The Huawei Mate 40 Pro arrives as a masterwork of industrial design and engineering ambition — a phone that, in another era, would have claimed the flagship throne without contest. Yet it carries a wound no craftsman can repair: the absence of Google's services, imposed by geopolitical forces far beyond the drawing board. At 1,199 euros, it asks a premium price for a device that cannot fully participate in the digital world most of its buyers inhabit. It is a reminder that even the finest tools are shaped not only by their makers, but by the world those makers must navigate.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro: Premium design can't overcome Google services ban
A phone with flagship hardware and a five-year-old app library
Mark
Why does the Google Play Store matter so much? Couldn't someone just use Huawei's store and be fine?
Mimi
Because Google Play has millions of apps, and Huawei's store has thousands. The difference isn't just quantity—it's that developers prioritize Google. When a new app launches, it goes to Google Play first. Huawei's store gets it later, if at all. For some people, that gap is invisible. For most, it's a dealbreaker.
Mark
The review mentions APK files. What's the actual risk there?
Mimi
An APK is just an Android app file. Installing one from an official source—like downloading directly from Facebook's website—is safe. But when you're hunting through third-party sites because an app isn't in Huawei's store, you're trusting strangers. That file could be outdated, could contain malware, could be a fake designed to steal credentials. You don't know.
Mark
So this is really about trust and convenience, not capability.
Mimi
Exactly. The Mate 40 Pro is technically excellent. The processor is fast, the camera is good, the screen is beautiful. But a phone is only as useful as the software ecosystem it can access. Hardware excellence means nothing if you can't run the apps you need.
Mark
Is there any scenario where someone should buy this phone?
Mimi
If you live in China or another market where Google services were never the default, and you're comfortable with Huawei's ecosystem, then yes. If you primarily use web-based services and don't rely on specific apps, maybe. But for anyone in the West who uses Gmail, Instagram, banking apps, or specialized tools—this phone creates friction at every turn.
Mark
Will this change?
Mimi
Only if the US restrictions lift, which seems unlikely in the near term. Huawei is expanding its app store aggressively, but they're playing catch-up against a decade of Google's dominance. The gap will narrow, but it won't close soon enough to matter for most buyers.
Der Puls
- Huawei has built one of the most beautiful and powerful smartphones of 2020, only to have its greatest strength — the hardware — rendered almost irrelevant by the absence of Google's ecosystem.
- Without the Play Store, users are pushed into a shadow market of APK downloads from third-party websites riddled with deceptive design and genuine security risks — a dangerous proposition for anyone storing sensitive personal or financial data.
- Huawei's own app store is growing, with TikTok, Snapchat, and Amazon present, but critical apps like Instagram remain absent from official channels, and the gaming library falls far short of what Android users expect.
- The phone's camera and processor perform at a near-flagship level, but software over-processing and focus inconsistencies at high zoom reveal that even the hardware story is unfinished.
- Unless US restrictions are lifted or Huawei's app store reaches true parity with Google Play, the Mate 40 Pro is destined to be a device admired in reviews but avoided at the point of purchase.
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro arrives as a masterwork of industrial design and engineering ambition — a phone that, in another era, would have claimed the flagship throne without contest. Yet it carries a wound no craftsman can repair: the absence of Google's services, imposed by geopolitical forces far beyond the drawing board. At 1,199 euros, it asks a premium price for a device that cannot fully participate in the digital world most of its buyers inhabit. It is a reminder that even the finest tools are shaped not only by their makers, but by the world those makers must navigate.
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro is, by almost any physical measure, a flagship phone. Its pearlescent back shifts through oranges, blues, and purples as the light catches it. The 6.76-inch display is sharp and bright, the frame solid metal, the build unmistakably premium. Beneath the surface sits Huawei's Kirin 9000 processor, 5G connectivity, and a four-camera array with 5x optical zoom. Priced at 1,199 euros, it was built to stand alongside the iPhone 12 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S series — and in terms of raw hardware, it earns that comparison.
But the Mate 40 Pro carries a burden no engineering team can engineer away. US government restrictions have severed Huawei's access to Google's services entirely. There is no Gmail, no Maps, no Chrome, and — most critically — no Google Play Store. This is not a minor gap. It is the phone's defining problem.
The cameras show what Huawei is capable of: accurate exposure, vibrant color, and impressively detailed shots even at 10x magnification. Video stabilization holds steady through fast movement. Yet the software processing is too aggressive — HDR lifts shadows until images look flat, zoom video loses focus intermittently, and the super-wide lens struggles with contrast and white balance. These are fixable problems, which makes them all the more frustrating.
The app situation is where the experience truly fractures. Huawei's own store has grown — TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon, and Tinder are present — but Instagram requires hunting through third-party websites designed to mislead. Fake download buttons, buried links, and files with no guarantee of safety or currency await anyone trying to fill the gaps. For a review unit, it is inconvenient. For a personal device carrying banking credentials and private communications, it is genuinely untenable.
Huawei is working to close the distance — expanding its store, building a demand-registration system for missing apps, and promising mapping services. But the shelves remain sparse, and the gap between what this phone offers in hardware and what it can deliver in daily use remains vast. The Mate 40 Pro is a phone you can admire without hesitation and recommend only with great reluctance.
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro arrives as a genuinely beautiful piece of hardware—a phone that feels expensive the moment you hold it, with a pearlescent back that shifts between soft oranges and blues, deepening to purple as you turn it in the light. The 6.76-inch display is sharp and bright, the metal frame solid, the frosted glass premium. On paper, it reads like a flagship: Huawei's Kirin 9000 processor, 5G connectivity, eight gigabytes of RAM, four rear cameras with optical zoom reaching 5x and beyond. The phone costs 1,199 euros—roughly $1,418—and Huawei positioned it to compete directly with the iPhone 12 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S20 and Note series. By every measure of industrial design and raw processing power, it belongs in that conversation.
But the Mate 40 Pro carries a weight that no amount of engineering can overcome. Due to ongoing restrictions imposed by the US government, Huawei cannot access Google's services. No Gmail. No Maps. No Chrome. Most critically, no Google Play Store. This isn't a minor inconvenience—it's the phone's central problem, the one that makes recommending it to anyone outside a very narrow use case nearly impossible.
The camera system illustrates what Huawei got right. The main sensor balances exposure accurately and renders colors with vibrancy. The 5x optical zoom captures impressively detailed shots; even at 10x magnification, the image retains clarity. Video stabilization is excellent, holding smooth footage even during fast movement. But the processing is heavy-handed. The HDR mode lifts shadows so aggressively that it flattens the image, and when shooting video at 5x zoom, the focus drifts in and out. The super-wide camera produces shots with muted contrast and sometimes noticeable white balance shifts. These are software problems, not hardware ones—tweaks that could elevate the camera from good to great. The processor itself performs well, navigating the interface without lag and handling demanding games like Asphalt 9: Legends at consistently high frame rates, though benchmark scores sit below the OnePlus 8T and iPhone 12. Battery life appears solid, lasting a full day of mixed use with reserves into the next.
The real crisis is the app ecosystem. Huawei has built its own app store, and it has improved. TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon, and Tinder are available. Facebook and WhatsApp can be downloaded as APK files directly from their official websites. But Instagram has no official presence—you must hunt for it on third-party sites. And here the experience deteriorates sharply. These websites are designed to confuse. A large "Download Now" button is actually an advertisement; the real install button sits buried below, much smaller. You navigate through a minefield of deceptive design, and even when you find the legitimate APK, you're installing software from outside official channels. There is no guarantee the file is current, no assurance it's free of malware. For a review device, this is manageable. For a phone holding banking details, contact lists, and work email, it's untenable.
Huawei is working to expand its store. The company has created a system allowing users to register interest in unavailable apps, with the promise that sufficient demand will trigger prioritization. Maps service is coming. But the shelves remain relatively bare. Anyone seeking the latest games, the newest services, the full breadth of what Android offers through Google's ecosystem—this phone is not for them. The Mate 40 Pro exists in a strange middle ground: a device with the hardware of a flagship and the app library of a phone from five years ago. Huawei also offers the standard Mate 40 with a less capable camera, the Mate 40 Pro Plus with a 17x optical zoom, and a Porsche Design variant. None of these variants solve the fundamental problem. Until the restrictions lift or Huawei's app store reaches genuine parity with Google's, the Mate 40 Pro remains a phone you admire from a distance but cannot confidently recommend to anyone who depends on the full breadth of mobile applications.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
The fact remains that its shelves are relatively bare right now and if you're into getting the latest games and services then this isn't the phone for you.— CNET review
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