Huawei Mate 40 Pro review

Our Verdict

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro carries the same strengths and weaknesses every bit the company's other recent phones. The hardware is excellent for the nigh part, and class-leading in some places. But the software problems mean information technology's not suitable for the average user, who should turn to flagships from Samsung or OnePlus instead.

For

Excellent photography
Powerful Kirin 9000 chipset
Impressive audio and visuals

Against

No Google apps, others require work to install
No U.Due south. availability

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Huawei Mate forty Pro carries the same strengths and weaknesses as the company's other recent phones. The hardware is excellent for the most role, and class-leading in some places. But the software problems mean it'due south not suitable for the boilerplate user, who should turn to flagships from Samsung or OnePlus instead.

Pros

+
Excellent photography
+
Powerful Kirin 9000 chipset
+
Impressive audio and visuals

Cons

-
No Google apps, others require piece of work to install
-
No U.S. availability

Huawei Mate 40 Pro: Specs

Toll: £i,099
Brandish: 6.76 inches FHD+ (2772 x 1344) with 90Hz refresh charge per unit
Colors: Blackness, Mystic Silvery
CPU: HiSilicon Kirin 9000
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 256GB
Rear cameras: 50MP main (f1.9), 20MP cine/ultra-wide (f1.viii), 12MP telephoto, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation depth sensor
Zoom: 5x optical, up to 50x digital
Front cameras: 13MP wide (f/2.4) & 3D Depth Sensing Camera
5G: sub6GHz
Operating organisation: Android xi with EMUI 11
Bombardment: iv,400 mAh
Max. charging speed: 66W wired, 50W wireless
Size: half dozen.41 x 2.97 10 0.35 inches (162.nine ten 75.5 x 9.1 mm)
Weight: 7.47 ounces (212g)

The Huawei Mate forty Pro arrives a little more than a year after the Chinese telecoms giant was rudely booted out of the U.S. Regime'south good graces, and had to rebuild its software ecosystem back up from basis level with the benefit of Android. The Mate xl Pro is Huawei'due south best endeavor at a Google-less smartphone so far, but is it enough to genuinely tempt users abroad from Samsung, OnePlus, or even Apple?

If you're obsessed with having the best hardware in your handset, possibly. Huawei'southward delivered another polished experience with its most powerful silicon and nigh competitive cameras still. However like the P40 Pro earlier it, having to accept this phone's software limitations is a pain.

The best phones you tin purchase today
See how the Mate twoscore measures up confronting the best Android phones

Things aren't equally bad every bit they used to be thanks to some alternatives and workarounds Huawei now has in place, plus the benefits of Multi-screen collaboration with other Huawei devices might tempt productivity-hungry users. For the average user though, our Huawei Mate 40 Pro review finds that this isn't an automated pick for your side by side phone.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Price and release engagement

Once again, U.Due south. users won't find the Mate twoscore Pro at their local phone store, with the only option beingness online retailers who import devices from overseas. Be enlightened though that this can cost a lot more than you might expect, and you'll be wise to check which 4G and 5G bands the specific model supports to see whether the telephone works with your called carrier.

In the U.Thousand., the Mate 40 Pro's a lot easier to find. It's bachelor in a single 8GB RAM/256GB storage spec in a choice of Blackness or Mystic Silvery for £1099.99 — the same equally you lot'll pay for an iPhone 12 Pro Max with 128GB storage. It's also in the aforementioned ballpark as the £949 Samsung Milky way Annotation 20 and the £one,179 Galaxy Note twenty Ultra.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Design

From the front end, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro better resembles its smaller P40 Pro sibling than its Mate xxx Pro predecessor, because of its pill-shaped front camera cutout in the pinnacle left corner.

That approach is much more attractive than the Mate 30's central notch, simply it notwithstanding takes up a lot more room than the common unmarried punch-hole camera you discover on nigh Android phones.

Around the sides, you'll run into Huawei has kept the dramatic 88-degree curves on the brandish, which come across neatly with the more subtle rear curvature to make a phone that'due south very comfortable to agree in your palm. Yet the phone seems noticeably thicker than many others I've tried this year; the 7.5-ounce weight adds to that bigger experience, too.

Turning the telephone over reveals Huawei'southward new "Space Ring" photographic camera array, with the four sensors arranged in the corners of an imagined foursquare within the circular donut. It's a peachy homage to the circumvolve of cameras on the Mate 30, only I recall I prefer the older style that doesn't leave a random gap in the centre. That said, Huawei has put the hole in the donut to good use by placing the Leica branding at that place, reminding us all of the partnership between Huawei and the High german camera and lens maker.

With the Mate 40 Pro, Huawei has once again produced a trademark uncomplicated pattern, which looks particularly classy in this black colour selection. The Mystic Silver with its pearlescent quality would brand for a more centre-catching color if you lot'd prefer. Both colors feature a small splash of red on the power button, another Mate serial trademark. Next to it you'll encounter that there's a book rocker, which is interesting since Huawei got rid of that feature on the Mate 30 last year, replacing it with on-screen volume control gestures. Those return, accessed by double tapping either edge, but you can likewise command it like a normal telephone if that's your preference.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Display and audio

At half-dozen.76 inches, the Mate forty Pro has a display that's on the larger side, though it's still smaller than the 6.78-inch OnePlus 8 Pro, or the 6.9-inch Samsung Milky way S20 Ultra and Galaxy Annotation 20 Ultra.

Those three phones also beat the Mate forty in terms of resolution and refresh rate. Huawei's phone offers an FHD panel with a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz. All the rest offer QHD and 120Hz but pay for it in shorter bombardment life, something Huawei claims it has no problem with.

As a examination, I watched the trailer for the second flavour of gritty anthropomorphic animal anime Beastars. The FHD resolution didn't affect my enjoyment of the plot teasers, displaying the textures of the different characters' fur and the stiff flat colors the show uses to reference its manga origins vividly.

During my time using the phone for various everyday tasks, I didn't listen the slightly lower refresh rate, instead appreciating the size and brightness of the display. Provided you have a pocket or bag big enough, you lot'll bask taking in web pages, social media feeds or streaming content on this screen, which even outdoors in bright sunlight won't let you lot down.

Swapping to some music, I tried listening to bluegrass archetype "If it Hadn't Been For Dear" by The Steeldrivers, and was actually pleased with Huawei's decision to ditch the anaemic sub-display speaker found on earlier phones. Now a standard speaker fires out of the telephone's top edge, leaving the display unblemished and providing a well counterbalanced sound. The speaker skews heavily toward vocals and treble, though, which is why I nevertheless prefer the more all-round sound of the iPhone 12 Pro.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Cameras

Here's where we get to see exactly what the Leica-tuned cameras on the Huawei Mate 40 Pro are capable of. The rear cameras feature a 50MP chief camera using Huawei'south unique RYYB sensor for increased lite sensitivity, a 20MP ultrawide camera that doubles every bit the phone's main video camera, and a 12MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom and a maximum of 50x digital zoom. There's also a laser depth sensor to assist with special effects and AR apps when needed.

Grabbing an iPhone 12 Pro as a comparison, I took the Mate 40 Pro for a tour of Paddington's canals. Our first shot, overlooking Rembrandt Gardens, shows a typical Huawei trait — cooler colour temperatures. The autumn leaves and lawns of this small public park look more than attractive from the iPhone's perspective, merely it left the open sky areas overexposed. The Mate 40 managed to excellently show off the late afternoon sky.

An ultrawide shot of the canal is a little tricky to compare since the Huawei and iPhone take dissimilar fields of view for their lenses. Yous can fit much more into a shot with the 0.5x iPhone camera, but the Mate 40 Pro's 0.6x camera captures the colors in a much more interesting way.

I did 2 telephoto camera comparisons of this statue, since the Huawei has a 5x optical zoom, while the iPhone's optical zoom tops out at 2x optical. At 5x, the Huawei is superior equally you'd expect. Its image is at an ideal level of saturation, while the iPhone'south image is duller, and also has significant noise in the back of the shot.

Only 2x, the competition is much closer than I predicted. The unpleasant fuzziness from the iPhone'south image has gone, but the Mate xl retains its more bonny coloring. I was expecting this 2-function round to be a describe, each side winning when using only optical zoom. Simply I feel similar due to its versatility, this round belongs to the Huawei.

My final test with the two phones' rear cameras was this nighttime shot of a pub. The iPhone's shot has warmer colors, only the Huawei was better able to keep the flares of light small, which leads to a more than authentic representation of the scene's colors as I saw them.

Finally, I tried out the portrait selfie mode, another category I'd expect the Mate 40 Pro to practice well in thanks to its combination of a 13MP photographic camera and a 3D depth sensor, similar to the iPhone 12 Pro'southward TrueDepth 12MP front camera.

These 2 images could both easily exist my preference depending on the day or which way the wind was bravado. The iPhone'southward shot looks more artistic with a better blur upshot and a more flattering coloring for my hair, skin and jacket. On the other paw, the Mate 40s more honest representation of me and my surroundings has its own appeal. Both phones did a great task at cut me out from the background though, so I take no complaints from a technical standpoint.

It's taken Huawei a few attempts, but whatsoever software tweaks information technology's figured out over the past few months take really helped it have better shots under normal lighting conditions, as well as the vivid and dark settings where its phones have traditionally done well. The Mate 40 Pro's impressive hardware tin can become blow-for-blow with Apple'southward latest iPhone without a trouble, and I discover information technology difficult to option between the two phones' photos virtually of the time. I am keen to endeavor the Mate forty Pro against some other strong photography phones like the Pixel 5 or the Milky way Note 20 Ultra, and run into if it truly has what information technology takes to exist one of the best photographic camera phones around.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Operation

The Mate forty takes a unlike approach to its internal components than the majority of its Android rivals. Instead of going for the standard duo of a Snapdragon 865 and either 8GB or 12GB RAM, Huawei has used its own Kirin 9000 chipset; and you lot'll notice but 8GB of memory.

Fortunately, through Huawei's Phone Clone, AppGallery and Petal Search apps, you're able to go the apps y'all want from copying them from your old phone, downloading APK files from trusted sources or by using an alternative app store. It'south not quite as straightforward as just searching on the Play Store and striking download, only if y'all're comfy living without the Google app ecosystem, you can basically get any Android app y'all like on the Mate twoscore with a bit more than effort.

Yous've also got the selection to open and use up to 3 apps at once with the Multi-Window characteristic, and an "Eyes-On Display" that reduces notification volume and keeps the device awake when the telephone detects you're looking at it. Plus there's a bunch of visual upgrades that brand menus smarter and transitions between them smoother. You lot'll also find upgrades to Huawei's Celia digital assistant, and the return of Private View, which makes sure your notifications stay hidden if someone who isn't y'all picks up the telephone.

Currently, we are unable to get Geekbench v, which measures overall performance, working on the Mate 40 Pro. Nevertheless, we were able to run GFX Demote's Wild Life graphics criterion, to give usa an idea of how well the Huawei performs when it needs to render detailed graphics. Its average score was 6,116 frames, with a frame rate of 36.half-dozen FPS. That puts it a little bit backside the iPhone 12 Pro Max's 41 FPS consequence, simply way ahead of the Milky way Notation 20 Ultra and its 26 FPS performance.

That'south a pretty impressive result, enough to make the Mate 40 the near powerful Android device we've tested, even if information technology tin can't beat Apple'south A14 bit in the iPhone 12 series. Do keep in heed that the Kirin 9000 is a generation ahead of the Snapdragon 865 we see in many Android flagships from this twelvemonth, with Huawei's chip using a 5-nanometer procedure instead of seven nm for the Snapdragon chipset. (The smaller procedure means more than transistors and more than power, to put it simply.) We'll accept to see if the Mate 40 Pro tin can keep its pb when we starting time to run into the expected Snapdragon 875 arrangement-on-chip find its mode into phones at the start of next year.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Software

The Huawei Mate twoscore Pro features Huawei's own EMUI 11 interface, with the open-source version of Android 11 running below it. Unfortunately, the Mate 40 Pro can't utilise Google apps at all due to U.S. government restrictions barring companies from doing business organisation with Huawei. The phone also can't access the Google Play Shop to download other Android apps.

If you ain a larger Huawei device like a MateBook X Pro or a MatePad Pro, then you can brand use of Huawei's robust Multi-screen Collaboration tools, letting you operate your phone from a PC or tablet. New for the Mate 40 range's launch is the power to have multiple apps from your phone open in different windows on a MateBook laptop — a feature that looks supremely useful if y'all already ain one device and like to use your phone a lot for piece of work.

On the negative side, y'all exercise get an atrocious lot of pre-installed apps, plus some recommendation folders which contain a rotating array of other suggested apps for you lot to download. Tidying upwardly the Mate 40 Pro'due south home screens will take some doing, particularly since without an app library, yous can't remove an app without straight-upward deleting information technology.

Besides, 1 matter that annoyed me peculiarly is that EMUI 11 doesn't take a dark mode scheduling function unlike basically all other operating systems. You can switch it on fairly hands yourself from the Quick Settings carte du jour in the notification shade, just the fact it doesn't offer an automatic option seems like a big oversight, especially since there have been complaints about this missing feature since EMUI 10 last year.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Air Gestures and Face Recognition

Beyond the apps, EMUI 11 hides some unique enhancements compared to other Android skins. For case, Huawei has connected its air gestures system, which debuted on the Mate 30. This time around, at that place are more than gestures you tin utilise, allowing you lot to wake the phone up; swipe screens up, downward, left or right; and utilize a pressing gesture to respond phonecalls or play/pause media. All this is powered by the aforementioned sensor that likewise enables Face Recognition, which you can use to secure the phone alongside the Mate 40's under-brandish fingerprint sensor.

Once you learn the ideal altitude to perform the gestures from, they're surprisingly reliable and easy to pull off. It'southward great if you lot're the kind of person who keeps their phone upright on a stand when not in apply, or in certain situations like cooking when you want to access the phone but don't want to touch it with dirty hands. However the left and right navigation gestures are limited to certain apps, which may prove irritating depending on what yous're doing.

I found face recognition to be reliable enough on the Mate 40, allowing me to not actually use my thumbprint to unlock the Mate 40. No other Android maker offers properly secure facial recognition like this, later Google dropped Motion Sense from the Pixel 5. That means that the only rival left for Huawei in this area is Apple's Face ID. Confront unlocking is as fast on either phone, but the iPhone still unlocks at angles where the Mate 40 Pro can't detect you.

Huawei Mate forty Pro review: 5G

Thanks to the Kirin 9000 fleck, the Mate 40 Pro has 5G built in. However, it's got sub6GHz compatibility just, since the Chinese marketplace merely has access to this flavor of 5G. Given that mmWave is primarily used in the U.S., where the Mate 40 isn't available, that's non much of a limitation.

Huawei Mate twoscore Pro review: Bombardment and charging

At 4,400 mAh, the Mate 40 Pro actually has a slightly smaller battery than the 4,500 mAh power pack in the Mate 30 Pro. However raw capacity doesn't tell the full story, and the Mate 40 Pro remains a long-lasting telephone.

Even afterwards performing tests, watching videos and downloading several apps over Wi-Fi over the class of an 8-60 minutes evening's arctic-out session, the Mate 40 yet had two thirds of its capacity left. We've yet to perform a formal bombardment rundown exam on the phone, but in one case we practise nosotros'll update this review with the results and how it compares to the competition.

Huawei has merely managed to leapfrog the competition with the included 66W wired charger, beating the OnePlus 8T's 65W charger by 1 whole watt. The Mate 40 Pro can also wirelessly charge at up to 50W, the fastest we've seen on a telephone so far, although without i of Huawei's proprietary chargers we were unable to effort that out.

After 30 minutes of charging, a tuckered Mate 40 Pro made information technology to 84% the telephone was completely filled past the 44-minute mark. The OnePlus 8T manages 93% full in xxx minutes, likely due to the dual battery organization that allows it to charge 2 cells at a lower speed, rather than a single cell at a higher speed like the Huawei does.

Even if it isn't quite as fast as the best charging phone around, being able to accuse this quickly is nevertheless enough to satisfy most users' needs. And at this speed, the Huawei nonetheless trashes the 25W standard charger that the Samsung Galaxy S20 and Milky way Notation 20 series come with. Meanwhile, Apple's newest 20W charger has to be bought separately for the iPhone 12 serial.

Huawei Mate 40 Pro review: Verdict

After extensive testing for this Huawei Mate 40 Pro review, there's no incertitude about the phone'south strongest features — the cameras, the operation, fifty-fifty parts of the software user feel. However if you asked me would I recommend the Mate twoscore Pro, I'd regretfully say no.

The Mate 40 is an crawly large phone, but why option this over an S20 Ultra, or a Notation twenty Ultra, or a OnePlus 8 Pro? Samsung's phones also have excellent cameras, while OnePlus devices use an splendid version of Android that all the same has Google apps. Both of these brands' flagship phones offer similar operation for less money than you'd pay for the Huawei too.

Information technology's taking Huawei some concerted effort, but the telephone maker has shown that it tin can all the same play in a highly competitive phones market even with a significant Google-shaped chink in its armor. If the U.South. government's trade ban lifts any fourth dimension soon (and with a new administration on the style, it might), we'll accept to reevaluate things. For now though, the Mate 40 Pro is a phone you should only buy after some careful consideration of the price, literal and figurative, you're paying for the phone's outstanding features.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff writer based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and any else people need advice on. Post-obit on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he's likewise written for WIRED U.G., The Annals and Creative Bloq. When non at piece of work, he'south likely thinking about how to brew the perfect loving cup of specialty java.