It’s like clockwork now for Huawei. Every year at around this time, they unveil a new Mate series. This time it’s the Mate 40 series consisting of the Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+.

Each Mate release is the company pushing the boundaries of how much tech they can pack on a smartphone that we carry around all day. The Mate 40 series is no different.

Iconic Space Ring Design

So, yeah. This.

Jokes aside, Huawei says it’s an evolution of the Mate line’s circular and symmetrical design. They didn’t exactly expound on how this particular look is form-meeting-function but hey, it helps them stand-out. If that’s the function, then it’s done its job. More on the rear camera tech later on.

Overall, the Mate 40 series looks and feels very Mate-y — curved body for an easy hold, IP68 rating, immersive viewing, and all that jazz.

In front inside a small cut-out is the selfie camera packed with the usual: 3D Face Unlock, Ultra Vision Selfie Camera, and Smart Gesture control.

Rounding up the “look” section are the colors. The Mate 40 and Mate 40 Pro will come in Black, White, and Mystic Silver. There are also two leather variants: Yellow and Green.

Meanwhile, the Mate 40 Pro+ will come in Ceramic White and Ceramic Black.

An all-around camera

Huawei’s mobile camera tech is one of the best in the business and there’s more of the same in the Mate 40 series.

The three phones come with an array of camera features found in Huawei phones past, all improved and upgraded. There’s Dual Cine Cameras, Steady Shot, Tracking Shot, Audio Focus, Audio Zoom and the list goes on.

In terms of the numbers on those cameras, take a look at this.

A leap in performance

Every single phone in the Mate 40 series is powered by Kirin 9000 5G. Huawei is calling it “the most sophisticated 5nm 5G SoC  available.”

It features a three-level power efficiency architecture with cores running at clock frequencies of up to 3.13Ghz. Really, all you need to know is it’s extremely powerful, extremely efficient, and it’s close to mind-boggling the things that it enables the phone to do.

The 24-core Mali-G78 GPU on the Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ is the most powerful GPU ever on a Huawei device. It’s great for intense graphic performance and works well with the 90Hz screen refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate.

Of course, having 5G means it’s gonna take a toll on the battery. The Mate 40 has a 4,200mAh capacity while the Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ have 4,400mAh. But more than the numbers, Huawei says the phones are equipped with tech to handle the demands of 5G.

Configurations are as follows:

• Mate 40 — 8GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB
• Mate 40 Pro — 8GB+256GB
• Mate 40 Pro+ — 12GB+256GB

A new user experience

We’ve already been introduced to EMUI 11 and all it’s wonderful features. So there’s all of that plus a handful of improvements in several areas.

Smart Gesture Control makes a return. It’s the feature that lets you hover your hand over the device to wake it up, navigate, and answer a call. Like magic!

Huawei is also expanding Petal Search to Petal Maps, essentially replacing everything it lost with Google and putting their own stamp on it while making sure to communicate that it’s all private and secure.

Other devices

During the launch, Huawei also introduced a handful of other devices:

• Porsche Design Mate 40 Pro RS
• Porsche Design Huawei Watch GT 2
• Huawei Freebuds Studio
• Huawei x Gentle Monster Eyewear II
• Sound wireless HiFi