Content

1. Contents of delivery
2. TECH SPECS
3. Positioning
4. Appearance
5. Display
6. Working hours
7. Communication capabilities
8. Камеры
9. Memory, processor and performance
10. Software
11. Musical possibilities
12. Impressions

Contents of delivery

• Smartphone
• Network adapter
• USB cable
• Garnish
• Instructions
• Warranty Card

TECH SPECS
Dimensions and weight	148 x 71 x 8.5 mm, 175 grams
Body materials	Metal frame, glass
Display	6.1 inches, 2340 x 1080 pixels, OLED, auto brightness, AlwaysOn Display, 60 Hz refresh rate
Operating system	Google Android 10, EMUI 10.1 (no Google services)
Platform	HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset, 7 nm, 8 cores (2 x Cortex-A76 x 2,86 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A x 2,09 GHz, 4 x Cortex-A55 x 1,86 GHz) GPU: Mali-G76 NPU: Big Core + Tiny Core
Memory	8/128 GB, memory cards NM up to 256 GB (slot combo)
Wireless Interfaces	Wi-Fi a / b / g / n / ac / ax, 2 × 2 MIMO,  Bluetooth 5.1 (BLE, SBC, AAC, LDAC),  NFC
Сеть	Dual SIM, nanoSIM (combo slot) 5G: N79 and N38. At the moment, in the Russian Federation, these ranges are not available to the general public for use. 4G FDD LTE: Bands 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/12/17/18/19/20/26/28/32 3G WCDMA: bands 1/2/4/5/6/8/19 2G GSM: bands 2/3/5/8
Navigation	GPS (L1 + L5 dual band) / AGPS / GLONASS / BeiDou / Galileo (E1 + E5a dual band) / QZSS (L1 + L5 dual band)
Sensors and connectors	Fingerprint scanner under the screen, USB Type-C 3.1 GEN1 Gesture sensor Gravity sensor On-screen fingerprint scanner Hall Sensor Gyroscope Compass Light sensor Proximity sensor Laser sensor Color temperature sensor
Main camera	Main: camera with three modules – 50 MP SuperSensing 1 / 1.28 inches, RYYB, phase detection autofocus, f / 1.9, 27 mm  – 16MP ultra-wide, 17mm f / 2.2, 2.5cm macro – 8 MP telephoto lens, f / 2.4, 80mm (3x zoom), optical stabilization
Front-camera	32 MP (f / 2.0), angle 26 mm, bokeh effect, various additional effects, IR illumination
Battery	Li-Ion 3800 mAh Fast charging 22,5W included
Degree of protection	IP53
Colours	Silver and Black
Sound	Speaker under the screen
Sales start price	49 990 rubles

Positioning

We have already published two materials on the topic of new devices from Huawei, you can find them below:

Here we will focus exclusively on the younger model Huawei P40. I deliberately did not call it a semi-flagship, a non-flagship, a junior version of the flagship, and so on. Because the P40 has almost no connection with the P40 Pro – Huawei’s true flagship product.

Why do I think so? But because the P40 device was deprived of:

1. Same screen size as P40 Pro
2. 90 Hz refresh rate
3. Frameless
4. 128GB additional internal storage
5. Degrees of protection IP68
6. Same battery capacity as P40 Pro
7. Depth of field sensor
8. Telephoto lens at 5x zoom
9. 40MP cinema lens
10. Capabilities shooting at 7680 fps
11. Shooting video with a wide-angle lens in 4K 60 fps
12. 40W fast charging
13. Wireless charging
14. Reverse wireless charging

That is, we get a certain product that inherited only the processor and one of the cameras from the P40 Pro. Even the case of the P40 is glass, glossy, while the P40 Pro has a glass, satin finish, on which traces are almost invisible. “Listen, it’s a shame, I swear, it’s a shame, well …”.

The cost of the P40 is 50 rubles, and the P000 Pro is 40 rubles.

The Huawei P40 has been in my hands for a long time, so in this article I will tell you about all the little things of this model, many of which make me wonder.

Appearance

I won’t tell you anything new and interesting about the design of the device: a typical 2020 phone with a large “hump” on the back surface. Almost the entire line of smartphones from Samsung and Honor now looks similar, as well as some devices from other brands. That is, the trend this year is glass-metal devices with a rectangular knob for placing camera lenses.

The P40 case measures 148 x 71 x 8.5 mm. In theory, it can be called compact, since now there are almost no smartphones with a screen diagonal of less than 6 inches. And almost 148 mm long and 8.5 mm thick – this is a large phone.

If before the P40 you used, for example, the P30 Pro, then the former will seem to you quite convenient to use. However, if you had a P30, then the P40 will seem too heavy, thick and long.

I have had experience with both the P30 and P30 Pro. I have never seen anything better than the P30: really compact, lightweight, with excellent cameras, display, operating speed, and the presence of GMS. But this is a slightly different story.

The P40 is smooth on all sides, sloping corners. If you have chosen to work with gestures, then using them will be comfortable, since the edges of the screen smoothly transition to the edges.

The body is glass, available in two colors – silver and black. True, I somehow ended up with blue. As far as I understand, the P40 has a non-matte finish, at least in my sample – glossy, but not slippery.

And here an unpleasant moment awaits you: the surface very quickly becomes covered with fingerprints, and after a while a dried layer forms on it. And this is a little strange for a product for 50 rubles.

Another nuance is related to the vibration of the device. Firstly, there is nothing like the Taptic Engine here, that is, everything is like ordinary smartphones. Secondly, if the P40 is lying with its back down, then it rattles on the table – God forbid! If it works at night, it will wake up the sleeping people even in the next room. And all because the body of the phone touches a flat surface at two points: the bottom of the body and the bottom of the module with cameras. Probably, this fact will not bother anyone, but this vibration behavior, to put it mildly, upset me.

Unfortunately, the Huawei P40 hasn’t received IP68 protection like its big brother Huawei P40 Pro. This is bad. For example, the P30 Pro has protection against water and moisture. It was necessary at least to maintain continuity in something.

At the bottom of the Huawei P40, you will find a combined slot for a SIM card and an NM memory card. At the moment, I have not found such cards on sale in large retail chains. Next to the slot is a microphone, USB-C, speakerphone.

On the top there is a noise canceling microphone. There are no elements on the left side of the case.

On the right is the power button and volume rocker. Well, very tight. After Huawei P30 / P30 Pro it is noticeable.

On the front, the designers have placed a selfie camera, IR illumination to unlock the screen even in the dark. This bundle works poorly: if during the day it works in 8 cases out of 10, then with insufficient lighting – in 3-5 cases out of 10. That is, there is clearly a problem of recognition. I did not see this in the Mate 20 Pro. How it works in the P40 Pro, I can’t say, because I haven’t used it.

You can also unlock Huawei P40 using the fingerprint scanner under the screen. Recognition is correct, but the speed is depressing – it’s still slower than the usual fingerprint sensors on the back of the case or in the power button, like the Huawei nova 5T.

The speaker was placed under the screen somewhere in the upper frontal area. Why such a strange decision? I don’t know, probably we couldn’t fit the camera, IR illumination, and speaker at the same time. The sound is about the same as that of the Huawei P30 Pro. Only quieter. The statistics are as follows: in 8 out of 10 calls I received, it was hard to hear. The question is not in intelligibility, but in the volume and perception of the voice, because the speaker is located inside and the sound passes through the body. Imagine that you are talking to a person through a glass door: it seems to be legible, but something is wrong.

Display

You can see the complete list of data in the table below:

Display

6.1 inches, 2340 x 1080 pixels, OLED, auto brightness, AlwaysOn Display, 60 Hz refresh rate

The first thing that surprised me was the lack of support for refreshing the screen frequency of 90 Hz. Why is it on the P40 Pro but not on the P40?

Let me explain why I attach such importance to the refresh rate. The thing is that phones in the middle price category now hardly differ from phones in the high one. One of the main advantages of flagships is 90 Hz or 120 Hz. At these values, the smoothness of the interface increases before our eyes. Therefore, the device for 50 rubles simply must have a 000 Hz display.

Is there a difference between 90Hz and 120Hz? I don’t notice her. But 60 Hz and 90 Hz are heaven and earth.

The screen brightness of the Huawei P40 is approximately 650 cd / m2. This is quite enough for comfortable reading of information in sunlight. At the corners, the matrix slightly fades into a greenish tint.

There is an important parameter in the settings – flicker reduction, that is, partial elimination of PWM.

Test data with disabled value:

• at 20% brightness, the ripple ratio is 80%
• at 30% brightness, the CP is 13%
• at 50% brightness, the CP is 10%
• at 100% brightness, the CP is 8.5%

Test data with value included:

• at 20% brightness, the ripple ratio is 18%
• at 30% brightness, the CP is 12%
• at 50% brightness, the CP is 9.5%
• at 100% brightness, the CP is 8.1%

It can be concluded that the elimination of the KP starts to work only when the brightness of the matrix backlight is from 0 to 20%. That is, even with the flicker suppression technology turned off, at a brightness of 20% or more, the ripple coefficient will be within normal limits. Well, what can I say, Huawei is great in this regard!

The model supports “Persistent display” – this is when notifications and a clock with a date are displayed on the lock screen. The new firmware version now has the ability to download a large number of styles (there are free and paid ones).

There is a similar solution in Xiaomi devices. There, this function is implemented more thoughtfully: the animation is smooth and changes every time the phone is locked.

Total: a regular OLED screen with almost no PWM.

Working hours

In this smartphone model, the developers have installed a 3800 mAh battery. Frankly speaking, it is not enough by modern standards. Considering the thickness of the case at 8.5 mm, it was possible to build in a 4000 – 4300 mAh battery.

In my mode, the Huawei P40 smartphone produced 5.5 – 6 hours of screen glow at automatic brightness. I received this data in self-isolation mode, that is, in ideal conditions for a phone, when almost all the time the smartphone “hangs” on Wi-Fi, and the quality of the network signal is almost always perfect. We can assume that when entering the “world” the gadget will show 4.5 – 5 hours of the screen.

In general, this operating time was enough for me, since I always had a 22.5 W AC adapter at hand, which fed the battery in about 1.5 hours.

And here again an unpleasant nuance awaits us: the P40 Pro model received not only a more powerful power adapter (40 W), but also wireless charging with reversible.

Communication capabilities

For ease of perception, I summarized all the necessary data in a table:

Wireless Interfaces	Wi-Fi a / b / g / n / ac / ax, 2 × 2 MIMO,  Bluetooth 5.1 (BLE, SBC, AAC, LDAC),  NFC
Сеть	Dual SIM, nanoSIM (combo slot) 5G: N79 and N38. At the moment, in the Russian Federation, these ranges are not available to the general public for use. 4G FDD LTE: Bands 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/12/17/18/19/20/26/28/32 3G WCDMA: bands 1/2/4/5/6/8/19 2G GSM: bands 2/3/5/8
Navigation	GPS (L1 + L5 dual band) / AGPS / GLONASS / BeiDou / Galileo (E1 + E5a dual band) / QZSS (L1 + L5 dual band)

There are no complaints about the quality of cellular signal reception. NFC payments now work with the Wallet program. The filling of the Troika passes functions without question.

Note: aptX / aptX HD audio codecs are missing.

Камеры

Efficiently working tables with data again:

Main camera	Main: camera with three modules – 50 MP SuperSensing 1 / 1.28 inches, RYYB, phase detection autofocus, f / 1.9, 27 mm  – 16MP ultra-wide, 17mm f / 2.2, 2.5cm macro – 8 MP telephoto lens, f / 2.4, 80mm (3x zoom), optical stabilization
Front-camera	32 MP (f / 2.0), angle 26 mm, bokeh effect, various additional effects, IR illumination

For those who want to understand the P40 and P40 Pro cameras.

So, like this:

• the P40 Pro has a 12MP telephoto lens with 5x magnification, while the P40 has 8MP and 3x magnification;
• the P40 Pro has a 40MP cinema lens, while the P40 has the usual 16MP module instead;
• The P40 Pro has a depth-of-field sensor, but the P40 does not.

This is basic, but there are still little things: for example, the P40 Pro can write 4K 60 fps on the “shirik”, and the P40 – 4K only at 30 fps. What the P40 Pro and P40 have in common is the 50MP main module.

Unfortunately, in self-isolation, in which I have been with my whole family for 4 weeks now, you can’t really test the cameras. Nevertheless, I can confidently say that the image quality is very good: this is the level of the Mate 30 Pro or P30 Pro.

Now we have come to a point where the line between the quality of cameras on different smartphones is slowly blurring. That is, the device for the conditional 30 rubles will shoot in about the same way as the device for 000 rubles. The difference can be seen only when comparing two frames with 70x magnification of each of the images. And then, everything will come down to different noise suppression algorithms, the work of determining the white balance, and so on.

Noteworthy: the wide-angle lens can take macro photos at a distance of about 25 mm. And 3x zoom gives about the same result! You can also take a picture of an object in RAW 50 MP and crop it at 100%. The quality of all three images will be the same plus or minus.

It is also worth noting that optical stabilization is present only on the telephoto lens. The rest of the lenses digitally compensate for the shake.

Video Huawei P40 shoots well, but only during the day. When the lighting level is lowered, the picture is made soapy, and blurred in motion.

I have already mentioned this, but I repeat that the P40 records slow motion video at 960 fps, while the Mate 30 Pro and P40 Pro have 7680 fps in their arsenal.

The front camera of the Huawei P40 is not equipped with autofocus, but the P40 Pro has autofocus. Another disadvantage of the younger version of the flagship.

By the way, the manufacturer says that a depth-of-field sensor is installed next to the front camera. However, if you close it, the background blur will not disappear: it will work exactly the same as with an open hole. Then for what purpose is it installed there?

Total: P40 shoots photos very well, video – a little above average; I would like to have all the features of the flagship model.

Sample Photos

Memory, processor and performance

Our indispensable data plate:

Memory

8/128 GB, memory cards NM up to 256 GB (slot combo)

The speed of the RAM is almost 30 MB / s, which is a very high figure. The speed of the built-in memory is 000/826 MB / s. It seems to be nothing, but the write speed is too small.

The processor is the one that is installed in Honor 30 Pro (source honor.cn), Huawei MatePad Pro, Huawei Mate 30/30 Pro, Huawei P40 Pro – HiSilicon Kirin 990. I will not talk about it for a long time, it is clear that this is the fastest processor in Huawei / Honor phones. In the Antutu test it gains about 450 points, in the throttling test it shows an excellent result in the performance mode. Naturally, the smartphone digests all games and applications.

Software

Huawei P40 is the first device on which I did not install Google services at all.

All programs are exclusively from AppGallery and APRPure. For 3 weeks of use, I almost did not experience any discomfort. But here it is worth emphasizing that I am not the biggest fan of games (I mean pulling data from my account) and not a fan of Google applications.

And programs like Instagram, FaceBook, WhatsApp and others are easily accessible in the same APKPure: you don’t even need to rummage through the open spaces of w4bsitXNUMX-dns.com forums. And updates to APKPure come quickly enough.

In short, this time I did not suffer from the lack of GMS. The only thing I did for convenience was using Phone clone to transfer contacts from the old Huawei device from GMS to a new one with HMS.

Musical possibilities

Unfortunately, there is no stereo sound when outputting sound to the speakerphone, since one speaker is on the bottom, and the other is located under the screen. The main speaker is loud, sounds clear, loud and powerful.

Since I have been using exclusively TWS headphones for the past couple of years, I did not even notice that the Huawei P40 lacks 3.5 mm. If earlier I actively “stoked” for “mini-jack”, now I really don’t see much sense in it. Modern TWS earbuds work for 5-10 hours, there is no delay, active noise cancellation works (Honor Magic Earbuds is generally a freaky thing). As a last resort, you can purchase a USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter.

There is no radio in this phone either. Frankly, I don’t even really understand why it is needed now: a sea of ​​streaming services, many online radio applications, decent gigabyte packages in every tariff plan.

Impressions

The P40 smartphone is an extremely controversial Huawei product, as its positioning is very blurred: it is no longer such a compact device as the Huawei P30, but it is not at all Huawei P40 Pro, and not even the P30 Pro.

First, let’s figure out the pros:

• Flat screen. Manufacturers, hear me: stop making smartphones with curved displays – they are inconvenient to use! In Huawei P40 it is flat – a big plus
• Almost complete absence of PWM
• Maximum performance on all fronts: processor, memory …
• Camera quality

Well, now the cons:

• No Google services
• No stereo speakers
• No 3.5mm
• No IP68 protection
• No wireless charging
• No reversible charging
• No 4K 60fps support for wide angle camera
• No 90 Hz refresh rate
• No aptX / aptX HD codecs
• Inconvenient cutout for the front camera and IR illumination
• Poor face recognition performance
• Average response speed of the finger scanner under the screen
• Quiet speech speaker
• Difficult to find NM memory cards

What to do in this case? It seems to me that if you need a compact smartphone, then running after Huawei P30 is the coolest and most convenient device. It costs about 30 rubles. Alternatively – Samsung Galaxy S000e. It costs around 10 rubles.

Do you want something better – Huawei P30 Pro: here you have a fast processor, excellent quality of the screen matrix, and GMS. You can buy from 40 rubles. Minus – curved display.

Another good option is the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro for 40 rubles. Minus – curved screen.

For Apple lovers, there is the iPhone XR, which can now be taken for 42 – 000 rubles.

In general, for 50 rubles (this is how much they ask for Huawei P000) it is possible to buy a lot of interesting devices.

I’m waiting for you in the comments: how do you see a compact flagship smartphone?

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