INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The Huawei Mate 40 and Huawei Mate 40 Pro could be Huawei’s two best phones of 2020, but many questions surround them
Not just the usual questions of specs and features, but also whether they’ll run Android and whether they’ll even release in much of the
world.We don’t have concrete answers to any of that yet, but we can speculate, and as news and rumors start to roll in we’ll update you
The Huawei P40 launch - that's expected early in 2020 - may give us a clearer answer to that question.In the meantime you’ll also find our
wish list below for what we want from the Mate 40 range – it starts with full Android, but there’s plenty more that we’d like to
see.Cut to the chaseWhat is it? The successor to the Huawei Mate 30When is it out? Late 2020What will it cost? Around what other flagship
phones costHuawei Mate 40 release date and priceThe Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro were announced on September 19, 2019, while the
Huawei Mate 20 range landed in October 2018
So as there are no release date rumors yet we can’t narrow down the launch to a specific day or week, but the Mate 40 range is likely to
land in September or October of 2020.However, that’s not necessarily when you’ll be able to buy them
In fact, you might not easily be able to buy them at all, as due to the Huawei ban the availability of the Mate 30 range is unclear at the
time of writing – the US won’t be getting them, but even in the likes of the UK and Australia there’s no confirmed availability right
So this may well be the case for the Huawei Mate 40 range too.As for price, for now we can only look at the Huawei Mate 30 range, with the
standard phone costing €799 (around $880 / £700 / AU$1,300), while the Huawei Mate 30 Pro costs €1,099 (around $1,200 / £970 /
So prices may be similar for the Mate 40 range.(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)Huawei Mate 40 news and rumorsNext to nothing is known
about the Huawei Mate 40 and Mate 40 Pro yet, and it’s no wonder, with the phones not likely to launch until late 2020.We have heard a
Firstly, they’re likely to run Android – albeit without Google Play Services, leaving them in a similar situation to the Huawei Mate 30
range.Huawei has built its own operating system, dubbed HarmonyOS, but has said it isn’t in any hurry to ditch Android for it.It’s also
rumored that the Huawei Mate 40 range will use a Kirin 1000 chipset
This chipset hasn’t been announced, but according to Huawei Central it will be the company’s first to be made on a 5nm process (making
it smaller and more efficient than the Huawei Mate 30’s chipset) and will land in the second half of 2020, with the Huawei Mate 40 range
being the first phones to use it.While this is just a rumor for now it’s very believable, as Huawei follows a pattern of debuting new
chipsets on the Mate range.(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)What we want to seeThe Huawei Mate 30 and especially the Huawei Mate 30 Pro
are great phones, but with one major flaw and a number of smaller ones
Here’s how the next models could be improved.1
Full AndroidOur wish list for the Huawei Mate 40 doesn’t end at full Android (complete with Google Mobile Services), but it does start
there.Without this, however great the handset is in other ways it will be crippled
So we really hope Huawei can come to an arrangement with the US that allows it to resume using Google’s apps and services.2
Bring back the volume buttonsThe Mate 30 Pro made some daring design choices, including the removal of any physical volume buttons
Instead, you can use gesture controls to adjust the volume, and while these work well when the display is on, they don’t work at all when
it’s off.This is a real annoyance, so for the Huawei Mate 40 range we want either physical volume buttons or for the gesture controls to
work when the display is off.3
The same curves, without the vignetting(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)This is another problem that only applies to the Huawei Mate 30
Pro, rather than the standard Mate 30, but it has a steeply curved screen that looks great – at least most of the time.Sadly, those curves
also create screen vignetting, which is something we’d like to see fixed for the next models
However, assuming Huawei can do that we’d love those sharp curves to be present on both the Mate 40 and Mate 40 Pro.4
No more notchWhile the Huawei Mate 30 and especially the Mate 30 Pro generally look good, they both sport notches, which are looking
So for the Huawei Mate 40 range we want the company to deliver an all-screen design with no notch and ideally no punch-hole either.5
A sharper screen(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)Despite its generally cutting-edge specs, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro has ‘just’ an 1176
x 2400 screen, while the standard Mate 30 has a similar resolution 1080 x 2340 one.While these aren’t bad resolutions, they’re not quite
QHD, and many rivals now have QHD+ displays, so we’d like to see a boost to at least 1440 x 2560 on the Huawei Mate 40 range.6
A bundled stylusThe Mate range is in many ways a rival to the Samsung Galaxy Note range – bigger alternatives to each company’s
However, the Note range additionally stands out through Samsung’s S Pen stylus, which is a key component of each model.While the Huawei
Mate 30 Pro does support Huawei’s M-Pen, it doesn’t come with it, and the functionality is more limited than with Samsung’s S Pen.So
for the Huawei Mate 40 range we want the M-Pen to be a core component
It should ship with the phone, fit into a slot in the phone, and be packed full of features to help you get the most out of that inevitably
An in-screen cameraWe reckon 2020 could be the year that we start seeing in-screen cameras in phones, and we want the Huawei Mate 40 (or at
least the Huawei Mate 40 Pro) to be one of them
Not only would that be an impressive feature in its own right, it would also help get rid of the notch we were lamenting
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