.5:9 1080pOLED with a 60 Hz refresh rate. The P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ use a larger 6.58" 19.8:9 OLED with an unorthodox resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate, as well as support for HDR10 and DCI-P3. The P40 has 6 or 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM, while the P40 Pro & P40 Pro+ have 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM. All models have UFS 3.0: the P40 has 128 or 256 GB, the P40 Pro has 128, 256 or 512 GB and the P40 Pro+ has 256 or 512 GB. Expansion is supported up to 256 GB via Huawei's proprietary Nano Memory card. In addition to the infrared face unlock system, all P40 models have an optical fingerprint sensor; Huawei claims the sensor is 30% larger and faster than the P30's. The P40 uses a 3800mAh battery, while the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ use a larger 4200mAh battery. Fast charging is supported on all models, however the P40 does not support wireless charging. The P40 can charge wired up to 22.5W while the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ have a max rate of 40W. Both the P40 and P40 Pro are also capable of reverse wireless charging at 27W, but the P40 Pro+ can charge faster wirelessly at 40W whereas the P40 Pro can only charge wirelessly at 27W. Additionally, the P40 has an IP53 rating while the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ have an IP68 rating.
Camera
The Huawei P40 series features Leica optics, and the wide lens on all models is a new "Ultra Vision" 50 MP sensor. Like the P30, the wide lens uses a "SuperSpectrum" image sensor, whose color filter array uses yellow sub-pixels instead of green. Huawei stated that this would allow more light to be captured, and enhanced absorption of red and green colors. The P40's rear camera array consists of a 50 MP wide lens, a 16 MP ultrawide lens and an 8 MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The P40 Pro increases the resolution of the ultrawide sensor to 40 MP, replaces the standard telephoto lens with a 12 MP periscope sensor capable of 5x optical zoom, and adds a time-of-flight sensor. The P40 Pro+ has two 8 MP telephoto lenses, a standard sensor with 3x optical zoom and a periscope sensor with 10x optical zoom while retaining the time-of-flight sensor. The front-facing camera uses a 32 MP sensor which has autofocus on the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+; an additional depth sensor allows for the face unlock. For both photo and video, pixel binning is used for improved low-light sensitivity, and video can be captured from the wide-angle and telephoto sensors simultaneously with directional audio computed from three omnidirectional microphones. The cameras benefit from an XD Fusion Image Engine which enables advanced computational photography, as well as an "Octa" phase-detection autofocus system for faster autofocus and improved white balance sensors on the P40 Pro+. The software is also improved with a new Golden Snap feature that takes a burst of HDR+ photos and automatically picks the best shots. A Profoto studio light will be available as an accessory as well.
Software
The P40 series ships with EMUI 10.1, which is based on the Android 10 source code. Due to the ongoing United States sanctions against Huawei, international models of the P40 will not ship with or support Google Mobile Services — the proprietary software suite shipped on certified Android devices, and Huawei is not allowed to market the device using the Androidtrademark. The P40 series uses Huawei AppGallery as its main app store. Furthermore, a new app known as Petal Search was introduced, which includes web search via France-based Qwant and Russia-based Yandex, as well as the ability to search for third-party apps via other Android app stores and APK mirroring websites. The P40 series introduces a new in-house voice assistant, Celia, in selected markets, which also includes integration with the device's AI Lens features.
Reception
The P40 Pro received a photo score of 140 and video score of 105 from DXOMARK, the highest ranking yet as of April 2020.
