Huawei officially unleashed the next-gen Huawei Mate 40 series at its global online launch event on October 22. Here, the Chinese smartphone maker released four models namely Huawei Mate 40, Huawei Mate 40 Pro, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+, and Huawei Mate 40 RS in an epic launch event toppling the previous best camera charts and hardware developed by Huawei in every order. In fact, these phones have received one of the biggest upgrades in the camera department apart from others. Here’s everything you need to know about the four models launched today.
Huawei Mate 40
Starting with the base variant, the Huawei Mate 40 still brings massive upgrades over its predecessors. It sports a smaller 6.5-inch OLED display with a giant punch-hole cutout for its front camera on the left corner.
Again, Huawei has curtailed the display curve at the edges from 88° in Mate 30 to 68° in Mate 40 but hey, it is still curved. In fact, the side bezels are almost non-existing although the top bezel and chin are prominent. The display has a resolution of 2376×1080 pixels and comes with an HDR10+, 90Hz refresh rate, and a 240Hz touch sampling rate.
Under the hood, the base Huawei Mate 40 packs in a Kirin 9000E octa-core chipset with 22-core GPU with NPU & a single Big Core which is a bit of a step down from its Pro sibling. The device has a top 8GB RAM with 128GB UFS 3.1 of internal storage and will be available at €899. An NM card slot allows for up to 256GB of storage although it uses the second SIM slot although there’s a single SIM variant with no memory card slot.
The smartphone packs in a hefty 4,200 mAh battery which is a relief. It also packs in a 40W wired charging but there’s no wireless charging tech so there are just a few compromises here. The phone comes with IP68 dust and water-resistant certification as well. Huawei has released Mate 40 with Android 10-based EMUI 11 with no Google Play Services and thus, it will be available in China and a few European countries at the beginning.
Speaking about the camera setup, Huawei with Leica offers a stunning triple camera setup housed in a larger circular ring with an inner circle branded with Leica. It looks pretty impressive, to be honest. The Mate 40 packs in a 50MP primary shooter with f/1.9 aperture, a 16MP ultrawide sensor along with an 8MP telephoto sensor with OIS, f/2.4, and 3x optical zoom with it. The front on the other hand packs in a 13MP sensor with HDR-capable of shooting videos at 4K resolution.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro & Mate 40 Pro+
Huawei Mate Pro 5G is another milestone that Huawei achieved with its brilliant hardware configurations. It houses a giant 1/1.28” primary sensor taken from P40 models which is the largest among others. It uses a 50MP omnidirectional autofocus primary sensor with OIS, an aperture of f/1.9, 1.22micron pixel size, and laser autofocus that clicks binned images with exceptional clarity and details. It is able to shoot 4K videos at 60fps while the slow-motion shots can be extended to over 3840 fps with 720p resolution which is mind-blowing.
Mate 40 Pro is assisted with a 20MP Cine camera with an aperture of f/1.8 and it is an ultra-wide-angle lens. The phone uses free form lenses that reduce the distortions UW lenses are known to create at their extremities. Further, it houses a 12MP periscope lens with a 5x optical zoom with OIS and an f/3.4 aperture for excellent shots. Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ includes an 8MP periscope telephoto with OIS, an aperture of f/4.4, OIS, PDAF and it is capable of achieving 10x optical zoom. Finally, it also includes a 3D ToF sensor for depth effects that the Mate 40 Pro doesn’t sports.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro series sports a 13MP selfie shooter with f/2.4 aperture and it is paired with a ToF 3D sensor housed in an elongated pill-shaped cutout on the top-left corner.
The Mate 40 Pro & Mate 40 Pro+ packs in a 6.76-inch OLED panel; with a 1344×2772 pixel resolution and a 88° curve at the sides which is in-line with last year’s Mate 30 Pro. You can access virtual controls on the curved sides which is a boon. The display has a 240Hz touch sampling rate, a 90Hz refresh rate which is a bit of a letdown given the fact that flagship devices are now getting 120Hz refresh rate but it is still a major improvement.
Huawei made it a big event for stereo speakers that the Mate 40 Pro and Pro+ features that allow for excellent multimedia experience thanks to its linear motor for 3D audio. Both the Pro models feature a 4,400 mAh battery with 66W fast wired charging. You can also wirelessly charge the battery at 50W while the reverse charging tech is capped at 5W.
Both the Pro models feature the latest Kirin 9000 5G chipset manufactured on a 5nm processor. The chipset has four Cortex-A77 cores clocked at 3.13GHz along with four Cortex-A55 cores. It comes with a 24-core Mali-G78 GPU and comes integrated with a 5G modem for 5G connectivity. The chipset supports blazing-fast Wi-Fi 6+ that can soak up to 160MHz of bandwidth aka 2.4Gbps transfer speed.
Talking about the pricing, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro arrives in just one configuration i.e. 8+256GB in Europe that can be further expanded using an NM card. It is priced at €1,200 and it is available in a variety of color variants. This includes Black, White, Discover the Mystic Silver along with Yellow and Green vegan leather variants.
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ sports ceramic materials are available in Black and White color variants. The phone has a single and dual SIM variant and it is available at a price tag of €1,400.
Huawei Mate 40 RS
Just like every year, this year too, Huawei has partnered with the elite Porsche Design to showcase the Huawei Mate 40 RS. Although you could confuse between the Mate 40, 40 Pro, and 40 Pro+, you would never fail to recognize the Mate 40 Pro RS.
It features an octagon-shaped giant camera bump at the back with the same specifications as Huawei Mate 40 Pro+. It comes in Ceramic White and Ceramic Black with Porsche Design branding on-board. The phone has a maxed out storage configuration of 12GB+512GB and it is available at a price tag of whopping €2,300.
