Huawei will unveil its next flagship phones, the P40 and P40 Pro, on March 26th at an event in Paris. Unlike their impressive P-series predecessors, however, the P40s will not have access to Google’s various apps and services since the US banned companies from doing business with the Chinese telecom giant. Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro launched under similar constraints last year. Google addressed the situation on Friday and discouraged consumers from trying to sideload its software.
The new devices are expected to launch with 120Hz displays on both models, with three cameras on the P40 and five cameras on the P40 Pro. The phones will ship with Android 10 and Huawei’s EMUI 10, both will have OLED displays at 120Hz, and both will have multiple cameras.
The P40 will reportedly have 3 cameras, while the P40 Pro will have anything from four to five rear cameras with a 64MP primary camera, a 20MP ultra-wide camera, a 12MP telephoto lens, and a ToF sensor confirmed.
Leaked images showed the P40 Pro with a sizable camera bump to house the five lenses, a notchless screen with hole-punch selfie camera, no headphone jack, a USB-C port on the bottom, and curved sides.
Huawei’s P40 and P40 Pro may very well be technically excellent and pleasing to the eye, and that’s to be expected from the firm. Huawei has over the past few years, put out well-built devices with powerful hardware, decent software support, and compelling cameras at a variety of price points. It would not be surprising in the least. What would be intriguing is how the reception to the device would be. Google apps and services, a big draw in Europe and most of the world, aren’t going to be pre-installed or officially supported on Huawei’s devices. This means no Google Play Store, no Google Pay, no YouTube app, etc.
This is the third time Huawei has launched its new P-series model in Paris in March, so the plan isn’t necessarily in response to the canceled Mobile World Congress. Huawei CEO Richard Yu has described the P40 Pro as the “world’s most powerful 5G flagship.”
