Huawei Mate 40 Pro: the ultimate Kirin takes shape
The Huawei Mate 40 Pro is expected to be the last Huawei phone with the Kirin System-on-a-Chip. It will be presented in a few weeks. Its first image reveals a daring design.
«Huawei Mate 40 Series will have Hexagonal Camera Layout», writes Reddit User u/MasterTechNews.
Followed by this picture.
At least this confirms the phone's release date. On 22 October at 8 pm. – 2 pm. in Europe. Huawei's last phone with the Kirin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) will follow the motto «Leap further ahead».
Here comes the hexagon
However, when tracing the hexagon shape touted by MasterTechNews, problems quickly arise. It just doesn't make sense. The phone seems imbalanced and crooked.
Huawei likes to go for daring designs, especially when it comes to the more experimental Mate series. But they do usually know when not to go overboard.
How about an octagon?
Better already. That settles it: in my opinion at least, the phone will have an octagonal camera bump. We still don't know which cameras will be installed on it. The octagon suggests at least four lenses. Kinda like this:
The slogan also seems to indicate an outstanding camera system, even improved zoom. Leaks and patents point to further specs:
- A 90 Hz screen.
- 5G.
- Emui 11.
- 65 watt flash charging.
- Huawei Mate 40: 6.5-inch screen, 4000 mAh battery.
- Huawei Mate 40 Pro: 6.7-inch screen, 4500 mAh battery.
Speaking of cameras, the leaks mention multiple camera setups:
- Huawei Mate 40: Triple Cam.
- Huawei Mate 40 Pro: Quad Cam with a telephoto lens.
- Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ and Mate 40 RS: Penta Cam with a periscope telephoto lens.
The thing about Kirin
As Huawei is still suffering from a trade embargo with the United States of America, further production of the Kirin SoC is dubious. The invention may be purely Chinese, but the manufacturing process relies on knowledge and tools from the USA in some steps. Since US companies are prohibited from trading with Huawei in any way, the Chinese conglomerate has to find a different manufacturing process. The Kirin 9000's 5nm architecture can't simply be moved from point A to point B. And not only because very few manufacturing companies are likely to be able to produce on a 5nm basis.
Looks like the only thing Huawei can do for better or for worse is produce another chipset. Unless the group has another ace up its sleeve. After all, when it was announced that Huawei may still use Android, without cooperating with Google, the company confirmed the existence of its own operating system within a week, pushing its rollout to model year 2021.
Huawei lives to fight another day.
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