The refusal
by the American government to allow Huawei to renew its licence for Google
services has created widespread concern that Android phones from the company
can no longer be updated. However, as long as the handset is already running
Google Mobile Services (GMS) and has the Google Play Store installed, it will
continue operating as normal, and will update as normal.
The only limitations are in services that
require active collaboration between Google and Huawei. So it is likely that,
for these phones, Huawei won’t update its own EMUI “skin” that runs on top of
Android. The phone will still operate without problems.
The phones
that are affected are new devices or new
versions of older phones, which will not be able to operate on GMS. It is for
this reason that Huawei has focused heavily on refining its own equivalent,
Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), and dramatically enhanced the range and
compatibility of apps in the Huawei App Gallery.
It is
possible, then, to live without the Google Play Store, if one is willing to
forego the standard apps for Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and Chrome. But even
then, there are workarounds. A browser shortcut bookmarked on the home screen
of a P40 Pro, for example, offers a semblance of my Gmail experience. Transferring
apps from an Android device to the P40 allows me to use Google Maps apparently
seamlessly.
No one
wants to mess with workarounds if they don’t have to, so that becomes the key
question for the P40 Pro and Pro+. What makes one feel this is a “have to”? The
answer is one feature set: the cameras.
And one
feature in particular: optical zoom. It is necessary to understand the
difference between optical and digital zoom to appreciate the power of this
device. Digital zoom merely magnifies and crops the image, so it is the
equivalent of downloading it onto a computer and blowing it up. Optical zoom
represents the lens itself zooming in on a scene, and the results are
dramatically better.
Until now,
most high-end phones, like the iPhone 11, have offered 2x optical zoom. The new Samsung S20 Ultra takes it to 4x.
The P40’s predecessor, the P30 pro, went to 5X optical zoom, as does the
current P40 Pro. But the P40 Pro+ blows the market out of the water with 10x
optical zoom. In other words, that is a real zoom lens.
In
practise, the key difference between the two will be noticed in the extent to
which digital zoom lenses at the same magnification tend to saturate the
colours or increase contrast in order to achieve an equivalent aesthetic
impact. But blow up the two images on a computer, and the quality difference
quickly becomes apparent. The P40 Pro+ level of detail at that zoom range is
unprecedented on a phone.
This tells
us that it is a handset for the serious smartphone camera enthusiast, who would
like to use the same device for portraits and, for example, for wildlife
photography.
Let’s look
at the full camera array: no less than 4 lenses on the rear, namely a 50megapixel
(MP) standard lens, 40MP ultrawide-angle, 8MP 3x optical zoom, 8MP 10x optical
zoom, and a time-of-flight (range-finding) depth-sensing lens.
To get an
idea of how far ahead of the market this phone is, its little brother, the P40
Pro, with 4 lenses on the rear – 50MP, 40MP, 12MP and time-of-flight – is a
match for the new Samsung Note20 Ultra. The latter sports an eyewatering 108MP
main wide-angle lens, 12MP telephoto and 12MP ultrawide. But despite offering
100x digital zoom, its optical zoom remains at 5x.
On the
front, both the P40 Pro and sP40 Pro+ selfie cameras have had a time-of-flight
upgrade, with a 32MP wide-angle lens, along with depth-sensing lens. The Note20
Ultra, by comparison, sticks to a basic 10MP wide-angle lens.
Aside from
the camera array, the P40 Pro and Pro+ are similar devices, with 6.5-inch
display, Kirin 990 chipset and octa-core processor, 8GB RAM, infrared face
detection and 4200 mAh battery. The Pro+ starts at 256GB storage, and the Plus
at 128GB.
Both offer
ultra-fast charging, at 40W, as well as fast wireless charging, with the Pro+
at 40W and the Pro at 27W – still more powerful than regular fast-charging on
the Samsung flagship. Both also offer reverse wireless charging at 27W –
meaning one phone can charge another wirelessly.
Oh, and
both devices are IP68 waterproof, meaning they can be submerged in 1.5m of
water for half an hour, not to mention a sand bath, by virtue of being
dust-proof. That makes it an ideal phone for a post-lockdown adventure into the
wilds – with or without Google services.
- Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee
