Samsung is no stranger when it comes to smartphones. In fact, they have had one of the most successful Android flagships for years with the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. However, their mid-range offerings have been somewhat of a sore spot as the company struggles to be relevant. That changed last year with their A52 5G; the phone has been one of the most successful mid-range smartphones for Samsung ever.
Bringing Flagship Features to the Midrange
This year, they’re looking to build on that success and capitalise on bringing flagship features to the Galaxy A lineup. The 2022 Galaxy A series will be spearheaded by the Galaxy A73 5G, Galaxy A53 5G and the Galaxy A33 5G. Yep, that’s right, the series will be equipped with 5G across the board. In addition to 5G, Samsung is also bringing some of the software features we’re used to seeing in their flagships to the Galaxy A73, Galaxy A53 and Galaxy A33.
You will now see software features such as Bixby Routines, Buds Auto Switch, Continue App and Link to Windows as mainstays in the Galaxy A series. Continue App allows you to take apps across from your phone to your Samsung tablet while Link to Windows will allow you to seamlessly integrate apps from your phone to your Windows PC. Bixby Routines, on the other hand, will allow you to create “routines” that will be able to be executed with a simple voice command. That said, DeX will not be making an appearance on the new Galaxy A devices.
In addition to these software features, the Galaxy A series is getting IP67 water and dust resistance – yes, even the A33. Together with this, the series is also getting Gorilla Glass 5 and a large 5,000mAh battery. They will also be getting 5 years of security updates with 4 years of major software updates.
Flagship cameras for the Midrange Heroes
The Galaxy A33, Galaxy A53 and Galaxy A73 will all come with top of the line cameras. The trio comes with a quadruple sensor setup with a main sensor equipped with optical image stabilization across the board. The Galaxy A73 5G comes with a 108-megapixel main sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and autofocus functionality. The A53 5G comes with a smaller 64-megapixel while the A33 5G is equipped with a 48-megapixel sensor.
Complementing this main sensor are an Ultrawide sensor, a macro sensor and a depth sensor. On the A73, these are a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor, a 5-megapixel macro sensor and a 5-megapixel depth sensor. The A53 comes with the same. The A33 comes with a smaller 8-megapixel ultrawide and 2-megapixel depth sensor, it does, however, come with the same 5-megapixel macro sensor. On the front, the A73 and A53 come with a 32-megapixel fixed focus sensor while the A33 comes with a smaller 13-megapixel one.
Samsung isn’t just focusing on the hardware when it comes to the cameras. Software features such as hybrid zooming and even Single Take are making their way to the Galaxy A series.
Same Same but Different
The overall outlook of the Galaxy A series of 2022 can simply be surmised as “same same but different”. The smartphones inherit the design language of the Galaxy A series of 2021 with small tweaks for better ergonomics and to keep up with the colour palette of 2022. Other than that, they come with the same design as the 2021 Galaxy A series. The same rectangle with a fluidly camouflaged camera hump melding into the back of the phone.
On the front is a Super AMOLED panel. The A73 comes with the largest of the three phones at 6.7-inches while the A53 comes with a 6.5-inch display. Both these models come with a 120Hz refresh rate. The A53 comes with a smaller 6.4-inch display with a 90Hz refresh rate. All of the displays have a Full HD+ resolution with an 800 nits peak brightness.
The smartphones come with new 5nm processors. The Galaxy A73 is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G while the Galaxy A53 and Galaxy A33 run on the Exynos 1280. The new Galaxy A series comes with 8GB of RAM. This can be expanded with up to 6 GB of additional RAM with Samsung’s RAM plus feature. The Galaxy A73 and A53 will be available with 256GB of storage while the A33 will be available with 128GB of storage. All three support up to 1TB additional storage via microSD card.
The new Galaxy A series devices will not ship with a charger in the box. It will only have a USB-C charging cable. Also absent is the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Pricing & Availability
The Galaxy A73 will be available in Awesome White, Awesome Gray and Awesome Mint. It will be retailing for MYR2,099.
The Galaxy A53 and A33 will be available in Awesom White, Awesome Black, Awesome Pink and Awesome Blue. They will retail for MYR1,849 and MYR1,499 respectively.
No availability dates have been shared just yet.
Official Specifications
Model
Galaxy A33 5G
Galaxy A53 5G
Galaxy A73 5G
Display
6.4-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED 90Hz Infinity-U Display
6.5-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED 120Hz Infinity-O Display
6.7-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED+ 120Hz Infinity-O Display
After much anticipation and countless leaks, the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G is now official. The new entry into the Galaxy S21 lineup follows through with the promise of the FE lineup by marrying some of the best features of the S21 in one sleek and powerful offering. It’s got the beauty and the brawn of the S21 series.
Source: Samsung
Like the S20 FE, the Galaxy S21 FE 5G retains most of the design language but ditches the accented camera frame. The sleek smartphone measures a mere 7.9m in thickness with a 6.4-inch AMOLED 2X display upfront. It comes with a 120Hz refresh rate and an FHD+ resolution and will also sport a 240Hz touch sampling rate in Game mode. In Malaysia, it runs on the Exynos 2100 octa-core processor and is paired with 8GB of RAM. Other regions may have versions with 6GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 888. These combinations come complemented with up to 256GB of internal storage. The Galaxy S21 FE, like the S20 FE, does not support additional memory via a microSD card.
On the camera side of things, the S21 FE 5G comes with a triple camera setup. The setup consists of two 12-megapixel sensors and a single 8-megapixel. The main sensor is a 12-megapixel wide sensor with Dual Pixel Autofocus, optical image stabilization (OIS) and an f/1.8 aperture. The 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor has an f/2.2 aperture with a 123˚ field of view (FOV) while the 8-megapixel sensor is a telephoto sensor with an f/2.4 aperture. It also supports 30x Space Zoom. On the front, the Galaxy S21 FE comes with a 32-megapixel selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture and 81˚ FOV.
A 4,500 mAh battery powers the Galaxy S21 FE. It supports Wireless PowerShare, 25W wired fast charging and 15W wireless charging. It also supports 2G, 3G, LTE and 5G connectivity. The smartphone also comes with NFC and an IP68 dust and water resistance rating in tow. The cherry on top is the fact that it will be launching with One UI 4 atop Android 12.
Pricing & Availability
The Galaxy S21 FE 5G will be available for pre-order soon. In Malaysia, it will be priced at MYR2,899 for the 128GB version and MYR3,099 for the 256GB version. It will be available in Olive, Lavender, White or Graphite.
Pre-orders start on 6th January 2022. Any pre-orders made during the pre-order period which ends on 10th January 2022 will come with an MYR350 e-voucher for Samsung’s online store, SamsungCare+ and a year’s coverage of accidental and liquid damage worth MYR220.
In the U.S, the Galaxy S21 FE 5G will be available for USD$699.99 for the 6GB/128GB version. The 8GB/256GB version will retail at USD$769.99. Pre-orders will be starting on 11 January 2022.
We are living in a do-anything-from-anywhere economy enabled by an exponentially expanding data ecosystem. It’s estimated 65% of Global GDP will be digitalnext year (2022). This influx of data presents both opportunities and challenges. After all, success in our digital present and future relies on our ability to secure and maintain increasingly complex IT systems. Here I’ll examine both near-term and long-term predictions that address the way the IT industry will deliver the platforms and capabilities to harness this data to transform our experiences at work, home and in the classroom.
What to look for in 2022:
The Edge discussion will separate into two focus areas – edge platforms that provide a stable pool of secure capacity for the diverse edge ecosystems and software defined edge workloads/software stacks that extend application and data systems into real world environments. This approach to Edge, where we separate the edge platforms from the edge workloads, is critical since, if each edge workload creates its own dedicated platform, we will have proliferation of edge infrastructure and unmanageable infrastructure sprawl.
Imagine an edge environment where you deploy an edge platform that presents compute, storage, I/O and other foundational IT capacities in a stable, secure, and operationally simple way. As you extend various public and private cloud data and applications pipelines to the edge along with local IoT and data management edges, they can be delivered as software-defined packages leveraging that common edge platform of IT capacity. This means that your edge workloads can evolve and change at software speed because the underlying platform is a common pool of stable capacity.
We are already seeing this shift today. Dell Technologies currently offers edge platforms for all the major cloud stacks, using common hardware and delivery mechanisms. As we move into 2022, we expect these platforms to become more capable and pervasive. We are already seeing most edge workloads – and even most public cloud edge architectures – shift to software-defined architectures using containerisation and assuming standard availably of capacities such as Kubernetes as the dial tone. This combination of modern edge platforms and software-defined edge systems will become the dominant way to build and deploy edge systems in the multi-cloud world.
The opening of the private mobility ecosystem will accelerate with more cloud and IT industries involved on the path to 5G. Enterprise use of 5G is still early. In fact, today 5G is not significantly different or better than WiFi in most enterprise use cases. This will change in 2022 as more modern, capable versions of 5G become available to enterprises. We will see higher performance and more scalable 5G along with new 5G features such as Ultra Reliability Low Latency Communications (UR-LLC) and Massive Machine Type Communicators (mMTC), with dialogue becoming much more dominant than traditional telecoms (think: open-source ecosystem, infrastructure companies, non-traditional telecom).
More importantly we expect the ecosystem, delivering new and more capable private mobility, will expand to include IT providers such as Dell Technologies but also public cloud providers and even new Open-Source ecosystems focused on acceleration of the Open 5G ecosystem.
Edge will become the new battleground for data management as data management becomes a new class of workload. The data management ecosystem needs an edge. The modern data management industry began its journey on public clouds processing and analysing non-real-time centralised data. As the digital transformation of the world accelerates, it has become clear that most of the data in the world will be created and acted on outside of centralised data centers. We expect that the entire data management ecosystem will become very active in developing and utilising edge IT capacity as the ingress and egress of their data pipelines but will also utilise edges to remotely process and digest data.
As the data management ecosystem extends to the edge this will dramatically increase the number of edge workloads and overall edge demand. This correlates to our first prediction on edge platforms as we expect these data management edges to be modern software-defined offerings. Data management and the edge will increasingly converge and reinforce each other. IT infrastructure companies, like Dell Technologies, have the unique opportunity to provide the orchestration layer for edge and multi-cloud by delivering an edge data management strategy.
The security industry is now moving from discussion of emerging security concerns to a bias toward action. Enterprises and governments are facing threats of greater sophistication and impact on revenue and services. At the same time, the attack surface that hackers can exploit is growing based on the accelerated trend in remote work and digital transformation. As a result, the security industry is responding with greater automation and integration. The industry is also pivoting from automated detection to prevention and response with a focus on applying AI and machine learning to speed remediation. This is evidenced by industry initiatives like SOAR (Security Orchestration Automation & Response), CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) and XDR (Extended, Detection and Response). Most importantly we are seeing new efforts such as the Open Secure Software Foundation in the Linux Foundation ramp up the coordination and active involvement of the IT, telecom and semiconductor industries.
Across all four of these areas – edge, private mobility, data management and security – there is a clear need for a broad ecosystem where both public cloud and traditional infrastructure are integrated. We are now clearly in a multi-cloud, distributed world where the big challenges can no longer be solved by a single data center, cloud, system or technology.
What to look for beyond 2022:
Quantum Computing – Hybrid quantum/classical compute will take center stage providing greater access to quantum.In 2022 we expect two major industry consensuses to emerge. First, we expect the industry will see the inevitable topology of a quantum system will be a hybrid quantum computer where the quantum hardware or quantum processing units (QPU) are specialised compute systems that look like accelerators and focus on specific quantum focused mathematics and functions. The QPUs will be surrounded by conventional compute systems to pre-process the data, run the overall process and even interpret the output of the QPUs.
Early real-world quantum systems are all following this hybrid quantum model and we see a clear path where the collaboration of classical and quantum compute is inevitable. The second major consensus is that quantum simulation using conventional computing will be the most cost effective and accessible way to get quantum systems into the hands of our universities, data science teams and researchers. In fact, Dell and IBM already announced significant work in making quantum simulation available to the world.
Automotive – The automotive ecosystem will rapidly shift focus from a mechanical ecosystem to a data and compute industry.The automotive industry is transforming at several levels. We are seeing a shift from Internal Combustion Engines to Electrified Vehicles resulting in radical simplification of the physical supply chain. We are also seeing a significant expansion of software and compute content within our automobiles via ADAS and autonomous vehicle efforts. Finally, we are seeing the automotive industry becoming data driven industries for everything from entertainment, to safety to major disruptions such as Car-as-a-Service and automated delivery.
All of this says that the automotive and transportation industries are beginning a rapid transition to be driven by software, compute and data. We have seen this in other industries such as telecom and retail and in every case the result is increased consumption of IT technology. Dell is actively engaged with most of the world’s major automotive companies in their early efforts, and we expect 2022 to continue their evolution towards digital transformation and deep interaction with IT ecosystems.
Digital Twins – Digital Twins will become easier to create and consume as the technology is more clearly defined with dedicated tools. While gaining in awareness, digital twins is still a nascent technology with few real examples in production. Over the next several years, we’ll see digital twins become easier to create and consume as we define standardised frameworks, solutions and platforms. Making digital twin ideas more accessible will enable enterprises to provide enhanced analytics and predictive models to accelerate digital transformation efforts. Digital twin adoption will become more mainstream with accelerated standardisation and availability of solutions and framework, bringing deployment and investment costs down. Digital twins will be the core driver of Digital transformation 3.0 combining measured and modeled/simulated worlds for direct business value across industry verticals.
As a technology optimist, I increasingly see a world where humans and technology work together to deliver impactful outcomes at an unprecedented speed. These near-term and long-term perspectives are based on the strides we’re making today. If we see even incremental improvement, there is enormous opportunity to positively transform the way we work, live and learn and 2022 will be another year of accelerated technology innovation and adoption.
Huawei may be facing a tough 2021 if the new licensing measures taken by the Biden administration is any indication. It looks like the U.S. is clamping down even further on the restrictions that were initially put on Huawei. According to Reuters, the Biden administration is reinforce existing measures by streamlining and making existing licenses more consistent. The new measures seem to reinforce pre-existing measures that are preventing Huawei from accessing much needed resources and components for its infrastructure and mobile businesses particularly when it comes to 5G technologies.
The new measures come as the latest blow to Huawei in what seems to be a crippling two years for the company. Back in 2019, Huawei was placed on the “entity list” which prevents companies trading in the U.S. from doing business with the company. This was done after reports surfaced of the company potentially providing access to data to the Chinese government.
Since then, Huawei has been facing hurdle after hurdle when it comes to acquiring technologies for its broad range of products. This has led to Huawei losing access to Google’s Mobile Services (GMS) which has impacted its smartphone businesses which use Google’s Android operating system. Huawei has been hard at work building its own Huawei Mobile Services and App Gallery to complete the user experience on their smartphones. The company has also been working on their own proprietary OS – Harmony OS – which is intended to replace Android on its devices.
From shifting to work from home policies to customers’ increasing demand for better services and experience, organizations are finding that they need to transform faster to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect technology trends to only continue to evolve as reliance on technology becomes more critical in our current social and economic landscape. To ride out the wave rather than sink in it, forward-thinking organizations in Asia-Pacific (APAC) should rethink their digital transformation strategies based on these trends we expect to see in the coming year.
5G, IoT, Edge computing: The trio for intelligent connectivity
APAC will continue progressing on its 5G journey. While commercial 5G services are already available in nine markets in the region — including South Korea, Japan, and China — another 12 have officially announced similar plans. The increased availability of 5G will help drive the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing to deliver ultra-low latency, high bandwidth network, and effectively support large-scale distribution of endpoints. For example, 5G, IoT and edge computing can be applied to smart fleet management, wherein edge devices can monitor critical vehicle systems and access the 5G network to send alerts, track the flow of goods, plan routes, and facilitate communications between a vehicle and any IoT-enabled entity that may affect or be affected by the vehicle.
We foresee more APAC organizations and cities adopting 5G, IoT, and edge computing in 2021 to become more connected and efficient. Emerging use cases for the three technologies include analyzing sensor data for predictive maintenance and quality control, augmented reality systems for remote operations, and personalized ‘connected experiences’ for customer and supplier engagement.
Security is a growing priority for hybrid cloud
Customers and employees alike now expect business applications and services to be highly available, on-demand and secure. To achieve that, we recommend organizations to embrace hybrid cloud in order to run workloads across any environment (i.e., on-premises, private or public cloud) more easily and quickly. Red Hat’s 2021 Global Tech Outlook found that 77% of APAC organizations surveyed plan to use more than one cloud platform — be it private and public clouds — in the next 12 months, up from 53% in 2020. According to the survey results, the top three reasons for organizations to run their applications across hybrid cloud include improving data security, gaining IT agility, and addressing data privacy concerns.
Security will remain a focus area as organizations progress in their hybrid cloud journey — nearly half of the organizations we surveyed globally cited cloud security as their top funding priority next year. The challenge when it comes to security is that it is made up of different elements such as endpoint, network and data security. One way of overcoming this is by adopting an open security automation framework that unifies the different security practices using a set of automated workflows. By doing so, organizations can gain greater visibility across the entire security function, enabling them to identify threats or remediate cyber attacks faster.
Cloud-native will drive container adoption
Cloud-native applications can respond quickly to change, adapting and evolving with new features and functionalities released incrementally more quickly, reliably and frequently with less risk. As more organizations adopt hybrid cloud to increase the scalability and availability of apps, those that also embrace cloud-native development are in a better position to build and run responsive, scalable, and fault-tolerant apps on any cloud.
Containers are a key technology for unlocking the benefits of cloud-native development. Containers enable applications to be packaged and isolated with their entire runtime environment, making it easier to move them between environments while retaining full functionality. With containers, developers can more easily release and update apps as a collection of loosely coupled services, like microservices, instead of having to wait for one large release. Recognizing that containers can help accelerate innovation, 45% of APAC respondents from the 2021 Global Tech Outlook expect more than half of their workloads to be containerized in the next 12 months.
Automation is on the rise
Customers are demanding more at a faster pace, while IT architectures are ever-changing and built on increasingly complicated technology stacks. Organizations also need to support a work-from-home productivity model during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address these requirements, APAC organizations are increasingly turning to automation to reduce complexity, improve productivity, and lower operating cost. However, they must have an enterprise-wide automation strategy instead of deploying automation in silos in order to fully benefit from the technology.
More organizations are increasingly using automation in conjunction with artificial intelligence and machine learning to create an additional layer of automated insight to optimize business processes. Some APAC banks are already using robotic process automation (RPA) to approve credit card applications, automate payments, and validate claims. Because RPA can augment and mimic human judgment and behavior to replicate rules-based human action, it reduces the time taken for those tasks.
Open culture needs to complement technology modernization
According to a November 2019 study sponsored by Red Hat, 80% of APAC business leaders surveyed rank cultural change and technology modernization of equal importance for digital transformation. Cultural characteristics key for transformation include adaptability, inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration – all of which are open source principles. Organizations that have supported their cultural change initiatives with efforts to modernize their infrastructure and application architecture have been able to quickly develop and deliver new applications, respond rapidly to customer demands, and control maintenance costs.
With APAC businesses recognizing that digital transformation is driven by a change in mindset, we foresee more organizations embracing open principles, processes, and culture next year. By doing so, organizations can nurture collaboration and empower employees to bring their best ideas and selves to work, which can help accelerate innovation and address changing customer and business requirements in an agile manner.
All in all, global events in 2020 have caused organizations to focus on near-term survival goals to support business continuity. As the business landscape continues to evolve, APAC organizations must prepare for the future by adopting flexible, agile and scalable technology solutions. Considering trends such as 5G and edge computing, hybrid cloud and automation can help organizations as they develop or update their digital transformation plans in 2021.
The latest generation of mobile network, 5G, is slowly making its way to the masses around the world. With that in mind, more major players in the mobile device market pumping out their own compatible devices. After introducing their 5G capable flagships, Samsung has announced another 5G device- the Galaxy A42 which is priced lower at $450 internationally and only MYR1,599 in Malaysia. It is equipped with all the innovation consumers have come to expect with the Galaxy A series, including a Quad Camera, Infinity-U Display and a long lasting battery.
The Galaxy A42 5G comes with the Snapdragon 750G which brings support for 5G on both mmWave and Sub6 bands according to Qualcomm. However, actual connectivity support has not been revealed by Samsung. The new smartphone comes with a 6.6-inch HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-U Display; which should provide ample viewing space for an immersive media experience. It also has a large 5,000mAh battery with support for Fast Charge which should keep you going for at least one full day. The sleek design of the phone is also ergonomic, with rounded edges to make it more comfortable to grip.
Here comes the catchy features of the Galaxy A42 5G, a powerful multi role Quad Camera that captures images and records videos with enhanced clarity. This consists of 48MP main camera supported by a an 8MP Ultra Wide Camera, a 5MP Macro Camera and a 5MP Depth Camera to capture more detail. Plus, the front-facing camera is a 20MP Selfie Camera, a great addition for selfie enthusiasts. Other Galaxy A42 5G specs include 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, expandable up to 1TB.
Pricing & Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A42 will be available in Prism Dot Black, Prism Dot White and Prism Dot Grey. It is available in Europe for €369 starting from 7 November and is already available in Malaysia via Samsung’s online store for MYR1,599.
4/6/8GB RAM 128GB Internal Storage MicroSD slot (up to 1TB)
Battery5
5,000mAh (typical) 15W Adaptive Fast Charging
Biometric Authentication
On-Screen Fingerprint
Colors6
Prism Dot Black Prism Dot White Prism Dot Gray
1 All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this table including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice. 2 Screen measured diagonally as a full rectangle without accounting for the rounded corners. Actual viewable area is less due to the rounded corners and the camera cut out. 3 Device weight may vary by region and market. 4 Available RAM may vary by country and region. 5 Typical value tested under third-party laboratory condition. Typical value is the estimated average value considering the deviation in battery capacity among the battery samples tested under IEC 61960 standard. Rated (minimum) capacity is 4,680mAh. Actual battery life may vary depending on network environment, usage patterns and other factors. All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this table including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice. 6 Availability may vary by country. 7The disclaimer for weight specifications has been revised on October 22, 2020 to provide more accurate information.
Buying a new gadget is always special. Somehow it feels like an achievement. I remember the first time I bought my smartphone a Samsung Galaxy S. That was in the turn of the millennium and it felt like a big achievement. It was a great feeling, a special feeling.
Then you unbox the device, a delicate mix of glass, and plastic, and metal these days. It felt like a trophy at that time. Then you have to set it up, which is a pain in the butt.
Setting up your device for the first time is always quite a painful process. It takes out plenty of your time. You have to transfer as much data as possible from one smartphone to the other. In the old days, some of the most important data on your device is your contacts. You can do that with a simple Google sign in now. But the rest of the device, not so easy.
Since I switch to a smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S, I have never turned back to switch to another manufacturer. Since I have switched to the Note series from the Samsung Galaxy Note2, I have never turned back. Now, the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra is here, and we have to get our hands on it.
First Set-Up
We did, and then we have to set it up like any other phone. In that regards, I switched out from a Samsung Galaxy Note9 to this Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra. Thank the heavens, we have the Smart Switch app that simplified data transfer from one phone the other, to a certain degree.
The first set-up of the device is quite painless. Since I am coming from another Samsung device, it is a simple turn on the Smart Switch app on the older device and get them to pair. When I switched out my Samsung Galaxy Note5 to a Samsung Galaxy Note9, I had to do the transfer via a wire. Now, the Samsung Galaxy Note20 does it wirelessly with the Samsung Galaxy Note9; neat.
Smart Switch App
The whole process is quite painless if you do it correctly and should be done within an hour depending on your smartphone. We did something wrong and had to reset twice to get the data transferred correctly. It took us about 40 minutes (when we got it right) for all the necessary data to reach the Galaxy Note20 Ultra.
It was worth it though, once done the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 looks exactly like the Note9 in terms interface. You get the same background you’ve set on your older device and even the same lock screen. Of course, you have to set up your fingerprint sensor and facial recognition again.
Things like your Google Account has already been signed into and you can access almost everything else that is singed in with Google account without having to sign in again. Of course, you have to sign into your Samsung account and Microsoft account again. Facebook is mostly already set up too if you transferred your data with Smart Switch app. Other things like Twitter and Instagram requires you to sign in again though.
If you want to, you can even transfer all the older photos that you took with your older device to the Samsung Galaxy Note20. That is what we did, and everything we had from the old Samsung Galaxy Note9 is now in the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra. We only wish that the app also helps us mimic all the app settings and accounts we had. We were quite annoyed to find that certain apps are not signed in and most of our games progress has been reset.
Naked and Vulnerable
The Samsung Galaxy Note20 review unit that we got does not come with a device case to protect it from the world. When we checked with Samsung’s rep, there is a chance that the retail unit might not come with an included case too. In that case, we do suggest that you procure one the moment you get your Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra unit though. You would want to slap a case on its back because of the huge camera bump.
The device is not particularly thick, which makes the camera bump a little bit of an odd stand out. It is half the thickness of the S Pen and definitely thicker than your 50cent coin. You might need to stack two coins and it will just clear the height of the bump.
It is not a small bump either. It has to fit a large 108-Megapixel sensor along with two supporting sensors at that. Just in case you do not remember, the camera sensors are now larger as well. The term ‘stick out like a sore thumb’ plays very well here.
Still, the bronze that was presented on the Samsung Galaxy Note20 is a unique touch to smartphones. While every other manufacturer is doing all they can to get their device’s backs to look like they came out of the North Pole, Samsung goes back to basic with their flagship productivity machine.
The bronze is not even in a glossy shade for style points. They didn’t really bother with creating fancy effects either. It is just a matte finish that even feels nice in your hands. The only thing about it is that it is quite slippery in your hands. That is why we advise you to buy a case too.
We do really like the matte texture to the back of the device though. While it is nothing new, it is quite refreshing at this time and it does look good to a certain degree. Still you might just cover it up with a case anyway.
Battery Concerns
Out-of-the-box, the Samsung Galaxy Note20 comes with about 50% in battery charge when you turn it on. That should be enough for you to do your set ups or the data transfer. Once set up is done, the battery is still good enough to play around with and to do all extra set ups. While that is good news, it might disguise its actual battery life though.
The Samsung Galaxy Note20 houses the biggest battery of all the Note series that came before. The thing is, we do feel like it has about the same battery life as the Samsung Galaxy Note9 though. It is not great, but it is not bad either. If you constantly keep your device on, the battery does dwindle a little bit. We suspect that the battery life is driven down by the 120Hz refresh rate.
Once you start to charge it though, the Samsung Galaxy Note20 will prompt you if you want to fast charge it if fast charging is available. That is quite clever as well. If you tend to leave your device charging overnight, you might want to consider turning that function off. That is also a very clever way to preserve your battery shelf life.
120Hz Goodness
Once you start working with the smartphone, you first notice how smooth everything is. The Samsung Galaxy Note20 turns on 120Hz refresh rate by default but limits your resolution at Full HD. If you want the full quad HD treatment, sorry. Still, 1080p is still plenty good looking on the AMOLED display, so we left it that way.
The smoothness of the interface is uncanny though, everything flows really nicely with each swipe. Even the Samsung Keyboard is made to take on 120Hz, the suggested words just flow along as you type, which was a nice touch.
Of course, the other benefit to the fast display is gaming. Unfortunately, this aspect will have to wait until we properly review the device though. Why? We have not even launched any of the games we have on the device.
S Pen – Mightier than the Pen
Okay, that was an exaggeration. It is technically a digital pen, and we maintain that the stylus experience still cannot beat an actual Pen experience. But this, in our first tests, does feel quite close to an actual pen.
No, not the actual pen on paper experience. Instead, you still know that you are writing on glass, a smooth surface. We can liken it more to using market pen on whiteboards. That said, this S Pen is unlike any other stylus experience we are used to. This is coming from a Samsung Galaxy Note9 user.
It is faster than before, they say at 9ms. That means that response is near instant with the S Pen. Before we can start though, S Pen has some setting up and tutorial to do when we first take it out of its housing at the bottom left this time (used to be bottom right).
The first set up is to teach us how to use the three gesture controls that is available for the S Pen. If you do everything correctly, you will get that done within 30 seconds and you are good to go. You have to set up your apps with gesture controls first though, if you want to use them. We have not.
Then we fired up the S Notes app that is native to Samsung devices. We started writing and comparing to older Samsung Galaxy Note devices like the Note10 and the Note9. We fell a little in love after that. The experience is much changed and different now. While it is only a small difference between in the speed, the difference can be clearly seen. Especially when you are scribbling quickly, the scribbles on the Samsung Galaxy Note20 appears to really follow the pen without any visible breaks. We suspect that the 120Hz play a small role in this.
First Impressions After 24 Hours
This, in our humble opinions, could be Samsung’s most important and significant Samsung Galaxy Note ever. They are realising it into a highly volatile and uncertain market. No, not because Samsung is doing badly or that the smartphone market is doing badly. Those are provided also because of the bigger global concern that is the COVID-19 pandemic at this time.
For most, it is business as usual like Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note20 is sort of a new normal too. It is bigger, faster, and cleverer than before. It is a statement to the world that the digital pen is ready to take on paper and pen for speed and practicality. It is a new way to work on things.
It does not have the same camera prowess that is the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 100x zoom. But it is a productivity beast when it comes to things that matter. You can use it as your alternative work device if you really want to. It refined the Samsung design philosophy a little bit with better ergonomics on the sides. The top and bottom are flat now, which does give it a slightly edgier and fresher look.
It is huge, even compared to the previous Samsung Galaxy Note devices. But it is never uncomfortable to hold (save for that big camera bump, we have nothing to complain about). It is even more powerful too, with bigger stamina tank. But it is not obnoxious in looks. It looks understated and we like that.
All in all, the experience is one that we have quite enjoyed. We have not gone into detail on the missing 3.5mm jack just yet. We have not even explored the Super-Fast Charging capabilities on the Note20 Ultra just yet. We also have not started talking about the big cameras yet.
HONOR had a big global launch just now. They launched a lot of things. One of the big things they launched is their very own high-end tablet, the HONOR ViewPad 6. It looks very much like the HUAWEI MatePad Pro save for certain details. For one, the back of the tablet has a slightly different finish. The camera layout and design is more reminiscent of the OPPO Find X2 as well, from the looks of it.
The insides are slightly different too. The HONOR ViewPad 6 packs the HiSilicon Kirin 985 instead of the newer HiSilicon 990 you find on the HUAWEI MatePad Pro. You still get 5G connectivity with the HONOR ViewPad 6 though. You still get WiFi 6+ in connectivity. You also get 2K in resolution from the 10.4 FullView display. They also tout powerful speakers that boasts great audio. If they are anything like the HUAWEI MatePad Pro, we can believe that.
We know that the HONOR ViewPad 6 will come with HONOR’s proprietary User Interface (UI) based on Android 10. While it comes with Android 10, it does not come with Google’s Play Store. Rather, you are getting their AppGallery ecosystem. From the teasers we see in the launch, there is also the HUAWEI equivalent to the M-Pen, the Magic Pen for the tablet.
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
However, they did not announce the price of the HONOR ViewPad 6. They say that the price will be revealed on the 13th of June 2020. It should be available in certain markets from June 2020 onward. There is no mention of whether Malaysia gets the device that same time with other markets. We are expecting the tablet to come to Malaysia at the same time or before other countries outside of China though.
The HUAWEI Mate 30 series shipped HUAWEI Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. It is still Android based, but it has grown since we first started seeing its full enforcement on the late 2019 flagship. It is now the third largest app marketplace in the world, the HUAWEI AppGallery. Local developers are totally behind the ecosystem too apparently. The ecosystem, as they say, will only continue to grow.
That same ecosystem is carried to the successor of what we thought was the best photography smartphone you could buy in 2019. We were recommending the device left and right, even when the HUAWEI Mate 30 was introduced. That was also because it retained the whole Google ecosystem that the Mate 30 lacked.
Would the HUAWEI P40 Pro be something that we recommend though, now that it does not pack Google’s trusty ecosystem? Or, would it be crippled by the less populated HMS? How will it stack against the other flagships? Let us find out.
Design
This year’s HUAWEI P40 and P40 Pro has some visually distinguishable differences. One of them is the display, which we are starting with. The Standard P40 comes with a smaller, flatter, plainer display. The Pro variant comes with a larger, more curvy display.
The curvier display, as they call an overflow display, is supposed to be curving in 4 directions this time instead of the two on the HUAWEI Mate 30 series. The overflow is not as much as the Mate 30 series though. And the top and bottom’s overflow is more like a glass overflow than a display overflow.
In that sense, personally at least, we are a little disappointed because we expected the display to be stretched a little bit on the top and bottom side of the device. Still, the display does not have a notch now. Rather, it is a punch hole that houses two cameras and some sensors in between the two cameras. While that is a bigger hole than before or any other punch-hole display, its placement is not that much more distracting.
Still, it is not a bad looking device. It is not as impressive looking as they made it look in the commercials though. If you ask me, I will say that the HUAWEI P40 Pro really looks like nearly any other modern smartphone that has launched today or in the past year.
If you like, you might be able to put it beside a HUAWEI P30 Pro from las year and you might be forgiven to think that they are the same devices. The HUAWEI P30 Pro is slightly bigger. That is also to say that there is nothing really wrong with the HUAWEI P40 Pro’s design language. Of course, there are some telling differences from last year. The camera’s arrangement is a little different, much bigger housing on the HUAWEI P40 Pro.
While it has a smaller screen compared to some of the more recent flagships sporting the ultra-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, we appreciate it. It is plenty easier to handle in one hand. It is more comfortable to hold in one hand as well for that matter. Plus, it takes less of a stretch if you only have one hand to work with.
The only thing we might have to lodge a complaint against is probably the oversized and over protruding camera module. While it is the trend of many smartphones now, also because of the larger sensor sizes you get on smartphones these days; it can be pretty annoying and haphazard if you use your smartphone without a case. We recommend the use of a case in this matter, but there are going to be people who will not want to. The bump, in that case, is a bummer.
Hardware
The most important bit of the smartphone though, despite their good looks is what comes inside the smartphone itself. The HUAWEI P40 Pro comes with HUAWEI’s top of the line HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G ready SoC. That also makes the HUAWEI P40 Pro a 5G device incidentally.
Non-Removable Li-Po 4,200 mAh Fast Charging 40W Fast Wireless Charging 27W Fast Reverse Wireless Charging 27W
Connectivity
Nano SIM Wi-Fi WLAN 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS A2DP Bluetooth 5.1 LE OTG Support USB 3.1 Type-C NFC Infrared
Camera (s)
REAR: Quad Leica Co-Engineered Lens: 50-Megapixel (f/1.9,2.44µm 1/1.28″ 23mm wide angle) 12-Megapixel (f/3.4, 125mm 5x optical telephoto) 40-Megapixel (f/1.8, 18mm ultra-wide angle) TOF 3D depth sensor OIS Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) HDR LED Flash 4K Video recording (60fps) FRONT: 32-Megapixel (f/2.2, 26mm (wide), ½.8″, 0.8µm) IR TOF 3D depth sensor 4K video recording (30fps)
Sensors
Accelerometer Proximity Fingerprint (in-display) Ambient Light Gyroscope Face Unlock (Infrared) Compass Colour Temperature
User Interface
As mentioned earlier, the first thing you have to know before getting this device is that it does not come with the GMS ecosystem. It only comes with HUAWEI’s proprietary HMS. That does not mean that the HUAWEI smartphone is not an Android smartphone though. The EMUI 10 that this packs is still based on Google’s Android 10 Operating system. This is an important note.
While there will be ways for you to port GMS with Google’s framework and what not into HUAWEI’s latest flagship, we are not going to do that as of yet and review the device as it is, without Google Play Services. Why? While it is possible to port Google’s framework into the device, it might take some technical know-how and a little bit of time to research. So, we are going to just work with HMS for now.
In some sense also, we have all the apps that we have used before on the HUAWEI P40 Pro at this time. Even Telegram and WhatsApp can be installed. Provided, we were using Phone Clone to clone one of the other devices I use. There were only one or two apps that cannot be installed. At this time then, I have HUAWEI P40 Pro that is ready to rock and roll as the HUAWEI Mate 20X that this cloned from.
EMUI 10.1
If you have used HUAWEI devices before, or almost any other China based manufacturer’s smartphones before, you will be quite familiar with navigating the device. Unlike OPPO who has decided to include the choice of using app drawers in their latest Android 10 based ColorOS 6, HUAWEI has kept to that minimal design with no app drawers. You do not get a choice with the EMUI overlay either.
To get the app drawer, you need to install a completely different overlay, which is not available through AppGallery just yet. You can sideload them still though. Just be careful where you get your apps from.
To be fair, nothing much has changed with the User Interface (UI) of EMUI 10 as well. You still can get down to using folders to work with your apps and what not. There is, of course, the dark mode that you can switch on very easily in the settings to make everything look a little more stunning. We personally like dark mode also because it consumes less battery power while being less straining to your eyes.
Not everything works though. We tried launching Instagram to no avail. It opens the first screen to log in and just shuts off the whole app with no warning. I did not even have time to get the keyboard out to type. There are probably several other apps that might not work properly. We have not tried.
Netflix also did not get transferred on to the new device though. We suspect that the exclusion is due to the fact that Netflix comes as a pre-installed app now on most Android devices. That is a small setback. We did not bother trying to install it though. As we mentioned earlier, we are trying to review the device as it is.
Phone Clone
This app, while made for HUAWEI devices, is available on any other Android devices too. While if you install it on other devices, the app is only designed to extract information from that device to a HUAWEI device. That also means you can move from other Android devices into the HUAWEI ecosystem quite comfortably and not lose any of your essential apps.
The HUAWEI P40 Pro is still an Android device anyway, which also means any Android app that you have used can be loaded on the HUAWEI P40 Pro. Albeit, without proper and actual support from Google or its developers. Of course, there are some Google Apps that would be missing too, Apps like YouTube was not transferred, for example.
Still, I managed to get the Phone Clone app to run and transferred the whole of my HUAWEI Mate 20X, save for the photos, to the HUAWEI P40 Pro within 20minutes. That easily solves one of the biggest worries we had with the HMS ecosystem for now. The only concern now is; how do we update our apps.
AppGallery
Whenever you come to a smartphone that has no part in the Google or Apple ecosystem, you are inevitably compare the device and its app ecosystem to the two largest and most popular platforms on earth. We will try to make as little comparison as possible, but that does not mean that we can completely omit either app ecosystems. This is an Android device after all.
We have started our own editorial on the HUAWEI Mobile Services and AppGallery pairing of an ecosystem. We also believed that HUAWEI’s app ecosystem, the AppGallery, given time will also grow to a sizeable ecosystem. You may not get as large ecosystem as Google’s at the foreseeable future. The HUAWEI AppGallery though, is one of the fastest growing ecosystems that we have seen so far. While the matter of the U.S. vs HUAWEI dispute was a big driving force toward that growth, you cannot take away the credits that was due to HUAWEI.
The AppGallery is the third largest app platform in the current known world. Considering Samsung’s own Galaxy app store could not even lift a finger against Google’s still impressive Play Store, that is already quite a feat. In Malaysia at least, you still have access to the apps that mostly matter. While you cannot get Facebook and WhatsApp officially on the AppGallery. HUAWEI’s AppGallery will take you to a secure site to get their apk and get the app working on your smartphone.
There is something they also call QuickApps. It is a section of the AppGallery where you get access to apps, but you are not technically installing anything on your smartphone if you choose so. I say if you choose so because they will ask you about having a shortcut on your home page. You still technically do not have the app installed on the device. You access the app through AppGallery’s backend systems and use the app as it is. You just have to make sure you are connected to the internet via your 4G LTE connection or WiFi.
There are even several popular e-wallet apps in the AppGallery now for Malaysia, which is great news. If not, you still can get apk files and upload them into your HUAWEI P40 Pro and make it work. It is still an Android device after all.
HUAWEI Share
We currently do not really have a lot of HUAWEI devices to test with. The closest thing we could use to get this feature to work properly is the HUAWEI MatePad Pro, which is released in Malaysia the same time this device does.
HUAWEI Share, when it was introduced, was one of those features that we gave lot of praises to. Like Apple’s Airdrop, it is basically a drag and drop feature between your smartphone and PC or whatever devices you have with you. The only sad thing is that it only works on HUAWEI’s devices for now.
The HUAWEI Share that we see on the newer HUAWEI P40 Pro is a large improvement over the HUAWEI P30’s that we saw before though. It is still a HUAWEI-only feature. Which means if you want it to work with your PC, you need to get a HUAWEI notebook PC to get it to work. Or get a HUAWEI MatePad Pro for that reason.
It still has that one touch file hopping system that we were getting used to on the HUAWEI P30 Pro and MateBook combination. Additionally, the new HUAWEI Share allows you to completely control your smartphone from your PC or MatePad Pro tablet. You can truly just drag and drop your files from smartphone to PC or tablet, and vice versa. Very much like what you might have seen the Samsung tablets and smartphones does with their very own Samsung Flow.
That added convenience is a big bonus to us, since we do not need to connect the smartphones via cables to your PC or tablet; provided it is a HUAWEI device. Given, on a wireless connection, there may be some stutters and delays. While annoying, they are not enough to drive you away from using the device though.
90Hz Smoothness
Yes, yes, yes, there are already flagships in the market with 120Hz displays. Look how much that is though. The OPPO Find X2, for example, starts at MYR 3,999. This one, currently at least, tops out at MYR 3,899. It is not that much less expensive, I admit. But You get quite a lot with HUAWEI as well.
You still get 90Hz at a little more than Full HD on the HUAWEI P40 Pro. HUAWEI says that the 120Hz display will be a little bit of battery drainer, which is true. That is why they opted for 90Hz for the sake of battery life. That is good news for you who needs your devices to stay on for longer periods.
Look at it this way too, your eyes can hardly tell the difference between 90Hz and 120Hz technically. While you can claim that 120Hz is smoother, you cannot really tell at a normal visual inspection. The 90Hz then is still ultra-smooth and snappy.
In our opinions the 90Hz is one of the biggest changes in terms of the UI experience. While the layout and design of the UI is still the same, the 90Hz experience makes it seem plenty smoother and faster than before. No, unlike some of the devices in the market, the HUAWEI P40 Pro does not include ultra-fast touch response. That does not matter that much in normal daily use though.
Performance
Of course, with a HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G SoC, the HUAWEI P40 Pro really performs like a champion. It is ultra-smooth and opening apps do not take too long. Compared to other iterations of Android based systems too, it seems to be very stable. What I mean is that I have not encountered any lags or slow down anywhere on the device. On other Android devices that I have reviewed so far, there is always one or two lags and slow downs from time to time. They are far and few in between, but it does happen.
Benchmarks
Usually, we are not too bothered with Benchmarks because we care more about how the devices feel in your hands than what numbers can tell you. Still, benchmarks do communicate certain things like how much processes it can handle at a given time, how much its GPU can render at a single point. It is sort of a stress test.
In this case though, HMS does not provide any other common benchmark than Antutu. Antutu is also now excluded from the Google Play Store. In that case, we have to start sideloading the apps.
There is one thing to mention though, the dual core AI on this chip is larger than any other SoC in the market. In that sense, this will perform better than any other chip in terms of AI benchmarks.
Call Quality and Connectivity
Since the HUAWEI P40 Pro comes with all the bells and whistles of a modern smartphones, the expectation is that the phone calls work as perfectly as it can. In that case, it does. We only had the chance to test this in our home though. We used a Maxis SIM card and then a YES 4G SIM card. Both, on other devices work perfectly fine with full bars of signal.
The same can be said on the HUAWEI P40 Pro too. That also means that there is nothing really to shout about. 4G LTE connectivity at home is mostly stable on the device. If there are interruptions, it is mostly the provider’s problem.
Still, the HUAWEI P40 Pro comes with an antenna so advanced we cannot even exploit its full potential yet. It has a 5G antenna built in thanks to the HUAWEI Kirin 990. We do not have a 5G SIM card at home, we cannot buy it yet in Malaysia. It is nice to know that we are futureproofed with this device though.
5G Switch
Using 5G’s faster and more advanced capacity of course takes up some power. There is a reason why Samsung fitted their 5G capable device with a larger battery. There is also a reason why there is only one device in their line-up that supports 5G connectivity. The HUAWEI P40 series though, all of them comes with 5G capability.
That may be bad news to the battery, since we are still on 4G connectivity. That also means that if you leave the 5G antenna on, you are just wasting precious battery life for nothing. That is why HUAWEI allows you to turn the 5G antenna on and off within the quick settings menu. If you have a 5G SIM card and you need the speed, you can turn it on. When you do not need the 5G capacity, 4G speeds are usually fast enough, and you can turn the antenna off. While ingenious, it is a feature we can really appreciate going into the future.
Gaming
While we are gamers, it is important for us to say that we do not play that many mobile games. To us, games on mobile are mostly very casual and simple. At this point we play mostly Brawl Stars. Brawl Stars is not available on AppGallery, do keep that in mind. We were able to play because of Phone Clone.
In that, we believe that most games are playable by any Android device these days. The only difference is the graphic’s quality. In that, PUBG Mobile is probably the best way to tell how powerful your device is. Unfortunately, AppGallery does not have PUBG Mobile within its galleries.
We did, however have PUBG installed – thanks to Phone Clone. Once we logged into our PUBG account, we are gold. We can set our graphics settings to Ultra and HDR without issue.
In both games, the only way to describe the experience was smooth gaming. The graphics on both games are very smooth. Colours pop on Brawl Stars. It is a colourful game to begin with. On PUBG, the colours are great too, making spotting enemies slightly easier through the small-ish display.
The placement of the camera holes, while quite big, is never really an issue. At least for me, the camera hole is under my thumbs anyway while playing these games without a separate controller.
Still, it is disappointing to find that there are no stereo speakers on the HUAWEI P40 Pro. We kind of expect flagships to come with stereo speakers now. Not to say that the single speakers are bad though, it is still good and crisp. Stereo audio would help with PUBG at least to place your enemies slightly more accurately. You cannot use your old 3.5mm jack earphones either here. It is a USB Type-C port only. That also means you either can use your included earphones or buy a new one.
Security
The HUAWEI P40 Pro comes with the standard fingerprint sensors, PIN, or facial recognition screen locks. The fingerprint sensor is under the display of course, like most flagships now. You can have all of the security measures in place though. Of course, PIN is always required to set your facial recognition or fingerprint.
The facial recognition is fast, like lightning fast. You just bring it in front of your face, and as long as it is your face that is registered, it unlocks without a fuss or wait. There are several sensors within the front facing module that supposedly makes facial recognition more accurate and available in low-light conditions. In low-light conditions, it does work as expected. In no-light condition, do not even try; Just use your fingers.
Battery Life
HUAWEI has been the champion in a smartphone’s battery life when it comes to flagships. Take the HUAWEI P30 that we reviewed last year for example. On standby, we had the device lasting us two days before needing a charge. A full day of regular use is not an issue on a single charge.
With our devices being a core part of our lives including our work, being away from a charge point is more productivity for us. That is true for the HUAWEI P30, and that remains true for the HUAWEI P40 Pro.
At home, I rarely touch my smartphones other than using them for social media, reply some WhatsApp and Telegram chats. I seldom game on my smartphone too. Currently I have my PC and Console set-up at home. So why would I play mobile games all that much?
We managed to get Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, PUBG Mobile, and Brawl Stars working on the HUAWEI P40 Pro. Those are the apps we use most on the HUAWEI P40 Pro on a regular day. We are also on WiFi on a 24-hour basis now since we are all at home due to the COVID-19 situation. In that, we get more than a day’s worth of battery life and a little bit more for the next day.
Due to the conditions, you have to take our experience with the battery with a pinch of salt though. Battery life can be affected by plenty of things at home. Distance to your WiFi source is also a factor, amazingly. The closer you are to your source, the less power the antenna consumes. Temperatures at home can also affect it. Too cold or too warm and your device consumes more power than it should.
Display
To be exact, the “overflow” display on the HUAWEI P40 Pro is a 6.59-inch that pushes 1,200 x 2,640 pixels unit. It is an OLED display which are pretty much known for its great contrast and vivid colours. No, it is not a Full HD display, it is more than that.
It is not a QHD display as well, not quite. It is somewhere in between Full HD and QHD. It has HDR10 certification and is refreshing at 90Hz, as mentioned earlier.
While you get quite a weird combination in its resolution, there is no denying that anything you put on the display looks sharp. At a glance, you might not be able to tell the difference between a Full HD display of the same size, but you might appreciate the extra pixels in gaming or watching 4K resolution movies on the device. The HDR10 certification does not hurt too.
No, you are not going to be able to get the full 4K resolution when you are watching the movie, but that also means that your Netflix movies or even downloaded movies can take advantage of the higher resolution. That also means you get better colour gradients and contrasts. Oh yes, Netflix is not on AppGallery. We had to sideload Amazon Prime Video too, even YouTube.
HUAWEI has their own HUAWEI Video App though; it works a little bit like Netflix but only on HMS devices exclusively at this point. There are plenty of contents in there too, all of them not found Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. They are mostly Chinese or Cantonese language shows though. It is also a subscription-based service. Although we do not know the pricing structure just yet. It is a new service after all. If you pre-ordered your HUAWEI P40 Pro, you get the service for free for the next three months so you can binge watch all your Chinese and Hong Kong drama series at more than Full HD resolution.
Cameras
Probably the most significant overhaul in the HUAWEI P40 Pro is the camera itself. It is still the familiar, in-house developed RYYB sensor. Supposedly, RYYB sensors are more light sensitive. In a sense they can absorb more light than the usual RGGB sensors. Colours are also supposed to be more neutral with RYYB sensors.
We are not going into the technicalities of the sensors, because that is a whole other topic for another day. The HUAWEI P40 Pro comes with a 50-Megapixel main sensor that is supported by three other lenses and a colour temperature sensor. That is one less lens than the highly anticipated HUAWEI P40 Pro+.
Still, the results show how powerful the RYYB sensor is on the HUAWEI P30 Pro. It really can see in the dark much better than other competing smartphones. With the HUAWEI P40 Pro, it has an even bigger sensor than before. That also means that it should theoretically ‘see’ better.
There are more function additions here too. You have an upgraded Timelapse mode, and you also have dual view camera mode to monitor your shots in the main camera and zoom lenses. Its AI is more powerful than ever too, recognising more scenes than before. What is amazing though is that the AI is clever enough to remove reflections and even other people that you do not want in the photo. No more photobombing, and no more sticking your smartphone to the glass to get a photo of what is on the other side of the glass.
The results speak for themselves. The HUAWEI P40 Pro is on the top of the ranking board of DX0Mark. While that may just be numbers and may not mean anything; pick up the HUAWEI P40 Pro and see the difference yourselves.
The HUAWEI P40 Pro’s camera is nothing short of amazing. While you are going to end up using photos taken by the camera in Social Media most of the time, the photos can be more than that. Of course, if you push your photos into JPG format, you not only save space, but you compress the image quality too.
For that size though, details are quite amazing still. Everything is quite sharp, and crisp. Of course, the moment you zoom all the way in at 50x, you get an image that is barely useable. You still can make out some details though, weirdly and amazingly. Use them in their normal functions though, images are quite amazing with very accurate colours, they were not kidding.
Of course, you need to see it to believe it. The gallery below are photos taken via the HUAWEI P40’s various cameras. Because of the MCO, we did not have much to begin with, so do bear with our household items, and food.
Photo Gallery
The HUAWEI P40 – A Very Difficult Choice
No doubt, the HUAWEI P40 Pro is a very powerful device. The HUAWEI Kirin 990 5G SoC is, in our humble opinions, what plenty of flagship class SoC should be. It has the right idea and all the right power numbers at the right places. That also translates into the HUAWEI P40 Pro as a product.
It has a better camera than most smartphones you can find on the shelves today. Statistically, you are getting the best sort of smartphone camera money can buy. In that case, we can see ourselves using the HUAWEI P40 Pro as our main photoshoot and video driver in some cases. It really does work well in our work environment.
While it only packs 90Hz out of the box, it is still a potent smartphone in total. You still can enjoy Netflix movies – if you can get Netflix installed, and Prime Video for that matter with its brilliant display. If you can get YouTube installed, you can even enjoy that at 90Hz, and it looks good. The only bummer here is the single speaker situated where your palm would land on when you view your device horizontally.
I personally have some things to protest about as well when it comes to its MYR 3,899 price tag. For starters, it is not what you would call ‘cheap’. It is a very premium price tag for a premium smartphone. For that though, you are not getting the beautifully sculpted overflow display that you see on the HUAWEI Mate 30 series. You are getting physical buttons, which is nice; no doubt, but we expected the HUAWEI P40 Pro to move away from buttons like the HUAWEI Mate is already doing, at the price point. Topping up MYR 100 also gives you an OPPO Find X2, which is a formidable device too with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865, 5G capability, a larger, pixel dense 120Hz display.
The biggest push-away though is the lack of Google Mobile Services. Moving away from something that we have been used to for the past 10 years of smartphones is a big ask. While you can transfer most of your Android apps on your older Android device to the HUAWEI P40 Pro, we found that some apps do not actually work. Instagram for example. We also do not have Netflix or YouTube on the device, which can be a little bit of a pain. Still, you can get them installed from third party sources.
To be fair, this is not HUAWEI’s fault. We are also still very thankful that HUAWEI still keeps their devices faithfully on Android. The AppGallery too will grow even bigger than what it is today. No doubt, plenty of the popular Android apps will be ported to AppGallery somehow. As we speak too, HUAWEI is suggesting that Google puts forth their Google Play Store and Mobile Services as a downloadable app on their AppGallery to solve the app issue. We really hope that happens somehow.
We really liked the HUAWEI P40 Pro for what its worth. While MYR 3,899 is a big ask, for a smartphone that some might regard as a glorified paperweight, we feel that there is much more to this device than just its lack of Google Mobile Services though. We can see the appeal, that is what we are saying. What we cannot see for the HUAWEI P40 Pro though is recommending our friends to buy it without giving other Android alternatives. Even you know that there are really good smartphones at the same price point out there.
After months in the rumour mill as the OPPO Reno3 Youth, it looks like the OPPO Find X2 Lite is now official. The Find X2 Lite has been launched in Portugal and should see its way to other markets pretty soon.
The Find X2 Lite comes with a smaller 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a a dew drop notch for the selfie camera. The display has a Full HD+ resolution of 1080×2400 pixels. It has dual SIM capabilities and will be able to support 5G connectivity thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor. This will be supported by 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
On the camera front, the selfie camera of the Find X2 Lite is a 32-megapixel sensor with an f/2.0 aperture. The main camera is a quad camera setup with a 48-megapixel main sensor with an f/1.7 aperture. This is complemented with an 8-megapixel ultrawide sensor, 2-megapixel monochrome sensor and an additional 2-megapixel depth sensor. The main camera supports 4K UHD recording and has gyro electronic image stabilisation (EIS).
It’s powered by a 4,025mAh battery with support for VOOC 4.0 Fast Charging. It has support for Bluetooth 5.0 LE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax (WiFi 6) and 4G LTE connectivity.
Pricing & Availability
The OPPO Find X2 Lite will be retailing for EUR€499 (USD$542/MYR2,370.10). It will be available in Moonlight Black and Pearl White.
The device isn’t available for pre-order just yet in Portugal but OPPO Portugal has already opened registration of interest for the country. No word if the device will see a release elsewhere either.
