Living with the Huawei Mate 40 Pro - 2 Months Later! | The Tech Chap By The Tech Chap

Hey guys I'm tom, the tech chap, and I think we can all agree- Huawei's had a bit of a rough year, but despite everything that's going on, they still offer some of the most technically impressive phones on the market and not just phones. Of course, while we have a huge ecosystem of laptops, watches, headphones, etc. , which have all been designed to work together. I'll show you how all this works, including testing the phone with their Matebooks and free buds pro later in the video. So there's a lot of tech in Huawei's ecosystem, but at the core is the phone, and this is their latest flagship. The mate 40 pro, while technically the pro plus.

With this slightly longer 10 times, periscope zoom is the absolute tip-top flagship, but I think for most people this is gonna, be the one you'll want to go for and while of course, the elephant in the room is the lack of google, apps and Google Play Services, which honestly is frustrating as a user. There are workarounds, there are alternatives, and actually you know what hats off to Huawei, because even though they probably didn't want to see themselves in this position, they are now bringing some genuine competition to a market, that's just dominated by apple and google. So a big thank you to Huawei for partnering with me on this video, and they basically asked if I'd, give my honest experiences on using the mate 40 pro since I've had it for now the better part of two months. So first things. First, the design and, of course the stand-out here- is that unique space ring on the back, which houses the triple lens camera setup, plus the laser autofocus, and also the Lacey branding in the middle of the chocolate space donut thing, but it's certainly eye-catching the ring, the mystic silver color that gives that sort of adolescent look as the light hits it.

The super curvy horizon displays it just oozes. Premiums, that's definitely not a word. The pill shaped dual hole: punch cutout is definitely on the chunky side here, but as well as an ultra-wide selfie lens. It also houses a 3d time of flight sensor so like the iPhone face, unlocking works just as well in low light, which I find really useful. Now not everyone is a fan of curved screens and I totally get that, although I've not had a single issue with you know palm rejection or accidental inputs with this, and I think it does help to make the phone feel a little nicer in the hand, and it's a YouTuber clich?, and it's a bit more premium.

As I say I like it, but I totally get that it's not for everyone. Also, I need your opinion. What color do you think this power button is? Is it pink red? Maybe my wife says it's hot fuchsia, which I think is quite a good answer. It is a big phone, though at 1212 grams and with a 6.76-inch screen you're. Definitely getting that note, 20 ultra and iPhone 12 Pro max big phone kind of experience.

It's also great to see some little extras like having stereo speakers, dual sim 5g, of course, an IR blaster and ip68 water resistance. Now I actually made a mistake in my initial review of the mate 40 pro, because I mentioned that I was quite happy that they kind of got rid of the virtual volume rocker that they introduced on last year's mate 30 pro, because I just didn't find it that user-friendly. But in fact you have both. We have the physical volume rocker on the right side, but as well as that, you can touch either side to bring up the virtual volume slider. So it's nice that we have both options now on paper, I don't think the mate 40 pro screens stands out, particularly the full HD plus 90 hertz spec doesn't exactly scream flagship anymore.

An adaptive 120 hertz screen, like the note 20 ultra, would have been nice to see. Although the dynamic 90 hertz refresh here is still a good step up over the 60 that we continue to get on the latest iPhones. However, while it may not be the sharpest or the fastest, it does actually strike a good balance when it comes to battery life, and also the quality of the display is still just stunning. OLED hdr10 nearly 900 nits of brightness and it offers excellent color accuracy. I can also happily report that I've not had a single stutter or slowdown with this phone inside we have Huawei's own Karin 9000 chips paired with eight gigs of ram and 256 storage and in most benchmarks it's pretty comparable to the snapdragon 865.

In my experience, paired with the much improved emu 11 software on top of android 10 and, of course, that 90 hertz screen the main 40 pro never missed a beat. I do want to talk about the software with this, because, firstly, in terms of apps, as I say, no Google Play Services, you can side load apps through APKs and use. You know third-party APK stores, but what we don't really recommend that, and I completely understand why, because they can't be sure you know the safety and security of those apps and how well they'll run on here. So what they want you to do is bring over a bunch of your apps from your old phone using phone clone and then use their Huawei app gallery with. Maybe a few APKs downloaded as well.

I've got pretty much everything I need on here, and they've introduced a bunch of new software features on the phone. We have Celia the new voice assistant along with petal search and petal maps, so petal search is kind of like a hub. You download it from the Huawei app gallery and then, as well as being a search tool. You can also get news. Video updates even use it for shopping, but one of the biggest reasons I found myself using it is to actually download and update apps that I just can't easily get elsewhere.

So if you're, using a Huawei phone, definitely give petal search a try and then at a higher level, we have what they call this one plus eight plus n strategy. You've got your one phone at the heart of everything, then eight close peripheral devices like smart, watches, headphones and laptops. Then the n is for everything beyond that: apps IOT devices etc. , and I love just how seamless the integration can be between devices Huawei share with their may books, for example, just tap your phone to connect, and then you can transfer files or even use your phone completely remotely on the laptop. It can be a little laggy sometimes, but on the whole it works.

Great. I've also got a pair of their new Huawei free buds pro earphones with me here. These are the active noise, cancelling earphones, they cost about 130 pounds or so, and it's so easy to connect it to your phone. Just open the lid, and you'll get a pop-up on the phone to connect anyway back to the phone, and I think the point is that, unlike just any other android phone, there is a whole ecosystem behind this. If you want to invest, I mean with apple, you know the iPhone you've got your Apple Watch and your mac books and your AirPods with this you've got your mate books, your free buds and your smartwatch GTS.

So Huawei really is challenging the status quo of the big two. All right, let's shift gears, because now I want to talk about this camera. So we get a 50 megapixel main lens, with Huawei's unique our BYB sensor, which helps capture more light than your traditional RGB, along with a 20 megapixel ultra-wide cine camera, which, as the name suggests, is also the primary video lens and finally, a 12 megapixel telephoto with five times optical zoom. Although you can pinch in all the way up to a surprisingly good quality 50x digital, and then we also have a laser depth sensor to help with focusing and if you're, using AR. Now I do a lot of camera comparisons on the channel, and I'm sure you'd agree, there's no perfect camera, but I think the mate 40 pro comes close.

The level of detail and dynamic range is seriously impressive, although I do find the colors a touch on the cool side, but the size of the sensor means when you take close-up photos, you get a lovely looking almost DSLR quality both blur. In the background. You can also get some terrific low-light shots and while there is a dedicated night mode, I'd actually avoid that, for anything other than almost pitch black shots, regular photo mode is your best bet in low light and does a great job. Although I'd argue that, while Huawei pioneered genuinely great night photography on phones, the competition has caught up. So it's not the huge selling point it used to be now.

Switching to video, and as I mentioned, it uses the ultra-wide cine lens. So we get a slightly wider field of view than most phones, but you can still punch in up to 15 times actually, and it does a surprisingly good job, keeping everything sharp and stable. So all this video is shot at 4k 30, and one of my big takeaways is just how impressive the stabilization is. Even as I just walk down the street here, it keeps everything nice and smooth and overall, it's detailed noise is kept to a minimum, and we get fast, focusing hi Sarah you're a focused video, it's a video, and I'm doing a focus test. You thought it was going to be a photo cute.

I mean just look at this even in low light with my little Christmas tree here you can see there's very little noise and the white balance is bang on what I'm seeing in real life now turning to the front camera, and we have a 13 megapixel, wide selfie lens and starting in low light. It's not my favorite. Both photo and night modes are kind of soft and lacking in detail, but good lighting makes all the difference here and the day selfies look much sharper and more detailed. So for me at least, I think the camera on this thing is its biggest selling point, but the battery is no slouch either and the combination of their efficient, five nanometer Karin chip, full HD, 90, hertz screen and also the big 4400 million power cells. Well, I'm going through a regular day with about 40 of my battery left by 11 pm.

I ran a YouTube rundown test even using the web browser shortcut, and it still lasted a little over 15 hours at 50 brightness. The battery on this thing is seriously good and then, when you combine it with their 66 watt, supercharger that comes bundled with the phone which takes about half an hour to top up to 87 and about 45 minutes for a full charge. Even after a couple of months, I've not once worried or rationed my use of this to preserve battery. It also supports 50 watt wireless charging, although you will need to buy one of these to take advantage of that plus it supports reverse wireless charging, so you can top up other devices, like maybe your free buds, and so that is the Huawei Mate 40 pro beautiful design, impressive camera and battery life and a slightly frustrating but potentially rewarding software experience. If you dive into their ecosystem, it also has quite a hefty price tag at 1099 pounds.

This goes right up against the top end, now to an iPhone, although they often do have deals with other discounts or free accessories, which is good to see but outside the mate 40 pro. I genuinely can't wait to see what Huawei does next, because politics and controversy aside their engineers and technicians, continually, innovate and bring us some great tech. I have put links to the mate 40 pro the free buds and also my favorite mate book in the description. If you are interested, though, and I'd love to hear what you guys think about Huawei and the mate 40 pro in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching guys.

I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat. You.

Source : The Tech Chap