Huawei P40 Pro Plus review - True innovation in a stunted ecosystem - Android
Huawei’s P series devices have always been best in class. They’ve offered stellar performance and battery life, and, most notably, they’ve had some of the most innovative camera systems on the market. The Huawei P40 Pro Plus is no different.
Generally, the P series gets two models: a standard and a pro. While the standard model brings new features like a new Kirin SoC or new design, it’s the pro models that bring the wow factor. For example, last year’s Huawei P30 Pro introduced the first 5x optical telephoto camera with an innovative prism mechanism. Combined with fantastic performance, wonderful battery life, and wildly good low-light imaging, the P30 Pro was a huge hit.
But this year, Huawei took a page from Samsung’s playbook and opted to introduce standard, premium, and ultra premium models. The Huawei P40 Pro Plus has an almost identical design and feature set to the P40 Pro, but brought something we’ve never seen before in a phone: 10x optical zoom.
But for a full 400 euros more than the P40 Pro and no access to Google Play services, is this feature worth the cost of entry? This is Android Authority’s Huawei P40 Pro Plus review.
The Huawei P40 Pro Plus has a nearly identical design to the Huawei P40 Pro, which is to say it’s gorgeous. The display is curved on the left, right, and bottom of the device, but the aluminum frame flows over the corners of the phone to protect it from drops. Huawei says it designed the display to mimic water at the breaking point of surface tension, and I think it looks beautiful.
Curving the display on the bottom of the phone was an interesting choice, but it actually makes a lot of sense for modern smartphones. Because gesture navigation has become the default navigation method in Android 10, a curved display makes it easier to swipe up from the bottom to go home and open the app switcher. I think it’s a great design.
This display was made for modern interface design.
The device is certainly a bit thicker than some other flagships, such as the OnePlus 8 Pro, but it feels weighty and premium, not unwieldy. The ceramic back also curves, so while there is decent grip with the flat, thicker rails, the phone still feels relatively thin.
The power button and volume rockers are mounted to the aluminum rails on the right of the phone. They jut out a bit more than the buttons on most smartphones, but I really liked the tactile feeling. They are nice and clicky. On the bottom you’ll find a USB-C port, SIM card tray, and speakers, and on the top you’ll find an IR blaster — something I’m glad Huawei has kept around — but no headphone jack.
The P40 Pro Plus’ display is a 90Hz OLED at an FHD+ resolution of 2,640 x 1,200, and it looks quite good. While it’s not quite up to the new 2020 standard of 120Hz, I didn’t mind the 90Hz refresh rate. There’s a punch-hole selfie camera in the top left corner of the display.
An optical in-display fingerprint reader is hidden under the display. It was fast and accurate during my time with the device. Considering the phone offers face unlock with an IR camera, though, the fingerprint reader may go unused.
As you would expect from the company’s new top phone, the specs on the Huawei P40 Pro Plus are stacked. While it doesn’t have the most RAM, and its battery capacity doesn’t quite match devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, LG V60 or Asus ROG Phone 2, specs like the 512GB of storage, 40W wired and wireless charging and reverse wireless charging will raise some eyebrows.
Ultimately, a smartphone doesn’t need 12GB of RAM to run smoothly. 8GB was more than enough for the P40 Pro Plus, and Huawei is already quite aggressive with its RAM management. In our analysis we found that 6GB is around the amount of RAM you’ll want for an Android phone to run smoothly, with 8GB being the sweet spot. This hits that metric.
The 7nm Kirin 990 SoC performed very well, and it is currently Huawei’s flagship chip. It has similar performance to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855. The P40 Pro Plus has the 5G version of the 990, which supports sub-6GHz bands.
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