Huawei Debuts Mate 40 Series, Why is It Defying the Odds?
Huawei's consumer business boss, Richard Yu, opened his unveiling of the Mate 40 Series by tracing how far the Chinese tech titan has grown over the decade. Some one billion of its devices are active around the world, 700 of which are smartphones. Compare that to just one million in 2010.
It is with this reach that it is launching the second consecutive Mate series with its own EMUI 11 interface front and center, layered on top of open source Android. It also pushing harder for its AppGallery to compete with Apple's AppStore and Google's Play Store.
Yu also addressed the White House ban on U.S. businesses from working with Huawei. he called it "unfair."
"We have witnessed Huawei grow from an unknown brand to a global leader, no matter how hard times are, our commitment is to continue to innovate," he said.
The Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ will compete with Samsung's Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra and Apple's iPhone 12 Series. Like last year's Mate 30 series, the Mate 40 is 5G ready out of the box. The processor was bumped up to Kirin 9000.
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Let's get this out of the way, the circular camera array looks like an iPod clickwheel (or an Apple TV remote). Yu said the look is in line with the Mate's symmetrical design DNA. The Mate 40 has four Leica-engineered cameras on the back versus five on the Mate 40 Pro+.
Huawei claims its "Cine" camera array reduces distortion and reduces the washed out effect significantly when shooting against the light.
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The Mate 40 and Mate 40 Pro both have wide, ulta wide, telephoto and periscope combos. The difference? The Pro has up to 5x periscope zoom and 7x optical zoom, compared to 3x and 5x, respectively on the regular Mate. The Mate 40 Pro+ has up to 17x optical zoom.
Some notable upgrades from 2019, the Mate 40 series can charge up to 66 watts and Yu said Huawei's lag-free guarantee was doubled to 36 months from 18 months. Like the iPhone 12 series, the class is coated in ceramic material to make it tougher.