Huawei has made the Mate 40 Series official & this year, we got the Huawei Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro, Mate 40 Pro+ & the PORSCHE DESIGN Mate 40 RS. The Mate 40 is the cheapest flagship under this series & is the successor of Huawei Mate 30 of last year. The main highlight of this phone is its Kirin 9000E SOC which is a slight downgrade from the Kirin 9000 that powers other Mate 40 Series flagships.
HUAWEI MATE 40 – DESIGN & SPECIFICATIONS
Speaking of the design first, this time Huawei went for a curved hole-punch display on the Mate 40 but unlike other devices under this series, there is only one selfie camera, hence a smaller circular hole-punch cutout that many might prefer over the large pill-shaped cutouts on other Mate 40 Series flagships.
There is a circular camera setup design on the back that includes LEICA branding in the middle & three cameras around it. There is no Periscope-style ZOOM lens that we see on other phones under this series.
While the display is curved on the sides, it is not as curved as on other phones. There is a 68-degree curve on the Mate 40 compared to an 88-degree curve on other Mate 40 Series phones. This is a 6.5-inch OLED panel with 90Hz refresh rate & Full-HD+ resolution. The touch-sampling-rate is 240Hz.
Under the hood, there is the Kirin 9000E SOC which, as mentioned in the beginning, is a slight downgrade from the Kirin 9000. There is a 22-core Mali-G78 GPU compared to the 24-core GPU of Kirin 9000. Also, the Neural Network Processing Unit or the NPU of Kirin 9000E features one Big Core, whereas the Kirin 9000 has a Dual Big-Core NPU. The CPU remains the same.
Huawei Mate 40 comes with 8GB RAM & 128/256GB storage.
Coming to the cameras, there is a triple camera setup on the rear that includes a primary 50 Megapixel sensor with f/1.9 aperture lens, a secondary 16 Megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8 Megapixel Telephoto lens with Optical Image Stabilization + 3X Optical Zoom. The primary 50 Megapixel sensor is the same one found on other flagships under Mate 40 Series, so it is the largest camera sensor found on any phone till date at 1/1.28″.
On the front, there is a single 13 Megapixel camera with f/2.4 aperture.
There is a 4,200mAh battery inside & the phone supports 40W Fast Charging via the Type-C port. There is no Wireless Charging support. Android 10 based EMUI 11 runs out of the box with no Google services.
HUAWEI MATE 40 – PRICING & AVAILABILITY
The Huawei Mate 40 comes in five different colors – Green, Yellow, Black, White & Silver. As far as the pricing is concerned, the Mate 40 is priced at €899 for the 8GB + 128GB variant.