Huawei P40 Pro Vs Samsung S20 Ultra: Which to Buy?

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Huawei has announced three flagship phones the P40, P40 pro, and P40 pro plus. Today we look at how the P40 Pro compete against the best of Samsung which is the Galaxy S20 ultra.

Now as we know out of these phones, only Samsung is giving you the Google applications. Huawei is giving its own services but I want you guys to put all of that on the side and just see how this phone can compete feature by feature with the S20 ultra. 

Huawei P40 Pro	Samsung S20 Ultra
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Brilliant camera. Beautiful design. Fast performance.	Impressive photos. Gorgeous 120Hz display. 5G support. Huge 5,000 mAh battery.
CONS	CONS
No Google services. Screen isn’t QuadHD/120Hz.	Cameras have autofocus issues. Very expensive. No headphone jack. 120Hz is a battery killer.

DESIGN & BUILD

Huawei P40 Pro:

Looks-wise, the P40 pro doesn’t break the mold. It’s made from glass with a frame of aluminum and the squared off corners help it to stand out a bit from competitors. The back is curved and although the finish is a bit conservative is quite sleek and elegant looking.

The major feature here is of course the quad camera setup which takes up a decent amount of real estate. Of course even though the P40 pro is made of glass, you should expect it to be relatively durable and the phone has full IP68 water and dust protection.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

The phone is made of glass with a metal frame. Looks-wise, it isn’t very exciting. The cosmic grey finish doesn’t do much to catch the eye. In contrast to the dazzling once we saw from Samsung last year. The defining design element is the camera setup on the back which is tall and takes up a lot of real estate. It’s of course practical but won’t win any beauty contest. You get full IP68 protection.

DISPLAY

Huawei P40 Pro:

We have the P40 pro 6.6 inch curved OLED screen. It’s resolution is in between Full HD and QHD at 1200×2640 pixels and the display wraps around the edges of the phone.

Up at the top, there’s a wide punch hole cutout for the selfie camera. Also note that there isn’t a traditional earpiece for calls, instead the sound is generated by vibrations of the screen.

The P40 pro is Huawei’s first smartphone with a high refresh rate display at 90 Hertz is not as fast as the 120 Hertz you see in the galaxy S20 but it’s enough to make moving elements on the screen appear much smoother. Unlike the S20, you don’t have to turn down the resolution to enable the high refresh rate.

Content looks great with deep blacks, great contrast and accurate colors. Max brightness is decent at around 413 nits. You don’t get much of a boost in the Sun however with auto mode on you’ll get up to about 500 nits.

The display supports HDR+. However, because of software limitations you won’t be able to get that content via the popular streaming services.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

On the front is a giant 6.9 inch AMOLED display with the high QHD resolution and up at the top is a punch hole cut out for the 40 megapixel quad bear selfie camera. The screen is curved on the sides but it’s more subtle than on previous Samsung flagships and should make accidental screen activations less of a problem.

All of the S20 has come with a new headline feature and that’s a 120 Hertz screen refresh rate. This means moving elements on the screen will look much smoother but there’s a caveat you can only use a high refresh rate here if you turn the resolution down to 1080p. So you have to make a choice between a sharper experience or a smoother one. We generally preferred the smoother one, even though the sharpness suffers a little it’s hard to notice the difference and content still looks awesome. Colors are bland but quite accurate and you can make them punchier in settings.

There is support for HDR10+, if you’re looking for that kind of content. On top of that this display is one of the brightest we’ve ever tested, almost 900 nits in auto mode and recognitions. Otherwise, the manual slider by itself will get you up to 400.

AUDIO

Huawei P40 Pro:

For audio the P40 pro has a single bottom firing loudspeaker, we would have preferred a stereo setup but seeing as how there’s no traditional earpiece maybe it isn’t possible here. As far as quality goes this speaker’s loudness is good. Mids and highs sound decent but the lows are a little lacking. If you want to plug in regular 3.5 millimeter headphones, you’ll need to use a USB-C adapter.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

The S20 ultra has a pair of stereo speakers for your audio. With the earpiece acting as the second speaker. These sound great, they’re really loud and well-balanced too. It comes as no surprise that there’s no headphone jack on this phone, so you’ll have to use the USB-C port and a dongle is not included in the box.

SOFTWARE & PERFORMANCE

Huawei P40 Pro:

Since software is the main caveat to worry about when getting this phone. As you might know US sanctions on Huawei, mean that this phone is missing Google’s apps and services. Instead of Google Maps you will need to use an alternative. Huawei comes up with its own maps which is developing with TomTom. Replacing the Google assistant on this phone as Huawei Celia which will arrive with an OTA update down the line. To get extra apps you’ll need to use Huawei’s proprietary app gallery. What apps are missing can often be found on third-party app stores such as APKPURE.

There are other options out there too, for example, you can get most of the apps off of your old phone using the phone clone app but since Google services aren’t supported some might not even work properly. And for those that do work to keep them updated, you’ll still need to rely on the third-party stores.

The phone’s interface works well. It’s Huawei’s EMUI 10.1 based on Android 10 and everything feels smooth and snappy. There aren’t really any surprises. One feature we do like to see is an IR blaster which allows the P40 pro to control certain appliances.

Storage on the P40 pro is pretty generous with 256 GB onboard. It is expandable too but you’d have to use one of Huawei’s proprietary nano memory cards.

Under the hood of the P40 Pro is a flagship grade Kirin 990 5G chipset, compared to the regular Kirin 990, this one has a bit faster processor and well that faster 5G connectivity.

In CPU benchmarks, the P40 pro does a excellent job. GPU wise, it’s not quite at the top but still flagship worthy. You should expect awesome gaming performance. Especially, since the phone does a great job in managing his thermals.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

The user interface is Samsung’s OneUI 2.1 over android 10. It comes with some tiny tweaks over the 2.0 version such as rearrangement of some menus and settings. There is a brand new feature though, you can make video calls directly through the phone app with google duo. Now there’s no need to download a third-party video chat. And you can use the power button as a shortcut for various mapable functions. But by default it will activate the virtual assistant.

There are three storage tiers on the S20 ultra and they start at 128 GB. Storage is expandable to through the card slot at the top.

The S20 ultra comes with two variants. You either get a snapdragon 865 or Exynos 990 chipset. Both are top of the line. You will get the best performance you can get these days from an Android phone. On top of that the display has 240 Hertz touch sensing for extra responsiveness when gaming. However our Exynos unit was quick to heat up when running benchmarks or games and we ran into thermal throttling after just a few minutes of use.

CAMERA

Huawei P40 Pro:

The P40 pro quad camera setup consists of a 50 megapixel main camera, 40 megapixel ultra-wide camera, 12 megapixel 5x periscope zoom lens, and a TOF camera.

Shots from the main camera come out in 12.5 megapixels as 4 pixels are combined into one. In daylight images look excellent. In fact during the day, images is preserved across the main, telephoto, and ultra wide cameras. We’re really impressed, especially by the ultra wide camera.

Another category in which the P40 pro excels is portraits. These are among the best we’ve seen from a smartphone.

In low-light, the P40 pro continues to impress from both the main and the ultra wide cameras even without night mode on. Images really set the bar for what’s achievable by a phone at night. In fact, enabling night mode for these actually results in a lower quality though brighter result. Photos taken with the 5x night time zoom are good in quality too but if you’re able to keep the phone stable enough for a few seconds. Night mode works wonders and improving the output.

Selfies have excellent quality and are quite consistent.

As far as video goes 4k at 30fps is great from all three rear cameras. Detail leaves a bit more to be desired and maybe that’s due to the always-on stabilisation. This stabilisation does work quite well though and it achieves the smoothness not through just OIS but some AI processing as well.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

The galaxy S20 Ultra is quad camera setup. There’s a whopping 108 megapixel main camera, 48 megapixel periscope telephoto camera, a 12 megapixel ultra-wide and a TOF depth sensor.

Even though the 108 megapixel main camera is the headline feature and still we didn’t find a ton of improvement quality wise over last year’s note 10. But we really did enjoy the shallow depth of field that the large sensor provides and this is what makes the camera stand out for us.

The biggest benefit of the new camera system is really the higher quality zoom, the telephoto lens shoots at 4x natively and photos were excellent.

The 100x zoom though is just a marketing gimmick. We were actually pleasantly surprised by the ultra-wide camera and nighttime shots which are clearly better than the note 10.

As far as video goes, 4k footage taken during the day looks great as expected but nighttime footage looks surprisingly awesome. It really benefits from the size of the 108 megapixel sensor. The major new feature as far as video recording goes is the ability to record an 8k at 24 fps.

Camera Comparison Between Huawei P40 Pro And S20 Ultra

SECURITY

Huawei P40 Pro:

Unlocking the phone is done through an optical under display fingerprint reader. It’s larger than before and among the fastest and most reliable you can get right now. There’s also the face unlock option which is quite secure. It works even in the dark.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

Under the display, it has ultrasonic fingerprint reader. It works fine, they’ll compare to the lightning-fast setup, so we’ve seen from some competitors, it is a bit slow.

SPEED TEST VIDEO

BATTERY

Huawei P40 Pro:

As far as battery life goes, the P40 pro doesn’t disappoint. It packs a 4200 mAh battery and scored an endurance rating of 94 hours in our proprietary battery tests. Charging speed is quite impressive, the phone comes bundled with a 40 watt charger and with it we were able to charge the battery from 0-80% in just half an hour. There’s also support for 27 watt fast wireless charging and reverse wireless charging through which the phone can charge another device.

Samsung S20 Ultra:

The galaxy S20 ultra has a huge 5000mAh battery inside. With the display set to 120 Hertz, the phone delivers good but not spectacular endurance, scoring 87 hours in our tests. Switching the display over to 60 Hertz and QHD, the results are better with a score of 97 endurance hours, it’s great but still not what you’d expect from the big battery.

Although the S20 ultra supports 45 watt charging, you only get a 25 watt charger in the box. It still gives you a speedy charge though, we were able to get from 0 to 64% in half an hour. And you have wireless charging here as well as a wireless power share which you can use to top-up other compatible devices.

Charger Test Between Huawei P40 Pro And S20 Ultra

WHICH ONE YOU SHOULD BUY?

Overall, I will say both the phones are amazing.

P40 Pro is cheaper and it also lacks google services. If Google Services does not matter to you then I will recommend you to go for P40 Pro.

If you can spend extra money then of course S20 Ultra is the winner. It has more good features like good display, camera, and i think it also looks more good when compared to P40 Pro.

Jaskaran Singh

Jaskaran, a tech enthusiast from childhood, inspired by his father, began his tech journey by rooting Android phones. He now writes on various tech topics, aiming to simplify complex ideas for a broad audience. His writing is direct, concise, and flows effortlessly, making tech topics accessible and engaging.