10 Jun
Blog

Huawei P40 Pro Plus Review-in-progress: Zooming Ahead

huawei p40 pro plus practical features price photos release date hand

Huawei P40 Pro Plus test in progress: zoom forward

"The superiority of Huawei's 10x optical zoom on the P40 Pro Plus over any other large zoom phone cannot be questioned."

  • Excellent zoom camera

  • Outstanding design

  • Strong all-round performance

  • Very expensive

  • Violent for its size

  • Access to some apps is missing

The P40 Pro has the best camera I've tested on an Android phone, but Huawei isn't done with the P40 series yet. The P40 Pro Plus is the real flagship in the range. It takes the camera further than not just the P40 Pro, but every other high-end camera phone available today.

I spent a few days with the P40 Pro Plus. This is my ongoing review as I work towards a final verdict next week. Although I have not yet reached my final result, one thing is certain. Huawei has raised the bar for zooming a smartphone.

P40 Pro vs. P40 Pro Plus

The P40 Pro Plus is the first cell phone in the Huawei P series to be technically superior to the Pro model. So what makes it different?

Visually, it is almost identical to the P40 Pro. However, the body is made of glass, metal and ceramic and weighs 226 grams compared to 209 grams on the P40 Pro. The same 6.58-inch OLED screen is on the front, the case is still waterproof to IP68 and is powered by the Kirin 990 5G chipset and 8 GB of RAM. Even the battery has the same capacity of 4,200 mAh, with 40 W wired fast charging or 40 W wireless charging.

The main difference is the camera. The 50-megapixel ultra-vision and 40-megapixel cine camera sensors are identical until you get to the new 8-megapixel periscope lens that Huawei calls SuperZoom. This enables a massive 10x optical zoom on the P40 Pro Plus compared to the 12mega pixel SuperSensing 5x optical zoom sensor on the P40. The SuperZoom of the P40 Pro is another 8 megapixel telephoto sensor, this time with a 3x optical zoom. The hybrid zoom is set to 20x and the camera to 100x digital zoom.

The P40 series from Huawei, consisting of the standard series P40, P40 Pro and P40 Pro Plus, is comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S20 series with the Galaxy S20, the Galaxy S20 Plus and the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

design

Put the P40 Pro and P40 Pro Plus side by side, and the main way to tell them apart is by the finish. The P40 Pro Plus has a special white or black back made of nano-ech ceramic. Each must be baked in an oven at up to 1,500 degrees Celsius for five days to achieve a sapphire-like shelf life and a reflective look that Huawei compares to that of diamonds. The white version I received looks fabulous, with a deep reflection that is subtly different from glass. It has a smooth, ice cold finish.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The camera hump on the back is slightly larger than that of the P40 Pro and not only contains an additional sensor that the P40 Pro lacks, but also the incredible new periscope zoom. Look closely and it appears to sink right into the body of the phone and to the other side, an amazing optical illusion created by the complex array of mirrors that make it work. The fact that Huawei managed to squeeze all of this into a case with the same dimensions as the P40 Pro is very impressive.

However, you notice the extra weight. The P40 Pro is already heavy, so the P40 Pro Plus is a real beast of a phone and probably not as balanced. I found that I shuffled it around more in my hand than the P40 because of the extra weight. This is the compromise if you want the mega zoom. With the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the iPhone 11 Pro Max, both of which are similarly powerful, it is just right.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The P40 Pro Plus doesn't change the design of the P40 Pro from the front because it doesn't have to – both are strikingly attractive. However, I still find the large, pill-shaped cutout for the dual-lens selfie camera on the screen that distracts on something other than a black background.

camera

That's why you're here, isn't it? This is the reason why you chose the P40 Pro Plus over the P40 Pro. So is it worth the extra money?

The P40 Pro Plus camera is not perfect, but you need to look for the issues and be extremely critical so that they affect the results. At the time of writing, I only took a few hundred pictures with the P40 Pro Plus, and I have trouble choosing the photos that I want to share first because I like the vast majority.

Most P40 Pro Plus recordings have a wonderful tone and atmosphere that many other phone cameras lack. Although Huawei uses a lot of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and other software tricks to generate the photos, they still look natural, which is almost certainly due to the partnership with Leica. It's easy to forget that Huawei is working with the prestigious camera brand until you start taking pictures. It is no coincidence that they look so good.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Let's talk about 10x optical zoom. The P40 Pro takes 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid images. So can you tell the difference? Yes, you really can. From two floors up I took the photo of the wood you see below, and although the wood itself is not that different in the two photos, take a closer look at the black rubber in the middle. The photo of the P40 Pro Plus clearly shows that it has a texture that is completely missing in the hybrid image of the P40 Pro.

If you zoom in on the taillight on the photo of the Toyota pickup, you can see the Toyota branding on the edge of the cluster on the Pro Plus photo, which is too pixelated in the photo of the P40 Pro. You can also see how sharp the reflections are when they follow the contours of the vehicle and also the running bar. The optical system removes all of the digital processing that creates these pixelated details. However, some adjustments still need to be made here, as the photo of the P40 Pro Plus has a green tone in some areas. Although the deeper black is accurate, it loses some of the gloss of the P40 Pro's photo.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The 10x optical zoom gives you the certainty of getting closer to subjects when taking pictures, which I already enjoyed when taking pictures of wild animals. Distance is important for this type of photography, as is the quality of the end result, and the P40 Pro Plus has great potential for great photos of animals. However, in my photos of the squirrel, all of which were taken in a forest area speckled with sunlight, it seems that some exposure work still needs to be done.

With the P40 Pro Plus, the zoom can be increased 100 times. The images are better than those of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, but you won't want to share them again anytime soon. I like the addition of a handy second picture-in-picture viewfinder to make focusing and composition easier. Testing is still in its infancy, but based on the photos I've taken so far, the P40 Pro Plus seems to have improved the zoom of the P40 Pro, and Huawei has made another massive advance in technology. No other brand comes close to that at the moment.

Software and performance

The P40 Pro Plus has the same Kirin 990 5G chipset and Android 10 software as the P40 Pro, and Google Mobile Services is not installed. Instead, you get apps from the Huawei App Gallery and the Amazon App Store, or by using APK files that are obtained from third-party providers. I have already written about my experience with apps on Huawei phones with Huawei Mobile Services, and the P40 Pro Plus is no different from the P40 Pro and the folding smartphone Mate Xs.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

This means you have to change your mindset and may have to leave Google behind after purchasing the P40 Pro Plus. It is not possible to install Google Mobile Services and use the Play Store. However, some Google Apps work if you install them through APKs. However, you cannot log in with your Google account. Huawei's app gallery is growing, but there are still gaps, including Netflix, many local banking services, and social media apps.

In the past few days, I haven't noticed any difference in the performance of the phone compared to the P40 Pro, but unfortunately this means that the same problems with notifications that aren't always shown continue to exist. The battery only needed to be charged once over four days, so the P40 Pro's excellent battery life seems to have been transferred, but I will test this further in the coming week.

Conclusion

The Huawei P40 Pro Plus arrives about a month after the P40 Pro, a phone that costs £ 899 or about $ 1,140. The P40 Pro Plus costs £ 1,299, or about $ 1,645. That's a massive difference in cost considering that the main differences are the changes that allow 10x optical zoom and the pretty ceramic back. The P40 Pro Plus is a very, very expensive device.

From today's perspective, it's hard to say that the P40 Pro Plus justifies its significantly higher cost considering how well the cheaper (if still expensive) P40 Pro can hold its own against its main competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra . Maybe more will show up if I keep using the phone.

However, the superiority of Huawei's 10x optical zoom on the P40 Pro Plus over any other large zoom phone cannot be questioned. It's excellent, and like so many P-series phones before, the phone is driving the industry forward as Huawei's competitors have to work again to catch up.

The Huawei P40 Pro Plus can be pre-ordered in the UK on June 15th. The final release will be on June 25th. It is not officially sold in the United States, but can be purchased through an import service.

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21 May
Blog

Dell G5 SE Gaming Laptop Review-In-Progress: Peak AMD

Dell G5 Se Gaming Laptop Review 02

Dell G5 SE gaming laptop in progress: Peak AMD

"The Dell G5 SE is an extremely competitive midrange gaming laptop."

  • Excellent CPU performance

  • Great gaming performance for the price

  • Solid value across configurations

  • Bulky

  • The benefits of AMD Smartshift are opaque

Nvidia does not manufacture PC processors. Intel doesn't make PC graphics cards – at least not yet. AMD is the only company that does both, and hopes that a more harmonious relationship between CPU and GPU can lead to additional performance.

The Dell G5 SE offers our first glimpse of this potential. It is equipped with both a Ryzen 7 4800H and the Radeon RX 5600M graphics card, the latest and greatest AMD it has to offer. Does it last?

performance

On the outside there is not much to say about the Dell G5. It looks like it used to – robust and armor-like. It's the opposite of slim in almost every way.

The "SE" refers to what happens under this conservative exterior. Thanks to the Ryzen 7 4800H, this laptop offers eight cores and 16 threads of computing power. It also has 36 processing units and GDDR6 memory in the RX 5600M GPU. My test device was also equipped with 16 GB RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a 144 Hz screen with 1080p – all for a cool $ 1,200. That is a very attractive price.

This is a gaming laptop, so I started with 3DMark. The results in Time Spy were very encouraging for AMD. It missed a midrange version of the Dell G7 that I tested in late 2019 and that was powered by a 9th generation Nvidia RTX 2060 and an Intel Core i7-9750H. A 5% gain isn't much in benchmarks, but a profit is a gain.

It's going crazy here. The G5 SE has managed to develop the best thin gaming laptops like the Razer Blade 2019, which we tested with the RTX 2070 Max-Q from Nvidia. This is impressive. The G5 SE is a chunky laptop by comparison, but it's also a lot cheaper.

The processor performance is strong in itself, but who is surprised with eight cores and 16 threads? AMD's mobile Ryzen blows Intel's 6-core gaming chips in Cinebench R20 and Geekbench 5 out of the water. Here, too, the Razer Blade beats Cinebench Multi-Core by 49% and Handbrake by the same amount in video coding. I'm not surprised, especially after reviewing other Ryzen 4000 laptops like the ROG Zephyrus G14 or Acer Swift 3.

However, the actual story is not just about these components. The real magic comes from working together.

Gaming performance

Playing is a good place to start. Games strain the GPU more than the CPU, but it's a combined effort that requires a balance between the components.

I tested three games: Civilization VI, Fortnite and Assassins Creed Odyssey.

Civilization VI is a CPU-intensive game, and this is where a Ryzen 4000 laptop can shine. There were only a few FPS (frames per second) behind the Razer Blade with an Nvidia RTX 2070, which reached 79 FPS in ultra settings. Compared to the Nvidia RTX 2060 in the Dell G7 I tested, you still see 19% better frame rates.

This trend continued in Fortnite. The AMD-powered G5 delivers 85 FPS with Epic settings, slightly behind the RTX 2060 in the G7 and the Zephyrus G14. You should probably set the settings to "High" to take better advantage of the laptop's refresh rate of 144 Hz. There the G5 SE achieved an average of 105 FPS.

The final challenge was Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game that brought even the most powerful gaming laptops to a standstill. The gameplay was pretty smooth with an average of 53 FPS. With high quality – the middle setting of the game. At Ultra High, you drop to 44 FPS, which is still playable but a bit choppy.

All games were of course played at 1080p as this is the native resolution for the Dell G5 SE. As you can see, the RX 5600M isn't the most powerful graphics card in the world and sits comfortably between the Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti and the Nvidia RTX 2060. Fortunately, you can purchase a basic configuration of the G5 SE for as low a price as $ 880 that always still comes with the same GPU. This is great value compared to what you get from Nvidia at this price.

SmartShift in action

In addition to the new GPU and CPU, the Dell G5 SE also introduces AMD technology, which connects the two. It's called SmartShift, a way of organically sharing the energy between the two components. Every laptop has an upper limit on the performance it can play with. SmartShift uses AMD's InfinityFabric on both ends to transfer more power to the CPU or GPU when the thermal headroom allows – even beyond standard performance. According to AMD, SmartShift can lead to an up to 10% improved frame rate in games.

The problem is that SmartShift cannot be turned off. So I can't prove it works. My last attempt to test SmartShift was video rendering in Adobe Premiere Pro. I loaded a 2 minute 4K video clip and exported it to the ProRes 422 codec, carefully observing the power distribution between the CPU and GPU. Rendering video in Premiere is a task best suited for a processor with a high number of cores. However, you can also tap the graphics card. This way you can see how smart SmartShift really is.

The Dell G5 SE didn't share as much power as I expected. The GPU was only occasionally tapped to keep the processor in the spotlight. The rendering time of the Dell G5 SE was good and the export was completed in just under 8 minutes. This happens fairly quickly and beats Intel laptops like the Razer Blade. More expensive options like the Dell XPS 15 or Microsoft Surface Book 3 surpass it by a few minutes.

SmartShift is said to work with an automated algorithm that determines the best performance allocation from moment to moment. However, according to Dell, AMD must also whitelist applications to better optimize their performance.

Battery life, display and more

There's more to tell about the G5 SE, including battery life and display quality. I will continue my in-depth testing and will update this review soon.

While the effects of SmartShift remain opaque, the Dell G5 SE is still an example of how dominant AMD processors have become in consumer hardware. While the company's top-end GPUs still can't compete with Nvidia, the Dell G5 SE is a competitive mid-range gaming laptop for its price.

The Dell G5 SE was available for sale on the Dell website on May 21, starting at $ 880. The start configuration has a Ryzen 5 4600H with six cores, 8 GB RAM, an SSD with 256 GB and the same RX 5600M graphics card as in my test device.

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