THE numbers should not be where one might have suspected them to be, given the prevailing conditions.
No, we are not talking about the desperate statistics regarding the coronavirus pandemic, which has globally wrought havoc on the economic numbers across all industries, including some of the most prominent players in IT, this as consumer spending contracts due not only to health concerns and job insecurity but also to the disruption in global supply chains.
A top tech news site, Gadgets Now (www.gadgetsnow.com), reported in May: “The global smartphone market saw its fastest ever decline during the first quarter of 2020, according to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Market. The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the supply chain globally, taking a huge toll on sales.” The report also goes on to identify “the top 10 companies that are selling the most number of smartphones in the world,” with Samsung topping the list at a 20 percent market share in terms of global shipment, followed by Huawei at 17 percent and Apple at 14 percent.
Offhand, one could say the rankings hold little surprise, as they have been pretty much the case for several quarters now. It should be surprising, however, particularly given that in May 2019, amid a worsening trade war between the US and China, the US government added Huawei, a leading multinational technology company based in China, to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List, thus effectively banning US companies from dealing with Huawei and forcing Google to terminate (temporarily?) what has been a mutually beneficial partnership with the Chinese company.
As it has been widely reported, the ban is on account of what the US alleges as Huawei’s very close ties with the Chinese government that could result in Beijing leveraging the company’s widely used networking equipment for spying. Since the ban, Huawei has released a couple of flagship smartphones: the Mate 30 series and the P40 series—still based on the market-leading Android mobile operating system, sure, but without a shadow in sight of Google and its wildly popular services and applications including Search, Chrome, Gmail, Maps, YouTube and Play Store.
The absence of Google and everything else that comes with it—top apps like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, plus some of the bestselling games are all dependent on Google Services Framework, a platform which “provides core functionality like authentication to your Google services, synchronized contacts, access
to all the latest user privacy settings, and higher quality, lower-powered location based services”—should have doomed these current flagships of Huawei’s. But on July 31, tech writer Sean Keane filed this report for C|Net:
“Huawei shipped more phones worldwide than any other vendor for the first time in 2020’s second quarter, tech market analysts Canalys, Counterpoint and IDC reported. It’s the first time in nine years anyone other than Samsung or Apple has been market leader, Canalys said.” (cnet.co/30rDh6p)
It is easy to see how Huawei’s latest flagship, the P40 Series consisting of the P40, the P40 Pro and the P40+, has helped the company stave off whatever negative impact the absence of Google may have had. Whichever P40 variant one goes for—be it the more pocket-friendly P40 at P36,990 in Lazada, the “mid-range” flagship P40 Pro at P50,990, or the ultra-premium P40 Pro+ at P69,990, all of them 5G-ready—Huawei’s top-of-the-line series is an exceptional piece of powerful technology packed into an impossibly compact and beautifully elegant glass or ceramic (as in the case of the P40 Pro+) body that is unbelievably “resistent” to fingerprints.
There are differences among the entries in the series, of course, but they are minor (size of display, number of cameras and a few more) and none are deal-breakers. Of the three, we have had the pleasure of taking for an extended spin the Huawei P40 Pro+, the 512GB storage variant of which will be basis of this review.
Boasting of the latest powerful octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G chipset, 8GB RAM and Android 10, the Huawei P40 Pro+ measures 158.2 x 72.6 x 9mm and weighs 209g, slightly heavier than its immediate flagship predecessors, yes, but the added weight is likely due to the penta-camera setup and the ceramic back, and it does make the phone feel more ergonomic in the hand. And the fingerprints we mentioned earlier? They are there if you look closely enough, but Huawei has given the ceramic material such a finish that they are barely noticeable. Moreover, according to reports, the ceremic material has been baked to such toughness that it is reportedly almost comparable to a sapphire or diamond. That should make the P40 Pro+ take on the wear and tear of everyday usage with ease.
At 6.58 inches with a 2640 x 1200-pixel resolution and 90Hz refresh rate, the phone’s OLED screen has been dubbed by Huawei as “Quad-Curve Overflow Display”, curving as it does on all four edges for a bezel-free affair, and the screen—under which lies a lightning-fast fingerprint scanner—is absolutely breathtaking with the vibrancy, sharpness and clarity of the images it yields, making for a supremely satisfying visual experience. No doubt there will be consumers who will quibble about the elliptical cutout on the display for the excellent 32MP selfie camera but the superb quality of the panel will quickly make you forget about the cutout.
Speaking of the camera: as with previous flagships, Huawei has again partnered with legendary imaging specialist Leica for the penta-camera setup as the main rear system, with a 50MP Ultra Vision sensor as the primary shooter, a 40MP SuperSensing Cine Camera, an 8MP SuperZoom Camera with 10x long-range optical zoom, 20X hybrid zoom and 100X digital zoom; an 8MP Telephoto Camera, and a ToF Camera. As fans have come to expect from the Huawei-Leica partnership, the camera strengths of the P40 Pro+ are second to none in terms of both capturing photos and video. Not surprisingly, that imaging muscle has earned the P40 Pro+ the top spot in the rankings of DXOMARK, the leading source of independent audio and image quality measurements and ratings for standalone cameras, lenses and mobile devices. (As an aside, Huawei has three entries in DXOMARK’s top 10 smartphone camera rankings.)
Supplementing the P40 Pro+’s solid internals is the 4,200mAh battery that not only powers the phone for a day and then some with moderate-to-heavy usage, but also supports 40W fast charging—and such charger is already included in the box. Also of note is that the phone handles heat well even under heavy use: as we continue to work from home on account of Covid-19, we found ourself one weekend going through extended gaming sessions and the P40 Pro+ never overheated; nor did we see a graphically demanding game quit unexpectedly from whatever heat it generated.
Of course, the top-of-mind question not a few consumers most likely have about the P40 Pro+ is: Without Google, is there any point to getting the phone? Off the bat, we will say the fantastic camera system alone is a solid-enough reason to make the jump. But if one really can’t live without Gmail or YouTube or Hangouts, there are several excellent tutorials online that will walk consumers through sideloading all that Google goodness—and if they studiously follow the easy-to-understand instructions, the walk is, well…as easy as a walk in the park. Needless to say, neither Google nor Huawei encourages or supports such “tinkering,” if you will.
To those wary of such effort, the good news is that Huawei has a thriving AppGallery, already the third most popular appstore on the planet which hosts not a few top apps and games, from Facebook, Viber, TikTok and Snapchat, to Lords Mobile, Rise of Empires and Asphalt 9: Legends, plus banking apps from Unionbank, Metrobank and BDO, among many other useful apps, the number of which on the AppGallery continue to rise. Meanwhile, the phone’s built-in application for email can be easily configured for Gmail access, while Maps.me makes for a suitable replacement for Google’s Maps app.
Moreover, the latest update to Huawei’s front-facing layer on top of Android, EMUI, also brings another useful new feature: the Huawei Petal Search Widget. In a statement, the company says the app “specializes in finding apps, news, images, and more right from your phone’s home screen. Petal Search’s integration with the AppGallery lets it find, download and install apps straight from the widget interface, as well as explore reputable third party sources for harder-to-find apps or games. Hundreds of new apps are added to AppGallery everyday, so there’s always something new and exciting to discover everytime you tap on Petal Search. This app can be downloaded from the AppGallery and installed on the home screen as a widget with EMUI version 10.1.0.131.”
It remains uncertain whether a rapprochement would come between the US and China any time soon, with the Covid-19 pandemic even heightening an already fraught situation. What is certain is that Huawei will continue to make exciting smartphones like the P40 Pro+ as it further accelerates the growth of its app ecosystem.
• More information about the Huawei P40 Pro+ is available at consumer.huawei.com/ph.