OnePlus 8 Pro vs Huawei P40 Pro - The best of China - Android

OnePlus and Huawei are two of China's most influential smartphone brands. Here's which has the best 2020 flagship so far.

2020 is a year of important smartphone releases, none more so than the OnePlus 8 Pro and the Huawei P40 Pro. For OnePlus, the company is making a valiant push into the flagship tier, with a higher price tag to match. For Huawei, the P40 Pro represents its second global flagship launch without Google services and the first since its status as one of the world’s largest manufacturers has started to be questioned.

The Huawei P40 Pro and OnePlus 8 Pro are priced around the $999 mark, although Huawei’s offering can set you back up to £200 more in the UK. Despite its price increase, the OnePlus 8 Pro is still a competitive deal. Either way, we’re after a full suite of high-end features and a top-notch camera experience to justify the price.

Which phone offers the best flagship experience? Find out in our OnePlus 8 Pro vs Huawei P40 Pro face-off!

OnePlus 8 Pro vs Huawei P40 Pro: Specs at a glance

	OnePlus 8 Pro	Huawei P40 Pro
Display	6.78-inch AMOLED 3,168 x 1,440 (19.8:9) 120Hz refresh rate In-display fingerprint sensor 3D Corning Gorilla Glass	6.58-inch OLED 2,640 x 1,200 (19.8:9) 90Hz refresh rate In-display fingerprint sensor
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	HiSilicon Kirin 990
RAM	8GB / 12GB LPDDR5	8GB LPDDR4X
Storage	128GB / 256GB UFS 3.0	128GB / 256GB / 512GB UFS 3.0
Cameras	Rear: 48MP, f/1.78, 1.12µm, OIS, EIS 8MP 3x telephoto, f/2.44, 1.0µm, OIS 48MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 119.7° 5MP color filter, f/2.4 Front: 16MP, f/2.45, 1.0µm, EIS, fixed focus	Rear: 50MP (RYYB), f/1.9, OIS 40MP f/1.8 ultra-wide 12MP f/3.4 5x periscope 3D ToF depth sensor Front: 32MP IR sensor
Battery	4,510mAh Warp Charge 30T (5V/6A) Warp Charge 30 Wireless	4,200mAh 40W SuperCharge 27W SuperCharge Wireless
IP Rating	IP68	IP68
Software	Oxygen OS Android 10	EMUI 10.1 Android 10
Dimensions and weight	165.3 x 74.35 x 8.5mm 199g	158.2 x 72.6 x 9 mm 209g

Design

Let’s jump right into the design. Both are a little chunkier than your typical handset, but it’s the Huawei P40 Pro that’s the thicker and heavier of the two. The OnePlus 8 Pro is notably the taller handset, but in terms of overall bulk, the two feel quite comparable. The curved edges help keep the OnePlus 8 Pro easy to handle at the expense of the occasional ghost touch irritation. The Huawei P40 Pro’s display is similarly curved but its edges are a tad rounder. Overall, I’m not sure this gels with either design’s preference for swipe gesture navigation. They just feel a bit awkward.

Both phones have a pronounced camera bump, with the P40 Pro sporting the larger camera housing overall. This means that neither phone lies completely flat on the desk, but Huawei’s one-sided camera setup makes the phone rock more and leaves it more susceptible to sliding around. It’s a small bugbear, but worth bearing in mind if you’re not a fan of cases.

Both designs have their pros and cons.

The front of the phones also look quite different. Huawei’s display cut out is far more noticeable and distracting, but does house an additional depth sensor. Huawei’s bezels aren’t quite as thin as the advertisements make out either. The OnePlus 8 Pro features a dedicated silent toggle button above the power and positions the volume rocker on the left-hand side. The Huawei P40 Pro sticks with a more familiar right-sided power and volume rocker combo. On the bottom, the USB-C, speaker grille, and SIM tray are set up exactly the same. It’s business as usual.

Overall, both designs have their pros and cons. The Huawei P40 Pro looks a tad more the part of an expensive 2020 flagship, but it’s undeniably chunky and quite heavy for a phone. OnePlus’ latest design looks a little more 2019, but it feels pretty great to use despite its huge size.

Display

Both handsets sport high refresh rates out of the box; 90Hz for the Huawei P40 Pro and 120Hz for the OnePlus 8 Pro. Both models look silky smooth and obtain all-day battery life by scaling some apps down to 60Hz, although OnePlus targets 120Hz for most app UIs. It’s hard to tell just how aggressive this scaling is, but Huawei also tweaks resolution on the fly suggesting a more aggressive power saving profile.

OnePlus grabs an early lead in this regard by offering a higher refresh rate. The OnePlus 8 Pro display scores really well in other metrics too, providing superb color accuracy, gamma, and white balance. It’s this year’s display to beat.

Performance

General performance-wise, the OnePlus 8 Pro and its Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 come out comfortably ahead of the Huawei P40 Pro’s Kirin 990 5G. The use of newer Arm Cortex-A77 cores gives the Snapdragon 865 a slight lead on the CPU side, and LPDDR5 vs LPDDR4X helps produce a better system score.

The biggest difference between the two though is in the GPU department. Qualcomm’s Adreno 650 bests the older Arm Mali-G76 MP16 comfortably. That said, the Huawei P40 Pro’s graphics performance is competitive with last year’s Snapdragon 855 handsets. So it’s certainly not a slouch at gaming, although finding the titles you want to play is a whole other matter (more on that later).

Read more: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 vs Kirin 990 vs Exynos 990: How do they compare?

Despite the benchmark differentials, you certainly won’t encounter any problems with day-to-day apps on the Huawei P40 Pro. It’s important to keep in mind that a benchmark lead doesn’t necessarily translate to a completely different experience for most apps. However, if you want to play the most demanding Android games with the highest frame rates, the OnePlus 8 Pro and its Snapdragon 865 is the clear choice.

Camera