A month with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro

Camera

We don't know why the Mate 40 Pro's main rear camera doesn't have optical image stabilization (OIS), but we are baffled by this decision, given how expensive the phone is and the fact that literally all of its similarly priced competitors do feature OIS on the main snapper. As you'll see from our samples below, the software is good enough to make ends meet even so, as the handset produces very good images in all lighting conditions. But maybe they would've been even better, especially in low light, had OIS been added?

That aside, as you'll see the Mate 40 Pro is a very good performer all-round. The camera app is intuitive and easy to use, and incredibly similar to what has been shipping on Huawei phones since EMUI 10. It also looks pretty much like every other camera app nowadays, as the various phone makers have seemingly all arrived at the same general design. We hope this has to do with the fact that this arrangement is the best for usability, and it's not just that it's the lazy route to go 'emulating' what everybody else is doing.

Throughout our time with the Mate 40 Pro, we had zero issues with the camera freezing or crashing on us, and starting it up is fast all the time.

Now let's see what it's capable of. Daylight shots come out of the main camera looking great, with extended dynamic range as well as rich and punchy colors. Textures are all there, as is a lot of fine detail. There's also very little noise. We shot these with Master AI turned off, but you can use that if you want specific things to get a saturation boost - we're talking skies and foliage, primarily. It can sometimes go overboard, though, which is why we left it off. We avoided shooting at the full 50 MP resolution of the sensor, as these pixel binning parts aren't supposed to be used like that and generally produce the best possible results when binned.

Daytime samples from the main camera

Huawei's ultrawides have recently acquired a reputation for being the least ultrawide out there, and this one is no exception, at 18mm. Quality-wise, however, it's exceptional. This is easily one of the best, if not the best ultrawide cameras on any smartphone ever. You get great levels of detail, almost no noise, and good sharpness throughout that tapers off slightly only towards the corners. Dynamic range is excellent too, while colors are vivid and ever so slightly different than the main cam's colors - this created a weird situation for us where we unexpectedly liked the ultrawide's look during the daytime more than the main snapper's.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

The telephoto periscope is no slouch either, its pictures being detailed and practically noise-free too. Dynamic range is great, colors are punchy but warm, and overall it really seems like during the day you aren't necessarily giving anything up in terms of quality if you choose to use this snapper instead of the main one.

Daytime 5x zoom samples

Onto low light samples now. For some phones, especially Xiaomi's, in our long-term reviews we have usually recommended the use of Night Mode as much as possible, because it seems to improve things (especially highlights) without any major downsides. Well, in the Mate 40 Pro's case, the situation is reversed.

The Auto mode is so good at night that there's almost no reason for you to ever use Night Mode. It feels weird writing this, but seriously - the normal Auto shots at night are incredibly good, with excellent dynamic range, well developed shadows, nicely (but not overly) saturated colors, and a decent handling of street lights. There are copious amounts of detail too, and while noise does sometimes creep in, in general you'll have a hard time noticing it at all.

Nighttime samples from the main camera, Auto mode

Compared to the Auto mode, Night Mode is somewhat disappointing. As all Night Modes, it takes more time to capture shots in this way, and its only redeeming feature is that you get a very minor improvement in highlights. That's it, though, and we don't think it's worth the time-to-shot tradeoff in 99% of cases.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

At night the ultrawide camera understandably isn't as good as during daytime, but it's still among the best ones out there, with brighter exposures than most competitors, decent shadow development, wide dynamic range, and pleasing colors. There is a quality penalty at night moving from the main camera to this one, but it's much less than in competing smartphones.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide, Auto mode

Night mode shots on the ultrawide aren't very impressive, dropping fine detail and not doing much to improve other things either. While for the ultrawide the use of Night Mode may be desirable more than for the main camera, we'd still generally just go with the default Photo mode, its results are plenty good enough in most scenarios.

Night Mode samples from the ultrawide

The telephoto periscope does reasonably well at night, but you will need to have at least some light around for it to be able to work decently. If it does have enough of that, it will churn out sharp and detailed results, with very low noise, nice colors, and good dynamic range. The lower the ambient light levels, the more noise, unsurprisingly. When it gets very dark the phone will switch to cropping from the main sensor, however.

Nighttime 5x zoom samples

Selfies come with three zoom levels, let's call them close, wide, and ultrawide. The latter is best left for group selfies, and the choice between the former two is down to how much of your background you want visible, or put another way - how much of the frame you want your face to occupy. All of this could sound gimmicky, but actually the Mate 40 Pro's selfie camera is one of the most versatile around, giving you a lot of framing flexibility. The selfies themselves come out with pleasing colors, warm skin tones, great dynamic range, and excellent detail levels.

Selfie samples, day and night

At night the quality goes down, understandably, and you'll have to hunt for a spot with at least some lighting around, in which case you can probably snap some usable shots, at least for social media and the likes. Obviously if you're going to capture selfies at night, you should remember to not do it in pitch darkness.