Review | Huawei P40 Pro Plus review: 10x optical zoom camera is truly innovative, but at US$1,600 this phone is a luxury

The Periscope lens of the Huawei P40 Pro Plus takes longer zoom images that are noticeably sharper than other phones’ thanks to its 10X lossless optical zoom

Its body is ceramic rather than glass, making it heavier than the Huawei P40 Pro and giving it a more durable feel

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The Huawei P40 Pro Plus has the most advanced camera system on the market, and a ceramic body. It’s a noticeable advance on the Huawei P40 Pro, but its price will put some people off. Photo: Ben Sin

Published: 12:45pm, 12 Jun 2020Updated: 12:56pm, 12 Jun 2020

When Huawei announced its flagship P40 smartphone series in March, only the lower- and mid-tier models – the P40 and P40 Pro – were available for consumers. The top-tier P40 Pro Plus wasn’t ready for mass production.

Considering that the Pro device already sported a camera system that is arguably the best on the market, there was plenty of excitement about what the Pro Plus would bring. It’s here now, and we’ve been testing a pre-release unit for a couple of days.

Pro vs Pro Plus: what’s the difference?

The Pro Plus outshines the Pro in two areas. The first is an improved camera zoom system, which comes via the addition of a fifth camera, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, and a more advanced version of Huawei’s Periscope zoom lens that is noticeably larger.

The camera module of the Huawei P40 Pro Plus (left) is larger than that of the P40 Pro, and houses an additional telephoto zoom lens and a more advanced Periscope zoom lens. Photo: Ben Sin

The second upgrade is to the body of the Pro Plus: it is ceramic, whereas the Pro body is glass; this makes for a slightly heavier build (226g, compared to the Pro’s 209g) and it feels denser in the hand.

Huawei says it is more durable – a claim that is creditable; the Pro Plus suffered two small drops during our testing (falling about six inches, from an elevated stand onto a glass table top) and there is no sign of dings or scratches. Everything else about the Pro Plus is unchanged from the Huawei P40 Pro: the 6.6-inch 90Hz OLED screen, the Kirin 990 5G chip, and the main and wide-angle cameras are identical.

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