Huawei P40 review

Portraits and variable aperture

The portraits are shot with the primary camera of the Huawei P40 and you can choose between many different blur effects. Some depth information is captured with the tele camera, while the rest of it is purely a software guess.

The portrait photos we took turned out nice, but not great in terms of separation and blur. The P40 Pro, with the help of an additional ToF camera, produced pro-like images, while the P40 here does a good job but not nearly as perfect.

You can tell the subject recognition and separation was done mostly on software bases and not on a depth map, and then there is the artificial looking blur. Overall - okay portraits - but we expected better.

Huawei P40 12.5MP portraits

Just like with the P40 Pro, we gave the P40's variable aperture mode an orchid flower and see what happens with the separation. Because of the large sensor and wide aperture, the main camera of the P40 already produces great closeups with natural looking bokeh because of the shallow depth of field, so we doubt any will be tempted to use this dated (though still valuable) shooting mode. But still, let's see what happened.

Well, the separation is proficient, which is good, but there are little to no changes in the background and the camera relies mostly on its shallow depth of field to do the trick. Meaning the variable aperture mode is rather obsolete.

F/1.0 • F/2.4 • F/4.0 • F/7.1

Selfies

The main selfie camera on Huawei P40 has the same 32MP sensor we already met on the P30 series and it is sitting behind f/2.0 26mm lens - just like on the P30. Unlike the P40 Pro though, the P40 front snapper wasn't upgraded with autofocus skills.

The P40 also packs a IR depth cam next to the selfie shooter, but we are not sure if it will be of any help in portrait mode.

The image quality of the selfies is very good, but you have to get the distance right and the focus sweet spot is a bit closer to the face than we would have liked it. The resolved detail is average, but everything else is excellent - contrast, colors, dynamic. We suspect this is a Quad Bayer sensor - thus the reduced detail in full resolution - and for the record - we would have been plenty satisfied with 8MP snaps out of this 32MP sensor, but it is what it is.

Huawei P40 32MP selfies

Judging by the clipped ears, the IR depth camera isn't participating in the portrait selfie mode. The portrait photos are good, once again - given you get the distance right, but the separation and the blur are not that convincing. You can use various blur effects for selfies, too, so there are plenty of options to express yourself.

Huawei P40 32MP selfie portraits.

Video recording

The Huawei P40 records video up to 4K at 60fps with its main and selfie cameras. The ultrawide and telephoto shooters are capped at 30fps in both 4K and 1080p.

The P40 has 2 microphones and lacks the ability for audio zoom, but does capture stereo sound with 192kbps.

You get a choice of the h.264 and h.265 codecs and we stuck with the h.264. 4K60 footage gets a lowly bit rate around 27-28Mbps, while 4K30 is treated to a more generous, yet slightly lower than usual 39-40Mbps - that's right - the 4K30 has some 50% more bits per second than 4K60.

The 1080p videos make slightly more sense, and the numbers are in line with competitors, too - 30fps bit rate is 17Mbps and 60fps gets 30Mbps.

When shooting in 1080p resolution with the main camera, the P40 Pro bins 16 pixels (4.48µm size of the fused pixel) into one making for very sharp footage and as wide as possible field of view. Other makers just crop 1080p image from the middle of the sensor and this results into much narrower FoV in 1080p resolution.

The main camera captures very good 4K video with excellent contrast. The footage has enough detail in both 30 and 60 fps. Dynamic range is nice and wide, the colors are mostly accurate, save for a slight reddish tint visible on the 60fps clips (odd, but not really that big of a deal).

The 1080p clips (both 30 and 60fps) are simply outstanding - they exhibit excellent sharpness, colors, contrast and dynamic range.

The ultrawide camera videos are similar in quality as the ones from the primary shooter. The 4K30 footage is a bit soft, but other than that the contrast and the dynamic range are simply great.

And just like with the main 1080p clips, the ultrawide are similarly excellent and present great features across the board.

The clips from the telephoto camera are good enough. The 4Ks are very soft with average detail at best, while the 1080p are sharper but still not great. The footage is contrasty no matter the resolution and dynamic range is wide.

The Huawei P40 takes very good nighttime videos with its main camera. The exposure is even, and the highlights are well preserved. There is no visible noise, too. The footage isn't that sharp, but good, nevertheless.

The clips from the ultrawide camera lack in detail big time and are pretty dark. You shouldn't use this camera when the light isn't abundant, as you won't be happy with the clips at all.

Finally, the 4K footage from the selfie snapper is quite good, too. The clips aren't that detailed, but still up to the task. The colors and contrast are good, the dynamic range is great in 4K30 but limited in the 4K60 footage.

Huawei's AIS video stabilization, whether it's just EIS for selfies and ultrawide, or EIS+OIS for primary and tele shooters, is available at all times in all modes, including 4K60. There is no toggle to turn the AIS off, which isn't ideal, but we do appreciate the enhanced stabilization everywhere - it's still a rarity even on flagships.

The tele camera can't be used at night and 3x mode uses digital zoom over the main camera.

Here's a glimpse of how the Huawei P40 compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete comparison.

2160p: Huawei P40 against the Huawei P30 and the Galaxy S20 in our Video compare tool