Tsepz_GP
Expert Member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2008
- Messages
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The smartphone industry simply cannot stop and give us a break, year after year we get bigger, better and more efficient and Huawei have certainly not held back. It’s a great time for those of us who enjoy seeing mobile technology advance and it is great for everyone in general as it means the more advancements are made the more cool things begin trickling down to lower priced smartphones.
I have had the Huawei Mate 40 Pro for about week now and absolutely enjoying this incredibly capable flagship smartphone.
Design
Huawei have continued to use the Waterfall Display and in the Mate 40 Pro the screen is so steeply curved the Volume and Power buttons are almost facing the rear of the phone, this leads to quite a solid feel and expensive look thanks to the aluminum frame. I was quite hesitant about this design but thanks to there being a case included with the phone I was able to use the phone with very little mistouches.
My favourite part of the design is the “wider stance” Huawei tend to give their Mate series phones. In a world where more and more phone manufacturers are making their phones Taller and Narrower, Huawei has made the Mate 40 Pro wider, in fact this phone is wider than its P series sibling the P40 Pro and I am very happy with that, the screen feels better to type on and the phone sits very nicely in hand. The Mate 40 Pros more squared off design also makes it a lot easier to grip than the P40 Pro which is great if you spend a lot of time reading articles, eBooks or browsing social media on your phone.
The Mate 40 Pro is made of a Aluminum frame sandwiched between the front and rear are glass. The rear glass is the most interesting as it has a matte glass finish. The one I have is the Mystic colour and it shifts colours depending on lighting around you, it is absolutely stunning. The P40 Pro I have is silver frost and it has a similar effect to the Mystic of the Mate 40 Pro so you will see some colour shift in some of the pictures below. Another noteworthy mention is that Huawei have kept the Mate 30 Pros fantastic camera design with the circular housing
In terms of measurements this is how the Mate 40 Pro, P40 Pro, Mate 30 Pro and Mate 20 Pro compare:
Mate 40 Pro: 162.9 x 75.5 x 9.1 mm weight: 212 g
P40 Pro: 158.2 x 72.6 x 9 mm weight: 209 g
Mate 30 Pro: 162.9 x 75.5 x 9.1 mm weight: 212 g
Mate 20 Pro: 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm weight: 189 g
Mate 40 Pro vs P40 Pro
P40 Pro vs Mate 40 Pro
Mate 40 Pro vs P40 Pro
Due to the Mate 40 Pro being slightly larger and very slightly slightly heavier the weight gain is barely noticeable, in fact I thought they had made the Mate 40 Pro lighter but I guess it’s because it has more surface area to spread its weight and therefore feels a tad lighter due to this.
Display
Goodbye notch!
The Mate 40 Pro brings a slightly larger 6.76inch OLED display with a pill cutout, 90hz refresh rate that supports HDR10, it comes with a slightly larger resolution as well at 1344 x 2772, for comparison the P40 Pro has a 6.58inch screen with 90hz refresh rate at 1200 x 2640 with HDR10, Huawei have stuck to a formula that works as the Mate 40 Pro screen is bright and incredibly smooth. This is also a larger screen than what the Mate 30 Pro (the Mate 40 Pro predecessor) had and eliminates the notch for the pill cutout much like the P40 Pro.
I have been very happy with the display, it’s great even outdoors, it gets bright and is great for reading and browsing social media.
The Always On Display also has a cool feature where it uses an AOD version of your current wallpaper which keeps everything very consistent in the UI.
You will also notice the Mate 40 Pro much like previous Huaweis features an Under Screen Fingerprint reader that is incredibly fast and seems to get more and more reliable with each new phone. This works great for when you are wearing a mask and are unable to use the Facial Recognition.
Speaking of Security the Mate 40 Pro also features a Time of Flight sensor in the display cutout on the top left, this combined with the front facing camera that is in the same display cutout is used for the Facial Recognition feature and has been great to use when at home without a mask. It’s great Huawei has given us both options of Secure Facial recognition and secure fingerprint recognition which can lock and unlock the phone as well as apps that you specify.
Audio
Huawei have been innovating a lot in this area, and the Mate 40 Pro is the latest to benefit in this regard.
First let’s look back at the P30 Pro and P40 Pro bone conduction technology which vibrated their screens to produce sound in voice calls directly to your ears while on a phone call.
With the Mate 40 Pro it seems Huawei wanted to take things up a notch, not only did they want to give us Dual Speakers but they also wanted to ensure they don’t lack in earpiece volume, so they built two openings from the top speaker to make it work as a earpiece speaker when in calls as well as a second loudspeaker when you play music or go into loudspeaker mode when on a call, this means you now have a great Dual Speaker setup on the Mate 40 Pro which is missing in the P40 Pro.
Top loudspeaker speaker and earpiece (slit between screen and frame)
Bottom loudspeaker
The Mate 40 Pro will be great both for voice calls and using the loudspeaker if you are watching a quick video or listening to a voice note, it’s clear and loud.
Camera
The Mate 40 Pro is a fantastic shooter, Huawei have solidified their Camera prowess and it shows, with each flagship they get better with larger sensors and more advanced in terms of using AI to adjust correctly for scenes and they also seem to be getting to grips with their post processing. If you are the sort of person who likes to take full control and don’t believe in the fancy AI stuff then Huawei has also made this camera for you with a Pro mode gives you full control of the powerful photography hardware they have put in this phone.
The Mate 40 Pro brings the same 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm (wide), 1/1.28", 1.22µm, omnidirectional PDAF with Laser AutoFocus main camera as the P40 Pro for incredibly detailed pictures and it also manages to capture a lot of light in dark scenes.
The Mate 40 Pro also has the same 12 MP, f/3.4, 125mm , PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom Periscope Scope camera as the P40 Pro, this gives you great magnification in places where you may find that you cannot get any closer to your subject and have to zoom. The zoom retains great detail.
The rest of the setup is slightly different from P40 Pro.
The Mate 40 Pro has a new 20 MP, f/1.8, 18mm, PDAF ultra wide camera which takes a slight step back from the Quad Bayer unit in the P40 Pro to a conventional Bayer RGB filter array.
The Front camera setup features a 13 MP, f/2.4, 18mm ultrawide fixed focus unit. Once again this is a step back from the P40 Pro which featured a 30MP Quad Bayer with Autofocus.
What we always need to keep in mind with Mate series is that it is aimed more towards a Content Consumption audience that spends more time watching videos, social media and reading, hence the screen got larger (taller and wider), while the P series is focused on Photography and is more centered around Content Creation and therefore on a P series Huawei will go far with every single camera unit ensuring it gets the very best for every function. I personally fall in the former category and have always favoured Mate series due to their more “all round nature”.
Enough with the talk let’s get to the pictures, as I said, I am more of a content consumer, so I am not the best photographer out there but I found that the Mate 40 Pro was a great performer.
Some pics taken with the Mate 40 Pro...
To be continued in the next post...
I have had the Huawei Mate 40 Pro for about week now and absolutely enjoying this incredibly capable flagship smartphone.
Design
Huawei have continued to use the Waterfall Display and in the Mate 40 Pro the screen is so steeply curved the Volume and Power buttons are almost facing the rear of the phone, this leads to quite a solid feel and expensive look thanks to the aluminum frame. I was quite hesitant about this design but thanks to there being a case included with the phone I was able to use the phone with very little mistouches.
My favourite part of the design is the “wider stance” Huawei tend to give their Mate series phones. In a world where more and more phone manufacturers are making their phones Taller and Narrower, Huawei has made the Mate 40 Pro wider, in fact this phone is wider than its P series sibling the P40 Pro and I am very happy with that, the screen feels better to type on and the phone sits very nicely in hand. The Mate 40 Pros more squared off design also makes it a lot easier to grip than the P40 Pro which is great if you spend a lot of time reading articles, eBooks or browsing social media on your phone.
The Mate 40 Pro is made of a Aluminum frame sandwiched between the front and rear are glass. The rear glass is the most interesting as it has a matte glass finish. The one I have is the Mystic colour and it shifts colours depending on lighting around you, it is absolutely stunning. The P40 Pro I have is silver frost and it has a similar effect to the Mystic of the Mate 40 Pro so you will see some colour shift in some of the pictures below. Another noteworthy mention is that Huawei have kept the Mate 30 Pros fantastic camera design with the circular housing
In terms of measurements this is how the Mate 40 Pro, P40 Pro, Mate 30 Pro and Mate 20 Pro compare:
Mate 40 Pro: 162.9 x 75.5 x 9.1 mm weight: 212 g
P40 Pro: 158.2 x 72.6 x 9 mm weight: 209 g
Mate 30 Pro: 162.9 x 75.5 x 9.1 mm weight: 212 g
Mate 20 Pro: 157.8 x 72.3 x 8.6 mm weight: 189 g
Mate 40 Pro vs P40 Pro

P40 Pro vs Mate 40 Pro

Mate 40 Pro vs P40 Pro

Due to the Mate 40 Pro being slightly larger and very slightly slightly heavier the weight gain is barely noticeable, in fact I thought they had made the Mate 40 Pro lighter but I guess it’s because it has more surface area to spread its weight and therefore feels a tad lighter due to this.
Display
Goodbye notch!
The Mate 40 Pro brings a slightly larger 6.76inch OLED display with a pill cutout, 90hz refresh rate that supports HDR10, it comes with a slightly larger resolution as well at 1344 x 2772, for comparison the P40 Pro has a 6.58inch screen with 90hz refresh rate at 1200 x 2640 with HDR10, Huawei have stuck to a formula that works as the Mate 40 Pro screen is bright and incredibly smooth. This is also a larger screen than what the Mate 30 Pro (the Mate 40 Pro predecessor) had and eliminates the notch for the pill cutout much like the P40 Pro.
I have been very happy with the display, it’s great even outdoors, it gets bright and is great for reading and browsing social media.
The Always On Display also has a cool feature where it uses an AOD version of your current wallpaper which keeps everything very consistent in the UI.
You will also notice the Mate 40 Pro much like previous Huaweis features an Under Screen Fingerprint reader that is incredibly fast and seems to get more and more reliable with each new phone. This works great for when you are wearing a mask and are unable to use the Facial Recognition.


Speaking of Security the Mate 40 Pro also features a Time of Flight sensor in the display cutout on the top left, this combined with the front facing camera that is in the same display cutout is used for the Facial Recognition feature and has been great to use when at home without a mask. It’s great Huawei has given us both options of Secure Facial recognition and secure fingerprint recognition which can lock and unlock the phone as well as apps that you specify.

Audio
Huawei have been innovating a lot in this area, and the Mate 40 Pro is the latest to benefit in this regard.
First let’s look back at the P30 Pro and P40 Pro bone conduction technology which vibrated their screens to produce sound in voice calls directly to your ears while on a phone call.
With the Mate 40 Pro it seems Huawei wanted to take things up a notch, not only did they want to give us Dual Speakers but they also wanted to ensure they don’t lack in earpiece volume, so they built two openings from the top speaker to make it work as a earpiece speaker when in calls as well as a second loudspeaker when you play music or go into loudspeaker mode when on a call, this means you now have a great Dual Speaker setup on the Mate 40 Pro which is missing in the P40 Pro.

Top loudspeaker speaker and earpiece (slit between screen and frame)

Bottom loudspeaker

The Mate 40 Pro will be great both for voice calls and using the loudspeaker if you are watching a quick video or listening to a voice note, it’s clear and loud.
Camera
The Mate 40 Pro is a fantastic shooter, Huawei have solidified their Camera prowess and it shows, with each flagship they get better with larger sensors and more advanced in terms of using AI to adjust correctly for scenes and they also seem to be getting to grips with their post processing. If you are the sort of person who likes to take full control and don’t believe in the fancy AI stuff then Huawei has also made this camera for you with a Pro mode gives you full control of the powerful photography hardware they have put in this phone.
The Mate 40 Pro brings the same 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm (wide), 1/1.28", 1.22µm, omnidirectional PDAF with Laser AutoFocus main camera as the P40 Pro for incredibly detailed pictures and it also manages to capture a lot of light in dark scenes.
The Mate 40 Pro also has the same 12 MP, f/3.4, 125mm , PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom Periscope Scope camera as the P40 Pro, this gives you great magnification in places where you may find that you cannot get any closer to your subject and have to zoom. The zoom retains great detail.
The rest of the setup is slightly different from P40 Pro.
The Mate 40 Pro has a new 20 MP, f/1.8, 18mm, PDAF ultra wide camera which takes a slight step back from the Quad Bayer unit in the P40 Pro to a conventional Bayer RGB filter array.

The Front camera setup features a 13 MP, f/2.4, 18mm ultrawide fixed focus unit. Once again this is a step back from the P40 Pro which featured a 30MP Quad Bayer with Autofocus.
What we always need to keep in mind with Mate series is that it is aimed more towards a Content Consumption audience that spends more time watching videos, social media and reading, hence the screen got larger (taller and wider), while the P series is focused on Photography and is more centered around Content Creation and therefore on a P series Huawei will go far with every single camera unit ensuring it gets the very best for every function. I personally fall in the former category and have always favoured Mate series due to their more “all round nature”.
Enough with the talk let’s get to the pictures, as I said, I am more of a content consumer, so I am not the best photographer out there but I found that the Mate 40 Pro was a great performer.
Some pics taken with the Mate 40 Pro...









To be continued in the next post...
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