Huawei P40 and P40 Pro: Release date, rumours and specs

Huawei has been in the press a lot in 2019. The company delivered some excellent smartphones in the P30 at the beginning of the year, followed by the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro in the latter part of the year.

Sadly though, as great as the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro are, they were the first devices to be affected by the US trade war on China, launching without access to Google's apps.

What does that mean for the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro? Will they still launch and what can we expect from them if they do? Here's everything we know about the P40 and P40 Pro.

Huawei P40 release date and price

• Early Q1 launch rumoured
• Price upwards of £650

The Huawei P30 series was unveiled on 26 March in Paris, with pre-orders starting immediately after the event. The P20 series launched in March 2018. That would suggest that March is the logical time for launch, however rumours suggest that Huawei might be looking to move things forward and launch earlier in the year. There's no confirmation yet, but with ongoing problems with the US trade ban, we wouldn't be surprised if Huawei doubled-down on a Chinese launch.

In terms of pricing, the P30 starts at £699, while the P30 Pro starts at £899. We wouldn't be surprised to see the P40 and P40 Pro around the same prices as their predecessors, if not a little more - if it gets a European launch.

Design

• Punch hole front camera
• Metal and glass designs
• Horizon Display

The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro both feature glass and metal sandwich designs, with vertical rear camera systems and waterdrop notches at the top of their displays.

There's been little to go on in terms of design, but rumours of a punch hole front camera - as recently seen on the new Huawei Nova 6 - might make an appearance. This would get rid of the notch. 

On the rear, there's growing suspicion that Huawei will have a larger camera housing - rather than hiding the cameras, it might make things more obvious.

It's also pretty certain that Huawei will make use of its Horizon Display, wrapping right over the edge of the phone.

Display

• OLED, 120Hz
• In-display fingerprint sensors
• Higher resolutions

The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro both have a Full HD+ resolution across their OLED displays. Early rumours suggest that the P30 Pro might move to 2K, but the bigger news might be that a 120Hz refresh rate is going to be adopted. This will improve the smoothness of scrolling, if it's true.

The Mate 30 Pro introduced what Huawei calls a 'Horizon Display' and we're expecting to see this type of display appear on the P40 Pro too. We also expect both to offer an optical under-display fingerprint sensor.

Cameras

• Leica system
• 64MP main camera
• Five camera system

The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are some of the best smartphone cameras on the market. It's highly likely that the P40 and P40 Pro will place a big focus on their camera capabilities. 

So far we've only had some sketchy rumours about what the P40 Pro might offer. That includes the Sony IMX686, a brand new 64-megapixel sensor, combined with a periscope telephoto camera, wide-angle camera, macro camera and a time of flight sensor. That's in addition to the dual front cameras.

There's little to verify this camera system, however, but it sounds like the sort of move that we'd expect from Huawei.

Hardware specifications

• Kirin 990
• Reverse wireless charging
• Fast charging

Huawei manufactures its own chips so the P40 and P40 Pro will no doubt run on the latest Kirin processor - the Kirin 990 - which is the same as Huawei uses in its Mate 30. We'd expect it to be available as 4G and 5G.

We expect to see super fast wired charging on the P40 Pro, with rumours that Huawei has a new 50W system. We also expect to see reverse wireless charging.

The battery is said to be 5500mAh, but to use graphene to make allow a smaller physical battery with a larger capacity. There's little to corroborate this, so take this particular rumour with a pinch of salt.

Software: Google apps?

It's the million dollar question: will the P40 and P40 Pro offer Google apps and services? At the moment, we expect not.

It's possible the Google ban resulting from the US-China trade war might have sorted itself out by 2020. So while we won't rule out the possibility of the P40 and P40 Pro offering Google apps just yet, we suspect it is more likely they will offer the same software experience as the Mate 30 series.

At the moment, it's safe to say the P40 will launch on Android 10 with EMUI 10, but that's as far as we can go.

P40 and P40 Pro rumours: What's happened so far?

You'll find any rumours surrounding the P40 and P40 Pro here as and when they appear.

11 December 2019: Purported image of Huawei P40 shows significant camera bump

An image claiming to be of a Huawei P40 shows a big area where the cameras might sit - but also that the design isn't changing hugely from the P30 Pro.

08 December 2019: Huawei P40 Pro specs appear, but take with a pinch of salt

A set of comprehensive set of specs for the Huawei P40 Pro have appeared on Twitter, but from a source that's not well established in leaks, so needs to be treated with caution. Many of the assumptions make logical sense, but there's little to corroborate the facts.

14 November 2019: Huawei might launch the P40 and P40 Pro earlier in 2020

A report from The Information suggests that Huawei might look to launch the P40 and P40 Pro earlier in 2020. Previous devices have been launched in March, but the company might bring things forward. This might be to appeal to Chinese buyers.

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