Huawei Mate 40 – the launch in the shadow of restrictions

- But these are restrictions that currently apply to most, if not all launches. Much sadder is the fact that no later than yesterday we learned about the guidelines of the Swedish telecommunications authority excluding any Huawei equipment in the development of the national 5G network. There is an embargo on any US hardware or software technology in commercial transactions with a Chinese company, and this means no supply of the most basic electronic components. Under these conditions, preparing the launch of the flagships seems almost mission impossible. And yet. Huawei Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro, Mate 40 Pro+ and Huawei Mate 40 RS Porsche Design debuted today. Unfortunately, only Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ were discussed in a bit more detail during the press conference. All specifications will be in the GSMchoice.com catalogue as soon as the manufacturer makes them available. Fortunately, all prices are already known in euros.

Mate 40 Pro, Mate 40 Pro + - completely without bezels

Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ do not have side bezels. The displays are based on OLED matrices with a diagonal of 6.76 inches and work at a resolution of 1344x2772 px at a refresh rate of 90 Hz. There is a fingerprint reader at the bottom of the displays. The curvature of each display exceeds the smartphone's horizontal axis of symmetry, making the bezels invisible. There are minimal margins at the top and bottom, and on the right edge of the display - when you look straight ahead - you can see buttons (which, of course, are mounted in the housing, not the screen). The bottom edge houses a hybrid card tray and a USB-C socket. Smartphones support two SIM cards or a nano-SIM + NM-card. There is no 3.5 mm jack, but no one expected it here.

The dual camera on the front has a 13 Mpx matrix and the second one is to handle gestures, but not the usual ones: you will be able to answer a call or view content without touching the screen. Thanks to the software, the latter device recognizes the moment when the user looks at the screen and displays, for example, information "always on the screen" on the locked one; it can also mute the ringer when we pick up the smartphone to check the incoming call number.

Cameras - the second characteristic element

The rear set of Huawei Mate 40 Pro cameras is an extremely characteristic element in the housing design. The manufacturer named the solution Ultra Vision Cine Camera. The 3 cameras are placed in a large circle with the Leica logo, which also houses a double LED flash and a microphone for video recording. The main camera has a 50 Mpx matrix, and is accompanied by a wide-angle unit with a 20 Mpx sensor and a tele lens with a 12 Mpx sensor working in a periscope system (7x lossless zoom).

In Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ we also have a main camera with a 50 Mpx matrix, a wide-angle lens with a 20 Mpx matrix, a telephoto camera with an 8 Mpx matrix working in a periscope system, a second camera with a telephoto lens and a 12 Mpx matrix and a ToF sensor. The system allows you to achieve a 17x lossless zoom.

Huawei promises a new quality of wide-angle photos and videos for both the rear and pair of front cameras. The high quality of photos in poor lighting conditions, for which Huawei's flagships are known, is also to be maintained. The main matrix in both cases has a size of 1/1.28", while the size of a single pixel is 2.44 µm. Huawei Mate 40 Pro is equipped with a periscope telephoto lens that allows you to take high-quality photos with a 10x hybrid zoom and 50x zoom. Huawei Mate 40 Pro+, on the other hand, has a dual telephoto lens with which you can take a photo with a 20x hybrid zoom and 100x digital zoom.

Both models allow video recording in 4K HDR resolution at 60 frames per second. Low Light Video technology allows simultaneous recording of material in several different exposures, Steady Shot provides stabilization, and the XD Fusion HDR Engine ensures that the output material is neither too dark nor too bright in the case of large differences in lighting of the filmed objects.

Kirin 9000 - the last of the greats

The HiSilicon Kirin 9000 processor is the last of Huawei's great proprietary projects that was finalized before the company hit the American embargo. Among the 8 functional cores are the ARM Cortex-A77 and ARM Cortex-A55 units. The former are clocked at over 3 GHz, and the latter - 2 GHz. ARM Mali-G78 is responsible for the graphics.

The processor is accompanied by 8 or 12 GB of RAM. 256 GB is provided for the user, which must of course be shared with the system and applications. The 4400 mAh battery will be charged with a 66 W current or wirelessly - with 50 W.

Colours and prices

Huawei Mate 40 Pro is available in three colours: black, white and silver. On the other hand, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ in ceramic white and ceramic black.

• Huawei Mate 40 8+128 GB- €899
• Huawei Mate 40 Pro 8+256 GB - €1199
• Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ 12+256 GB - €1399
• Huawei Mate 40 RS Porsche Design 12+512 GB- €2295