Smartphone buyers in Europe will soon be able to get their hands on what just might be the best phone for photography buffs – Huawei’s new P40 Pro Plus. Launched in China a couple of months ago, the P40 Pro Plus should be up for sale on June 25, at €1,399. Unfortunately, the US government’s ban on Huawei means US buyers who’d like to get their hands on the P40 Pro Plus will have to look at grey market imports.
What’s the big deal about the P40 Pro Plus?
A lot, to be absolutely honest: The 6.58 inch OLED screen has a 90Hz refresh and a 2640×1200 resolution, the processor is the fastest in Huawei’s parts bin (HiSilicon Kirin 990), there’s 5G, 8GB RAM, a whopping 512GB storage, and a meaty, 4200mAh battery. There’s also 40W fast charging and 40W wireless charging, along with IP68 dust and water protection. This flagship is also rather nice to look at (well, at the price, it should be), and the nano-ceramic coating on the back does look rather snazzy (and should be pretty resilient to wear and tear).
But the P40 Pro Plus’ real strength is its cameras. Huawei’s got a great reputation for fitting its flagships with some really stellar cameras (the P40 Pro currently sits atop DXOMark’s mobile camera rankings; 5 of the 10 top-ranked phones are Huawei or Honor devices) and the P40 Pro Plus just pushes the boundaries even more. At the front, there’s a 32MP camera, as well as a depth sensor which should make for some nice selfies – as well as enabling more reliable face recognition unlocking. At the rear, there’s a 50MP f/1.9 ‘Ultra Vision’ main camera, a 40MP, f/1.8 ultra-wide, an 8MP telephoto with a 3x zoom, a depth sensor, and, yes, the pièce de résistance – the 8MP SuperZoom camera with a 10x optical zoom. Yes, it’ll take 4K/60fps video, as well as some sweet slow-mo at lower resolutions.
Overall, the P40 Pro Plus seems like a fantastic package, and might be a great choice for anyone serious about photography, but there’s one fly in the ointment – no Google services or apps. The US ban means Google can’t certify Huawei devices for use with its apps, and you’ll have to look at Huawei’s own app store (or other stores based outside the US). But while you might get most of the apps you’d like, the lack of Google’s behind-the-scenes services means a lot of stuff won’t work the same (or at all).
