Huawei unveils P40 and P40 Pro flagships with upgraded cameras and no Play Store

Huawei has announced its latest flagship handsets, the P40 series.

Like previous P-series smartphones, the P once again stands for photography, with the China-based company adding several new camera features to the smartphone.

P40 Pro

Modern. Minimal. Elegant.
With nature as inspiration, the #HUAWEIP40 Series brings a new twist to classic hues. Which colour will you choose? #VisionaryPhotography
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— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) March 26, 2020

Huawei’s P40 Pro sports a 40-megapixel camera, as well as a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 3D time-of-flight sensor and a 12-megapixel telephoto camera.

The P40 Pro also features 5x optical zoom as well as a 409,600ISO setting. Additionally, the phone includes what Huawei calls ‘AI Golden Snap,’ and its XD Fusion Engine, which eliminates reflections, gets rid of blur and Huawei says is can also remove people walking by or photobombing the scene.

While taking videos, the P40 Pro can snap ‘ultra-slow’ videos at 7,680fps. On the front, the P40 Pro sports a 32-megapixel shooter with a 3D depth-sensing selfie camera. There’s also a built-in infrared sensor that helps with lowlight focus and for 3D Face Unlock. Additionally, users will be able to take selfie videos in 4K with added the bonus of AI stabilization.

The P40 Pro also features a 6.58-inch screen with 3D glass and what the company calls an ‘overflow display,’ which is essentially a waterfall screen that includes edges that extend over the top and the bottom of the phone. Furthermore, the handset sports a 90Hz refresh rate and an in-display fingerprint scanner.

Additionally, a Kirin 990 5G processor powers the P40 Pro. It also supports eSIM technology, dual VoLTE and Wi-Fi 6. The phone is available in 256GB and 512GB storage variations and features 8GB of RAM.

Further, the P40 Pro sports a 4,200mAh battery with a graphene film and ultra-thin vapour chamber to cool the device and prevent it from overheating. Finally, the smartphone supports 40W charging that Huawei says is capable of charging from 0 to 70 percent in 30 minutes. Additionally, the P40 Pro features 27W wireless charging.

Huawei P40

In terms of specs, the P40 sports a 50-megapixel primary sensor, a 16-megapixel ultrawide and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera that offers 3x optical zoom. The front of this device features a single 32-megapixel selfie shooter.

Display-wise the P40 has a 6.1-inch OLED display with a 2640 x 1200 pixel resolution that lacks the overflow display included in the P40 Pro.

Similar to the P40 Pro, this handset features a Kirin 990 5G processor in Canada, supports eSIM technology, Dual VoLTE and a smaller 3,800mAh battery. This handset also starts at 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.

There’s also the premium P40 Pro+ smartphone with five cameras, 10x optical zoom and 40W wireless charging. Otherwise, that handset is pretty similar to Huawei’s P40 Pro.  You can learn more about that handset in this article, here.

EMUI 10.1

Huawei has unveiled EMUI 10.1 and says it’ll be coming to the P40 series. EMUI 10.1 includes features like ‘MeeTime,’ Huawei’s version of Google’s Duo chat app. Additionally, the phone supports multi-screen collaboration with laptops from a variety of different manufacturers.

EMUI 10.1 also brings features to the P40 series like three-screen support, which allows users to have three apps open at the same time. Additionally, there’s a ‘swipe to open a floating side menu gesture,’ similar to Samsung’s Edge panel.

Huawei has also added a digital assistant to EMUI 10.1 called Celia. Celia supports English, French, Spanish and three other languages and is able to make phone calls, check the weather, make texts and offers face to face translation.

Users can hold the power button down to activate the assistant or say “Hey Celia.”

Huawei Canada says the P40 series is expected to launch sometime in June, and that pricing and where to buy information will be released at a later date.

These phones come in Deep Sea Blue, Ice White, Brush Gold, Black, and Frosted Silver. It’s unclear which Canadian colour variant will come to Canada.

The Huawei P40 Pro costs €999 ($1543 CAD) and the P40 €799 ($1,233 CAD), though it’s uncertain how much they’ll cost when they get to Canada.