Huawei Mate40 Pro review: Compared with iPhone 12 Pro, all you care about is here

October 30, 2020 Savior

As Huawei's most important product in the second half of the year, the Mate series of mobile phones can be said to be born with a halo.

After 8 years and 10 generations of exploration, Huawei finally released the Mate40 series last week-"Middle Cup", "Big Cup" and "Super Big Cup", all available.

This time, Ai Faner got the "big cup" Mate40 Pro in the first time.

Compared with Mate30 Pro, the changes in appearance of this generation are still easy to find.

First of all, the size of the body is a bit larger, and the screen size has gone from 6.53 inches to 6.76 inches.

Secondly, the "bangs" design on the front face has become a sleek "pill". This sleekness is also reflected in the fuselage. The top and bottom of the Mate30 Pro are flattened, while the Mate40 Pro is curved.

In theory, this design is more friendly to the little finger when operating with one hand, but the weight of 212 grams still breaks our illusion.

From the back, Mate40 Pro retains the highly recognizable "Oreo" design of the previous generation, but puts the camera and flash on the outer ring. This is called the "Star Ring Design" by Huawei. Of the four circles in the Pro star ring, three are cameras, and the one on the upper right is a laser focus sensor.

Compared with the previous generation, the wide-angle camera, that is, the main camera, has increased from 40 million pixels to 50 million, and the sensor size has also increased to 1/1.28 inches, which can theoretically bring better dark light performance.

But it is a pity that OIS optical image stabilization was lost by the "knife" and left to the "Super Cup" and Porsche Design Edition.

In contrast, the main camera shooting effect of Mate40 Pro is more obvious than the previous generation, the colors are more pleasing, and the enlarged details are also richer.

Although the pixels of the ultra-wide-angle movie camera have shrunk from 40 million to 20 million, the maximum aperture has also been reduced from f/1.6 to f/1.8.

However, in terms of real shooting performance, Mate40 Pro still steadily beats the previous generation, as can be seen from the noise control at the edge and the detail performance.

However, this generation of anti-distortion algorithms does not seem to be as good as Mate30 Pro, which makes us a little confused.

The telephoto lens has been upgraded from 8 million pixels to 12 million (periscope), and still supports optical image stabilization, which can achieve 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom and 50x digital zoom.

Comparing the two generations of models, it is obvious that the Mate40 Pro has a sharper picture and less smearing.

In addition to the appearance changes, the upgrade points of Mate40 Pro are also reflected in the chip and fast charging.

Mate40 Pro is equipped with Huawei's first 4-digit Kirin 9000 chip. The main highlight is the combination of 5nm process technology, third-generation 5G technology, 8-core CPU, 24-core GPU and NPU.

However, due to system limitations, we are currently unable to run a score test on it. According to the data released by foreign media GSMaren, in the GeekBench 5 benchmark test of Mate40 Pro, Kirin 9000 has become the strongest mobile phone chip in the current Android camp without any pressure. Regarding more detailed running score data, we still need to wait for the system to open permissions before doing the test.

How does this chip perform in games? We used the "Yuan Shen" with better picture quality for testing, and output the frame rate in real time through the computer. We adjusted the picture quality of the game to the highest level. In a game of about 20 minutes, the average frame rate of Mate40 Pro was 43.3 FPS, and the duration of maintaining 60 FPS was relatively short. However, in the actual experience, there is no feeling of stuttering, and it has been relatively smooth.

In terms of charging speed, Mate40 Pro upgraded from the previous generation of 40W wired charging and 27W wireless charging to 66W wired fast charging and 50W wireless fast charging. The measured charging time is about 50 minutes (*wired charging).

Compared with Mate30 Pro, Mate40 Pro has also upgraded the anti-mistouch algorithm. In the past few days, the feeling is quite obvious. Lying down and swiping Weibo, the page finally stopped jumping.

In addition, the upgraded AI air control is actually a function that is not usually used, but is very fragrant when used. For example, when we are cooking in the kitchen, we do not want to hold the mobile phone with a hand full of oil stains. At this time, just hover your hand above the screen to wake it up to view information. If you want to answer the phone, just press it in the air. The measured success rate is still quite high. There are some in-depth gesture controls, but the learning cost is a bit high for ordinary people.

Also worth paying attention to are some of the new features brought by EMUI 11, such as the upgrade of multi-screen collaboration, more beautiful UI pages, etc. We have specially explained before ("Huawei EMUI 11 experience: I can finally not be between mobile phones and computers Repeatedly Jump "), I won’t repeat it here.

After getting the Mate40 Pro, we collected a lot of questions from readers and found that everyone still cares about who can play better than the iPhone 12 Pro. Especially the image capabilities, signal, 4G and 5G network speed, battery life, etc.

In terms of image capabilities, we tested the camera level of Mate40 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro in well-lit and low-light environments.

Let's first look at the main camera lens. In a well-lit environment, Mate40 Pro has better resolution with the advantage of the outsole. However, the color temperature seems to be a bit cold, and the whole is a bit green. The colors of the iPhone 12 Pro are more realistic.

In portrait mode, the iPhone 12 Pro handles the edges of characters slightly better, but the gap is not big.

In the case of low light, if neither of the night scene modes is turned on, the overall brightness of the main camera of Mate40 Pro is higher, the noise is less, and the enlarged details are much better than that of the iPhone.

After turning on the night scene mode, the algorithm difference between the two is further opened up. In the same scene, the default exposure time of Mate40 Pro is about 10 seconds, which makes the final picture very bright, like daytime. The iPhone 12 Pro's exposure time is only three seconds, and the picture still maintains the night atmosphere.

This well reflects the logic of the two night scene modes, one is to pursue brighter, the other is to pursue reality, which one is better. In addition, we found that if you manually reduce the exposure time of the Mate40 Pro to 5 seconds, then the presented picture can retain the night atmosphere on the basis of rich details.

In the photo test at night, we found that the "ghosting" phenomenon of Mate40 Pro is lighter than that of iPhone 12 Pro. This may be related to lens coating and arrangement.

Looking at the ultra-wide-angle lens again, the focal lengths of the two are different, and the iPhone 12 Pro is obviously wider. In terms of picture quality, whether it is resolution or picture purity, Mate40 Pro is still better.

In the dark environment, Mate40 Pro's noise control is steadily better than iPhone 12 Pro. However, the iPhone 12 Pro's restoration of on-site brightness is more realistic.

In the night scene mode, the brightness of the two screens is further improved, but the iPhone 12 Pro still maintains a lower brightness.

In terms of telephoto lenses, there is actually no need for comparison between the two. Because Mate40 Pro supports 5x optical zoom, while iPhone 12 Pro is 2x. In the case of sufficient light, the telephoto quality of both is relatively impressive. However, when the light is low, the Mate40 Pro will repeatedly jump between the optical zoom and the digital zoom, and the iPhone 12 Pro will be better.

In terms of focusing speed, Mate40 Pro has a laser focusing module, and the laser radar scanner of iPhone 12 Pro will also assist in focusing. We tested the focusing speed of the two in a low-light environment, and the Mate40 Pro appears more crisp.

The front lens of Mate40 Pro is 13 million pixels, while that of iPhone 12 Pro is 12 million. The difference between the selfie effects of the two is quite obvious. The picture of Mate40 Pro is brighter than that of iPhone 12 Pro.

▲ Miss sister said that she prefers the skin tone of iPhone 12 Pro, which looks more natural.

In terms of video shooting, both support up to 4K 60-frame images. However, iPhone 12 Pro supports Dolby Vision HDR shooting, which is difficult for Mate40 Pro to beat, even if the hardware of Mate40 Pro supports real-time HDR. It can be seen that the iPhone 12 Pro has done better in terms of details, color reproduction, etc., but unfortunately, it is prone to flickering under indoor lighting.

In terms of anti-shake, the iPhone 12 Pro is better, giving people a very smooth feeling.

But in terms of playability, Mate40 Pro is stronger. The AI camera-following function implemented by the algorithm can keep the selected protagonist in the center of the screen. For another example, the front and rear cameras can be turned on at the same time, and the front and rear cameras can be recorded simultaneously.

In summary, in terms of photography, the upper limit of Mate40 Pro will be higher, but in terms of photography, iPhone 12 Pro is stronger.

In terms of signal, Huawei's ability is beyond doubt, a proper signal benchmark. We are more concerned about the network speed of the two. We used a Unicom 4G card, Unicom 5G card, and China Telecom 5G card to test the network speed of two mobile phones.

We test each card twice on each mobile phone, and then take the average to determine the rate. The results show that this year's iPhone 12 Pro with Qualcomm baseband is no different from Mate40 Pro.

Finally, let's take a look at the battery life of the two. The battery capacity of Mate40 Pro is 4400mAh (typical value), while iPhone 12 Pro has only 2815mAh. It should be noted that the refresh rate of Mate40 Pro is set to "smart" during the test, which means that it will automatically switch between 60Hz and 90Hz intelligently. In addition, its screen size is 0.66 inches larger than the iPhone 12 Pro.

We are curious about the difference between the two in actual use. We connected two mobile phones to the same WiFi, controlled the brightness at 80%, and adjusted the volume to medium, and launched a two-hour battery life test.

In the test results, the Mate40 Pro's battery life is relatively better, but the gap between the two is not too big. In some aspects, the performance of iPhone 12 Pro is even better.

Of course, the above test items do not indicate which of the two products is better. Everyone needs more considerations, such as price, when buying a mobile phone.

Overall, Mate40 Pro is a balanced machine in all aspects. Although there is no leap in terms of parameters compared to the previous generation, it has all the shortcomings, such as high refreshing, fast charging, etc. The improvement in experience is still quite obvious. We believe that this experience-oriented value orientation is more practical than the radical pursuit of parameters.

Well, the above is all the content of this issue of Huawei Mate40 Pro evaluation, if you like, welcome to share~

Welfare delivery: