Huawei P40 review

Wrap-up

The Huawei P40 is a good all-round flagship, compact at that, and it will be lovely to see it succeed. Unfortunately, Huawei has cut corners where it shouldn't have, and the specs left a bitter taste which is the last thing the manufacturer needs right now.

Yes, the Huawei P40 is powerful and 5G-capable. We like that the 50MP UltraVision camera has been shared across all P40 models, too. But they should have gone for feature parity when it comes to the 90Hz refresh rate too. And the selfie autofocus. And the battery charging capabilities. And the water protection. The 40MP ultrawide camera would have been a huge selling point, too.

Huawei has simply cut way too many corners, and while it still made for a good phone, it's screamingly obvious the P40 wasn't designed to compete or excel, but just to exist and maybe make its Pro siblings look good.

Alternatives

Huawei P40 is priced at €800 at launch, and while it is not a hefty price tag, it is not competitive either. Let's take a look at a couple of Huawei's own offers.

The P30 is half the P40 price and yet it will give you the same compact footprint, and pretty much the same camera experience on both ends. Its performance is a bit inferior, but its OLED screen is HDR10-certified and thanks to the Google Mobile Services integration, you can enjoy all popular streaming services and the full Play Store app catalogue.

Then there is the €200 cheaper Huawei P30 Pro. It offers complete water protection, similar camera experience but with 5x optical zoom on the back, and its OLED is HDR10 and the EMUI10 has all Google services available. It is a bigger phone, and has the previous Kirin 980 chip, but today it seems like an even better offer than at the time of its premiere.

Or, if you don't care that much about the compact size and have an extra €200 to spare, then you should go for the P40 Pro, which is like an uncut version of the P40. Literally. Larger, higher-res and higher refresh rate OLED, better snappers on both ends and longer-range zoom, much broader charging skills, and proper ingress protection. It's worth the extra cash, if want our opinion.

Huawei P30 • Huawei P30 Pro • Huawei P40 Pro

Let's look outside Huawei, too. For starters - there is the recently released Realme X50 Pro with a top of the line Snapdragon 865 chip and a 6.44" OLED screen with 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10+. There is GMS integration in the new Realme UI too. The main quad-camera isn't of similar greatness as the P40's being a more mainstream setup with wide/ultrawide/2x tele/depth, but it makes up for that with excellent image and video quality. The Realme X50 Pro will at least €150 cheaper than the P40 in Europe, so there is that, too.

The IP68-rated Samsung Galaxy S20 is as compact and lightweight as the P40 but offers better OLED with higher resolution and higher refresh rate. Its Exynos/Snapdragon chip is faster, too, the battery can do wireless charging, and we can argue its triple camera might be better in terms of quality. The S20 costs the same as the P40, but offers a lot more, and let's face it - it's quite an easy sell in comparison.

We can also make a case for the €1000 iPhone 11 Pro. It's another compact flagship of a completely different ecosystem, but it does offer a lot of extra features on top of the P40 - including screen, performance, and camera skills, especially when it comes to video capturing.

Realme X50 Pro 5G • Samsung Galaxy S20 • Apple iPhone 11 Pro

The Verdict

At the very end of this review we are somewhat conflicted. The P40 is a great smartphone, but as we went along its tiny imperfections piled up until they became one too many. And at the end of the day - €800 is a price too high to pay for this phone.

We don't think that Huawei did right by cutting so many features from its non-Pro flagships especially in times where the Google situation puts them at a disadvantage in the western markets. So until the P40 gets a solid price cut, we don't think it deserves our recommendation.

Pros

• Good-looking and compact body; splash resistant.
• Great OLED screen.
• Flagship-grade sustained performance.
• Dependable battery life, fast charging.
• Excellent photo quality day and night across all cameras.
• Good selfies, great selfie video recording skills.
• Brilliant 1080p video quality across the board, excellent stabilization.
• All-round connectivity, though no 3.5mm jack

Cons

• It's expensive and lacks too many feature the Pro model gets.
• Only takes NanoMemory cards for memory expansion.
• No wireless charging
• No Google Mobile Services means some apps and games will never work no matter what.
• The photo Night Mode is not a big leap forward.
• 4K videos are underwhelming.