Huawei P40 Pro takes aim for Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra with huge camera boost

(Image credit: Future)

last updated 23 April 2020

Although the Samsung Galaxy S20 series is hardly even in stores, there’s already fierce competition among its rivals. The latest devices to be announced, the Oppo Find X2 and Find X2 Pro, look set to take it on in the hardware stakes, matching its chipset and creating an incredible-looking “Ultravision” screen. Now it’s Huawei’s turn, with the launch of its long-awaited Huawei P40 Pro looking to rival the S20 Ultra in the camera stakes.

Huawei’s new handset launch is set to take place on March 26, live-streamed from an event space in Paris and hosted by Huawei CEO Richard Yu. A teaser image, recently released, shows off part of the handset from the side-on, with the hashtag #visionaryphotography.

With its long-standing partnership with German camera firm Leica, Huawei devices have always excelled at photography. Last year’s offering, the P30 Pro, claimed to “rewrite the rules of photography” with superzoom, 20MP ultra-wide-angle and 40MP “super sensing” camera lenses. The P40 Pro promises to be even more impressive.

However, it’ll have its work cut out in order to get the edge on its principle photography rival. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra’s camera is a beast of a machine, with an enormous 108MP sensor for its principle camera along with ultra-wide angle, 100x “space zoom” and 4K video recording.

Even the iPhone 11 Pro, which was rated the “best camera on a phone” when first released, has stepped up to the plate.

This means Huawei’s decision to double-down on the photography as the phone’s main selling point means it’s got something special in mind.

It will have to: now the phone is confirmed to no longer carry Google apps, it needs to sway Android and iOS users to its new Huawei-exclusive HarmonyOS infrastructure. The only way to do that is by providing unbeatable technology for the price point.

Huawei is also expected to launch the rest of the P40 series, including the Huawei P40 Lite (allegedly a renamed Huawei Nova SE) and the base model Huawei P40. A premium Pro model with ceramic backing is also hotly tipped to be launched.

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Matt Evans now works for T3.com sister brand TechRadar, covering all things relating to fitness and wellness. He came to T3.com as staff writer before moving on, and was previously on Men's Health, and slightly counterintuitively, a website devoted to the consumption of Scotch whiskey. In his free time, he could often be found with his nose in a book until he discovered the Kindle.