Huawei is on track to launch its flagship Huawei P40 smartphone series. The Chinese firm is clearly undeterred even though it is still barred from using Google services on its phones.
In fact, the US ban has pushed Huawei to strengthen its base in China, where its smartphone business is now doing better than ever. Huawei is investing a billion dollars into its own suite of mobile services rivalling Google's offerings. A big chunk of that investment is also going into creating a viable library of apps to counter the Play Store.
Related: Huawei rotating chairman says survival is 'first priority' in 2020
With all this in the works, it'll be interesting to see how Huawei ups its game with the new P40 lineup.
Last year, the Huawei P30 series brought excellent cameras and great specs in a well-designed package. Can Huawei strike all the right chords once again with the Huawei P40, P40 Pro, and P40 Pro Premium Edition? Here's what we've heard so far.
Huawei P40 series: Name and launch date
- Huawei P40
- Huawei P40 Pro Premium Edition
Huawei has already confirmed that it'll announce the Huawei P40 series in March. The launch event will be held in Paris, but the company hasn't confirmed any official date for the same.
According to recent leaks, there could be three new flagships in the P40 series — the Huawei P40, Huawei P40 Pro, and Huawei P40 Pro Premium Edition.
Currently, only the P40 moniker is confirmed. Going by the names of last year's flagships, it's believed that at least two phones in the series will be called the P40 and P40 Pro. The name of the third premium version is still unconfirmed.
One of the major differences between the three rumored Huawei P40 flagships is their camera setup. The Huawei P40 is expected to come with triple rear cameras. Meanwhile, the P40 Pro and P40 Pro Premium Edition are said to come with quad and penta camera arrays, respectively. We'll talk more about them in the camera section below.
Let's first take a look at the design of the new phones.
Huawei P40 series design
Leaked renders show that the Huawei P40 features a flat punch-hole display. There's a pill-shaped cutout on the top left corner of the screen housing two selfie shooters.
The P40 Pro reportedly features a curved display instead of a flat one. If there is indeed a third premium variant of the phone, we would expect it to get a curved display as well.
Besides the look of the display and the number of cameras, the P40 and P40 Pro look almost identical in renders. Unfortunately, we haven't yet seen renders for the rumored premium version of P40 Pro.
A recent report claimed the P40 and P40 Pro are expected to launch in five gradient colorways: Black, Blush Gold, Silver Frost, Deep Sea Blue, and Ice White. However, tipster Evan Blass tweeted out an image of a sixth new color for the P40 Pro which can only be described as Mint Green. Although, that is not the official name of the colorway. You can see it in the image below.
Notably, none of the renders we've seen so far show a 3.5mm jack on both the P40 and P40 Pro. Instead, both phones are seen sporting a USB-C port. We expected the Pro variant to skip the headphone jack, but the vanilla Huawei P30 featured the much-loved port last year. It seems that Huawei is fully abandoning it going forward.
Cameras
The cameras on P40 phones are expected to be their highlight. A tipster gave us a glimpse at what these camera setups would look like. Check out the images in the embedded tweet below.
Comparison
P40, P40Pro and P40ProPE #HuaweiP40Pro #HuaweiP40 pic.twitter.com/72EccMfk98— Teme (特米) (@RODENT950) January 17, 2020
As you can see, there are three rear shooters on the regular P40, while the pro and premium variants get four and five rear sensors, respectively. These images are obviously unconfirmed right now, but are in line with leaked renders of the phones.
Up close, the camera system on all the alleged P40 variants show Leica-branded lenses.
The Huawei P40's triple rear cameras are rumored to include a primary sensor, an ultra-wide sensor, and a ToF sensor. There's no word on the configuration of the three lenses.
The P40 Pro could add an 8MP telephoto sensor to the mix to complete its rumored quad camera setup.
We've heard that the both the P40 Pro and the P40 Pro Premium Edition will facilitate 10x optical zoom. However, it looks like Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra might beat them to the punch.
There's also talk of the Huawei P40 Pro being equipped with a 52MP custom Sony sensor. The camera is said to apply two 4-in-1 Quad Bayer conversions to achieve a 16-in-1 pixel-binned shot.
We're hoping to get more concrete details on the camera setup of the P40 series closer to the launch date.
Other hardware specifications
Huawei makes its own chipsets, so the company will most likely use the latest flagship Kirin processor on the P40 series.
The phones can be expected to run on the Kirin 990 5G chipset, which is Huawei's first SoC with an integrated 5G modem. It's also 4G/5G multi-mode compliant, meaning that the P40 series would support both 4G and 5G networks. The chipset was previously featured on the Huawei Mate 30 and Honor View 30 series.
If you're wondering why the P40 series will feature a 2019 chipset, it's probably because the rumored Kirin 1000 chipset is said to debut on the Mate 40 series slated for later this year.
Related: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 vs Kirin 990 vs Exynos 990: How do they compare?
Beyond the chipset, the P40 Pro is tipped to come with a 5,500mAh battery and 50W fast charging. There's no word yet on the battery and charging capacity of the other two rumored phones in the series.
In terms of display, the Huawei P40 could get a flat 6.1-inch or 6.2-inch panel. The P40 Pro is expected to feature a 6.5-inch to 6.7-inch waterfall OLED Quad HD+ display. Rumor has it that the phones would sport a 120Hz display refresh rate, just like the upcoming OnePlus 8, Galaxy S20, and Poco X2 phones.
Software
We're expecting the Huawei P40 series to debut with Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). There won't be any Google apps such as Gmail, Maps, Google Play Store, etc. available on the phones as the US ban continues to be in effect.
HMS includes services like the Huawei App Gallery, Huawei Browser, and more. We also recently heard that the company has partnered with TomTom to create a Google Maps alternative for its phones.
Related: What is Harmony OS? Huawei's Android rival explained
Hopefully, Huawei will have something to boast about given its sizeable investments into growing HMS. However, we still think it has a long way to go when it comes to a true blue alternative to Google's suite of services.
Huawei P40 series price and availability
The Huawei P30 Pro was priced at €1,000 (~$1,100) when it launched and the P30 costed €800 (~$880) when it was first released. The P40 series is expected to be cheaper in comparison.
Rumor has it that the P40 will be priced around €600 (~$660). So if we go by the €200 (~$220) price difference from last year, the P40 Pro could cost €800 (~$880), while the premium variant could come in close to €1,000 (~$1,100).
Huawei is probably lowering prices for the new flagships due to the lack of Google services on its phones. A cheaper price tag could bolster sales for the spec-heavy flagships, negating the lack of Google apps. However, we can't be sure of these leaked prices so we'll have to wait some more before other trusted sources corroborate this leak.
Now that you know what to expect from the upcoming Huawei P40 series, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Head to the comments section below to tell us what you think.
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