That’s more than impressive especially for the Y60. The Nova Y60 uses a Mediatek MT6765 chipset with an octa-core processor. All that power is able to bring things like Bluetooth 5.1 and 2.4GHz support, for maximum compatibility with carrier’s 4G networks.

While the Nova 8 won’t have 5G, you get features like quad rear cameras; 64 MP Main Camera (f/1.9 aperture), 8 MP Ultra-Wide Angle Camera (f/2.4 aperture), 2 MP Depth Camera (f/2.4 aperture) and 2 MP Macro Camera (f/2.4 aperture). There’s also a fancy 90Hz curved OLED screen technology, 66W super fast charging with a stylish design to match. It is powered by the Huawei Kirin 820E processor.

The aesthetics continue on the back. The Nova 8 has a shimmering colour scheme dubbed Blush Gold.

Both the Huawei Nova 8 and Y60 are available for pre-order and will start shipping from 30 August and 31st August respectively. The Huawei Nova 8 is priced at R10 999 while the Huawei Nova Y60 is set at R3099. Still, its worth mentioning that these devices do not come packed with Google Mobile Services.

With that, Huawei may have stumbled on the formula that could make its new FreeBuds 4i the cream of the TWS earbuds crop.

It’s interesting that Huawei decided to call it the FreeBuds 4i, suggesting that it’s a minor refresh of last year’s FreeBuds 3i. That is pretty hard to believe considering how little different the designs of the buds and even the case are. To some extent, Huawei is half-moving away from the AirPods design, keeping the same stem-based structure but changing the buds themselves.

Inside, however, there admittedly some similar traits, specifically the presence of active noise cancellation or ANC. Such a feature is notably absent from other earbuds but even the new Samsung Galaxy Buds+ doesn’t have it at all. It also uses a three-mic system to pick up your voice from the outside as well as inside your ear to enhance the quality as needed.

The Huawei FreeBuds 4i is equipped with a 10mm Dynamic driver, much smaller than its predecessors 14mm. Touch controls easily let you tap your way through your music or calls and a 5.5-hour battery life, up to 14.5 hours with the case, promises little downtime for those activities. And if you have a Huawei phone, pairing and connecting are even more seamless.

Despite all those features, the Huawei FreeBuds 4i is selling for R1 499. It might be a small saving from the Galaxy Buds+’s R1 999 but, considering the latter doesn’t even have ANC, the gap between the two is almost too stark.

The Mate 40 Pro is available in black and white locally, while other countries get an additional Mystic Silver finish that shimmers according to the angle of the light.

Design only takes you so far, of course, so the Mate 40 Series taps Huawei’s latest silicon inside. That’s the Kirin 9000 Series, a 5nm 5G SoC that the company says uses the most powerful GPU in any of its phones to-date. Alongside the CPU, which runs at up to 3.13 GHz, there’s a 24-core Mali-G78 GPU. A 3-core NPU – with two big cores and a more frugal tiny core – is also included.

Altogether they power the 6.76-inch display on the phone. Huawei isn’t using a 120Hz panel, topping out at 90Hz instead, though there’s a 240Hz touch sampling rate.

As for the cameras, that’s arguably the topic Huawei fans have been most excited about. There’s a whole host of sensors on the back, with the Mate 40 Pro having a 50-megapixel wide camera (f/1.9 with OIS), a 20-megapixel ultra-wide (f/2.4), an 8-megapixel 10x periscope lens (f/4.4 with OIS), a 12-megapixel 3x telephoto (f/2.4 with OIS), and a ToF camera for depth sensing. Altogether, Huawei says, you’ll get a maximum 17x optical zoom range.

For power, meanwhile, there’s the latest version of Huawei SuperCharge. That supports up to 66W of power, and can handle extreme low-temperatures too.

Cut out of the official Google Android apps – and the Play store – you’ll find that Huawei is still pushing its own EMUI platform. EMUI 11 delivers things like hand gestures – such as swiping up or down in front of the phone to scroll, left or right to flip through galleries, or pressing inward to answer calls or play/pause music – and split-screen views with floating windows for multitasking. There’s that 1080p MeeTime video calling app, its own Petal Search and Petal Maps app, and a virtual assistant called Celia that, according to Huawei’s Akhram Mohamed, is now supported in 15 countries.

The Mate 40 Pro will set you back R19 999 at launch which includes the Huawei Freebuds 4i and Huawei Wireless charger.

When thinking of value, we generally look at a high price tag or high end products and brands. Huawei has been defying that notion for quite a while now and its latest offering is a strong witness to the fact that value can come at a lower price.

The Huawei Y8p is such a pleasure, a true underdog that delivers on so many levels. As soon as we unpack it, we are welcomed by its smooth display and the phone itself is very light, weighing in at 163g with a well sized  6.3 inch OLED display and above grade 1080 x 2400 pixel resolution.

We have the crystal coloured version of the phone, which is a trippy crystal blue that has a slight reflection in the light. Although this has a glossy feel, it can come across quite cheap when compared to other phones in the market. This is something we can overlook considering the price range of this great performer.

Inserting the sim is quite simple and the Y8p has up to 4G capabilities, which isn’t a train smash given that 5G is progressively being rolled out in Mzansi and is not an urgent need. We also notice that the phone has a non-removable 4000 mAh lithium battery, which is a positive  feature from a durability and performance perspective. The Y8p also charges quite quickly, taking just over 50mins to fully charge, lasting us an impressive 28-32 hours of full usage on a single charge.

With a standard storage of 128g, there is a lot of room for all our apps, videos and images, which have superb clarity thanks to the 48MP back camera with  8000 x 6000 pixel autofocus optical image stabilization. The 16MP front camera also makes sure our selfies are as clear as day. It’s important to note that this (the 16MP) is a higher MP level than that of the iPhone 11 which comes in at 14MP.

The phone’s performance is higher than the standard for its price range and we can swiftly move through and within apps which is as a result of the Octa-core, Quad-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53 processor. Yes, we know that’s quite a mouthful, it just means that the phone really fast in geek-talk, and you don’t experience lag when taking videos, switching through apps or scrolling through your Instagram whilst speaking to your mate on a phone call.

There are a lot more impressive specs that we can share, but from a practical perspective, the phone feels great, has all the standard features that come with a high end smartphone and also performs great. It’s so light that it has a forget-me-risk (yes, we just made that up), it also fits snuggly in your pocket or handbag.

Summary:

The High-wei:

• Well priced at R4999;
• Lightweight – 163g;
• Great Camera –  48MP back camera and 16MP front camera;
• FM Radio

The Low-wei: 

• Limited colour options – only comes in black and crystal;
• No wireless charging;
• Plastic elements may make the phone age faster than higher value models.

It’s fair to say you’d be hard pressed to find a worthy contender for the Huawei Y8p from a price and performance perspective. A great buy for anyone really, the Y8p is a value champ!

But in South Africa, Huawei Pay is launching completely different. It won’t be working on its own standalone structure, instead it will integrate with the Zapper platform.

According to Huawei, with Huawei Pay, users add their bank cards to the app and then pay in stores simply by scanning the Zapper QR Payment Code on the bill when they check out. All local debit and credit cards from all local banks are supported.

When it comes to security, every transaction has to be authenticated by your passcode or fingerprint and Huawei Pay receives the same fraud protection as you get on your bank cards. In addition, Huawei Pay doesn’t use your bank card number to handle transactions, it isn’t stored on your device or on Huawei Pay servers, and is not shared with merchants. Your information is also kept private, as Huawei does not keep the transaction details.

To access Huawei Pay, users have to download the Huawei Wallet.

Huawei will probably find no shortage of users for these apps and services, at least in China where Google doesn’t have a foothold. Elsewhere, however, not only will these Huawei products pale in comparison, they won’t really address the root cause of its problems with the US government, the accusations of state-sponsored espionage which could be made even easier by using Huawei’s own Google and Microsoft alternatives.

Most of that has been due to the Huawei Watch GT’s battery life, a trait that the newly launched Huawei Watch GT 2e continues.

As the name might suggest, the Huawei Watch GT 2e is a rather small incremental update to the company’s Watch GT 2. The latter was launched in the second half of 2019 so there might not have been much time to make significant changes in time for the Huawei P40. Fortunately, it still has the same features that made the older smartwatch a hit.

Inside, the Watch GT 2e smartwatch is powered by Huawei’s first self-developed wearable chipset, the Kirin A1. The chip provides for low-power computing and long-lasting battery life for workout tracking, heart rate detection, sleep monitoring and other features.

Similar to its bigger sibling, the Watch GT 2e smartwatch supports smart tracking for more than 100 sports, including 15 professional sport modes, eight of which are outdoor sports (running, walking, climbing, hiking, cross-country running, cycling, open water swimming and triathlon), while the other seven are indoor sports (walking, running, cycling, swimming in a pool, free training, elliptical machine and rowing machine).

While the battery life is advertised to last for 14 days. That’s thanks to a combination of a large 455 mAh battery, an energy-saving HiSilicon Hi1132 chip, and Huawei’s custom smartwatch OS.

In terms of other specs, it still has a large 1.39-inch 454×454 screen in an equally large 46mm body. There’s 4 GB of storage inside for your songs which you can play on paired headsets via Bluetooth 5.1. It seems to have just the basics and a bit more when it comes to tracking, including GPS, step, sleep, heart rhythm and blood oxygen levels. The latter can help users improve their health by learning more about their SpO2 status.

The Huawei GT 2e will set you back R3 499.

But does the Huawei P40 Pro really live up to the hype that Huawei and first reviewers have built up?

We give it a good TWFLD test to see, hear, and feel how Huawei’s greatest stands against Samsung’s and Apple’s champions.

The Design and Display

Despite the gorgeous gradients, the Huawei P40 Pro might not look all that special. Make no mistake, its use of monochrome colours are eye-catching and tasteful and even give it an ultra-premium feel, but that is now the case with many smartphones these days, even across tiers. That, however, might be a point in favour of Huawei.

It didn’t change a winning formula simply for the sake of changing it. Consumers may have gotten tired of all the disruptive changes in smartphone design that has happened in the past two to three years. In a sense, the Huawei P40 Pro settles down on a now familiar design while still offering a bit of flair with a new “Nanotech Ceramic” body that the company claims has sapphire-like toughness. At the same time, Huawei applied a new refractive matte finish. That helps avoid fingerprints and smudges. Buyers in Mzansi will appreciate that the company threw in a clear plastic case in the box.

That body requires five days of curing, Huawei said earlier this year, and is then precision milled for a diamond-like sheen. Upon close inspection I noticed that even the camera bulge on the back has been given etched lines, which are designed to catch and reflect light for a more visually pleasing device.

The display, on the other hand, is as eye-catching as the rear. Yes, it does have bright colours, almost no bezels, and an almost forgettable camera cut-out. But, then again, many phones sport that design these days. The P40 Pro’s slight advantage is that its left and right sides now curve as well, further reducing the visual impact of borders. Hidden underneath this screen is the earpiece speaker as well as the in-display fingerprint reader, larger than before, which is about 30-percent faster than the old version.

The Huawei P40 Pro’s screen is definitely bright and vivid, something Huawei dubbed Quad-Curve Overflow Display. That wraps around all four sides of the phones, as though water overflowing. It doesn’t just look good: it’s also designed so that gesture swipes in Android are more comfortable from all directions. The P40 Pro gets a 6.58-inch 90Hz OLED at 2640 x 1200 resolution.

Specs and Performance

The P40 Pro comes with the best hardware that Huawei has to offer. And by that we mean late 2019 best. The company hasn’t yet launched a new application processor so it’s no surprise that this year’s star still runs on the Kirin 990 5G processor that Huawei has used in the Mate 30. By no means is it slow nor is it starting to show its age. The 8 GB of RAM is definitely plenty but if you want to supplement the 256 GB of storage (minimum), you’ll have to hope you can get your hands on Huawei’s proprietary nanoSD card.

Overall, the P40 Pro is pretty snappy, partly thanks to Huawei’s EMUI Android experience which we’ll get to in a moment. The beefy specs make sure you won’t be slowing down your phone no matter how many apps or tabs you have open. But if you feel that some frames are dropping in your game, Huawei’s GPU Turbo will allocate more resources for your entertainment.

The one area where Huawei’s premium flagship does falter a bit is in audio. As with any single speaker system, sounds can get pretty loud but lack the bass to give them weight. Unlike LG, Huawei didn’t utilize its piezoelectric in-screen speaker to supplement that. Audiophiles will probably see themselves reaching for their favourite Bluetooth headsets as the phone doesn’t have a headphone jack. I do, more than once. The phone does come with USB-C earphones, thankfully, but they will hardly satisfy those who need their music to get through the day.

The P40 Pro does excel in its battery life. That may not be that surprising, considering the 4200 mAh battery and screen resolution. That may also be thanks to EMUI once again. Typical usage might see you reaching for a charger after a day and a half, though you can probably stretch it all the way to two days with battery saving modes and less frequent use. When it does come to charge, the 40W fast charging makes that downtime even shorter. Yes, there’s wireless charging and even reverse wireless charging, but don’t expect those to be blazing fast, especially the latter.

There’s a Dual SIM slot and eSIM. You can use a Nano SIM and an eSIM, or slot in one of Huawei’s NM memory cards. WiFi 6 is supported, too.

Software

The Huawei P40 Pro comes with Android but it’s not the Pie you’ll see on Google’s Pixel, of course. As with any Huawei phone, this comes with EMUI. It has definitely changed and improved over the past few years but it’s still a double-edged sword as far as experiences go.

What you don’t get, of course, is Google apps or services. While it runs Android, Huawei’s P40 series uses the company’s own AppGallery store rather than the Google Play store. It’s working with TomTom on a Google Maps replacement, and has its own voice assistant called Celia, which will stand in for the Google Assistant. Celia is only available in select markets at the moment, of which South Africa is not one.

Whether that will be enough to convince potential buyers remains to be seen. Few would deny that Huawei’s P-Series phones have serious photography talents, but the continued absence of Google apps and services leaves them at a significant disadvantage compared to Samsung and others. So I thought too until the P40 Pro arrived on my review desk.

Switching over the P40 from my P30 was seamless, thanks to Huawei’s Phone Clone app. It moved apps compatible with the device while Google issued apps didn’t make the cut. Huawei’s very own App Gallery has a plethora of apps available, but I found that my most favourite were not. Applications such as Aurora make it possible to side-load apps you miss. It works exactly like Google Play store and houses all your favourite apps. While you may download them, they most likely will not work as GMS is not available. In rare and very surprising cases, some do work.

Some people might immediately be turned off by the iOS-like aesthetics. Others will bemoan the plethora of Huawei apps pre-installed. The former can be fixed with a few settings and theme changes, but the former is harder to escape. There’s still no way to uninstall Huawei’s own apps so the best you can do is hide them. That’s all within reason as they complete Huawei’s ecosystem and work hand in hand with each other.

On the other hand, much of the P40 Pro’s touted performance and power-efficiency are partly credited to EMUI. Huawei makes use of some AI and machine learning to learn the user’s habits and optimize performance based on those patterns, like pre-loading apps or guessing where users will tap next. It also does some heavy process management, sometimes too aggressive for people’s tastes.

Cameras

All of the above, however, doesn’t exactly define the Huawei P40 Pro. All things considered, these are traits that are also shared by its biggest rivals, the Samsung Galaxy S20+ and Apple iPhone 11 Pro. What really sets the P40 Pro apart is its four cameras, really three and a half, each with their special talent.

The one you will use the most will be the 50 megapixel main sensor. Don’t be deceived by that large number as you will rarely set the camera app to that. In fact, the camera’s default mode is 10 megapixel, where four pixels are combined to produce a higher-quality picture. Its special feature, however, is what Huawei calls “SuperSpectrum” sensor. Instead of the usual RGB sensor, it uses RYYB, replacing green with two yellows based on the theory that visible light has more yellow than green and that green is dragged in by the yellow anyway.

That’s the theory and, in practice, it actually works very well. Huawei has really outdone itself and deserves to retain its crown as the top smartphone camera in the market. That SuperSpectrum sensor pays off really well in low-light where even the standard mode can produce astonishing output without any special tricks. Turn on Night Mode and you can do magic and turn night into day.

And then there’s the new kid on the block, the 12 megapixel telephoto lens. Again, don’t be swayed or disappointed by the number. This is the much-rumoured camera with a 5x optical zoom unheard of in smartphone cameras. That’s thanks to the periscope design of the lenses that let Huawei cram more in less space. Because it uses optical zooming, it doesn’t degrade the quality of the resulting image, though with a 12 megapixel f/3.4 camera you might feel you’re not getting that much detail in the first place.

Compared to these two, the 40 megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera almost seems boring. But more than just letting you take panoramic shots without needing to go into panorama mode, all three of those cameras work to deliver a 10x hybrid zoom that is, again, unheard of on smartphones. Naturally, it won’t be as crisp as an optical zoom but it is still by far better than what other smartphones can achieve at that level with digital zoom alone. The P40 Pro does have a 50x digital zoom but, to be honest, you probably won’t want to use that anyway.

That “and a half” is the 3D time-of-flight sensor, the fourth camera on the Huawei P40 Pro’s back. Often linked with augmented reality applications, Huawei also uses the ToF sensor to improve its portrait mode, a.k.a. bokeh simulation, beyond what even dual cameras with depth sensors can do. It can accurately separate the subject from both foreground and background and can even distinguish the complicated edges surrounding the subject. The result is a more accurate and more pleasing blur.

The Huawei P40 Pro also has a front camera with a whopping 32 megapixels and one of the few in the market that supports HDR, at least for videos only. By going with a cut-out in the OLED display, Huawei is able to place additional sensors that give the camera an edge in face recognition and bokeh simulation. The result is both better bokeh, as well as faster face-unlock, including in low-light conditions. The phone is also able to record 4K selfie video. An attention-aware screen is able track when you’re watching the P40 and stop it from locking, even if you’re not touching the display. Huawei is using its gesture sensor for hands-free scrolling and screenshots too.

In Conclusion

Huawei has done it again and has produced a smartphone that should make Samsung and Apple worry. At more or less almost the same price as those two’s own flagships, the P40 Pro offers a mobile photography experience that perhaps only Google’s next Pixel might be able to threaten. Save for a few paper cuts, like unimpressive audio and a heavily-customised Android experience, the Huawei P40 Pro is almost perfect in every way. For some it might be a problem, but there is life without Google.

Sadly, Huawei isn’t just fighting against rivals in the smartphone market, it is also fighting against perception and politics. Because of that, the P40 Pro’s biggest flaw for consumers isn’t technical. It’s that they won’t have a chance to experience everything that it has to offer. At least not in an officially supported way.

The P40 Pro retails for R20 999 in either Black or Silver Frost.

Tshegofatso Harmonix Phiri contributed his legendary photography skills to this review.

Based on DxOMark’s rigorous testing, the Huawei P40 Pro definitely deserves those top marks. It has not two not even three sensors but five of them on its back. It builds upon years of experience and expertise in the field, producing images with a wide dynamic range, topnotch detail, and impressive zoom. It’s not perfect, though, with the 18mm focal length of the ultra-wide camera deemed a bit too narrow.

The phone also comes out at the top in video recording. Despite some noted loss of texture, good exposure and reliable autofocus and stabilisation could entice mobile cinematographers and live streamers.

Unlike most other smartphones near the top of DxOMark’s list, however, the Huawei P40 Pro also bags the Selfie Camera benchmark. That’s a rather rare trait among even the best smartphones these days, especially when the front camera performs well in both still photos and video recording. Fans of taking bokeh selfies will not be disappointed.

For those still in the dark, HMS is an alternative to Google Mobile Services, a collection of applications and application programming interfaces that are typically pre-installed on Android phones and tablets. On the other hand, Entersekt holds an 80 percent share of the South African digital banking authentication market and counts major overseas banks as customers too.

It all sounds a bit cryptic, if you ask us. But not to worry, we’re here to give you the lowdown on what this Entersekt optimisation on Huawei Mobile Services means for Huawei, and for users of Huawei devices making use of HMS.

• For starters, Entersekt fast-tracked work on its mobile software development kit (SDK) to facilitate push messaging and ensure that consumers could continue to bank and transact securely after upgrading to newly manufactured Huawei mobile devices
• This means that existing apps from Absa, Nedbank, and Old Mutual can be optimised for new Huawei devices
• Soon, Huawei will be able to add Capitec Bank to the suite of banking apps that its AppGallery currently offers

You’ll be able to watch the event via the YouTube livestream embedded below. The event will kick off at 15h00 CAT, but as always, we expect the livestream to start up a little before the show begins.

Unfortunately for those who like to be surprised, the main topic of the day – the P40 series – has already leaked all over the place. Assuming those leaks are accurate, we probably already know about most of what the P40 range will have to offer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be some surprises about the capabilities of these phones.

Essentially, we’re expecting to see the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro, and perhaps even a top-end phone that’s rumoured to be called the P40 Pro Premium Edition. Huawei has also confirmed a new smartwatch called the Huawei Watch GT 2e will be coming, and there could even more to learn.

Regardless of all the leaks, Huawei’s event will be one worth watching. We’ll be covering all of the big announcements here at TWFLD and on our social media channels so be sure to check back here when the show is over for all you need to know about Huawei’s 2020 lineup.

Back then, Mohamed suggested that their focus was on “quality user acquisition” rather than wide-blast banner advertisements. In a presser released today, Huawei gave an example of how their ad services worked and which formats it supports. Huawei suggested that it is worth mentioning that HUAWEI Ads enables app installs from performance-based ads with just a single tap, ensuring that users can enjoy an uninterrupted app experience by not being redirected away from their apps.

Huawei is currently promoting a wide array of software development kits, including their HUAWEI Ads kit with what they call their open advertising identifier (OAID). “An OAID is a non-permanent device identifier. You can use the OAID to provide personalised ads for users while protecting their privacy.”

On top of this, Huawei smartphone owners will now or in the near future be able to disable personalised ads and/or reset their OAID in Huawei phones. To do this, a user would need to choose one of the following paths:

Settings > Privacy > Ads and Privacy
Settings > Security & privacy > More settings > Device identifier

Per the OAID capabilities system shown by Huawei on the developer page linked above, OAID works with “upload events” to third-party analysis to “analyse the advertising effect” and request ads, or “recommend personalised ads” from an ad network.

This is all part of Huawei’s current plan to expand Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) as they’re dis-allowed use of the GMS (Google Mobile Services) system. They’ve also announced that they’ll replace Google Maps with TomTom.

If you, as an app developer, have a completed app, which you would like to include on HUAWEI’s vast AppGallery platform, you can visit https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/, or contact the HUAWEI SA Mobile Service team on developersa@huawei.com to find out how HUAWEI can support you.