Huawei finally unveils Mate 40 Series

Huawei Consumer Business Group (BG) today bolstered its product line-up with the advanced Huawei Mate 40 Series, the latest revolutionary flagship smartphones that empower users to leap further ahead. Showcasing the pinnacle of Huawei technology, the new Series reinforces Huawei’s dedication to innovation and its unrelenting determination to create the best Mate ever.

The Huawei Mate 40 Series has the Mate Series DNA at its core. Over the last eight years, there have been 10 outstanding generations of Mate Series devices and now the latest flagship smartphones take Mate to new heights with the best technology in the industry. From powerful performance to unique user interactions, everything about the Huawei Mate 40 Series has been fine-tuned to provide the most exciting smartphone experience possible. Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ incorporate the world’s first 5 nanometer 5G SoC, Ultra Vision Cine Camera system and the iconic Space Ring Design, as well as a smarter, more attentive digital experience.

Richard Yu, Executive Director and CEO of Huawei Consumer BG said: “Each year the Huawei Mate Series brings the most exciting technology together into one stunning package. This is what defines the Mate Series DNA and is all made possible by our dedication to innovation. In these unprecedented times, we remain committed to creating a better future, with innovative technology that delivers a positive and meaningful impact on the lives of consumers. In the future, we will continue working closely with our partners to bring the Seamless AI Life experience to consumers all around the world.”

Leap further ahead with the iconic Space Ring Design

Marrying iconic design with innovative technology, Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ are informed by the design principle that form manifests function. The uncompromised design of the Huawei 88° Horizon Display creates an immersive viewing experience in a compact package, while the silky curve also means the devices are comfortable to hold. The handsets also offer IP68 dust and water resistance, a choice of both virtual and physical volume controls, and enhanced mistouch prevention algorithms.

Objects of sheer beauty, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ devices carry a small front camera cut-out, which is packed full of technology, with 3D Face Unlock, an Ultra Vision Selfie Camera, and Smart Gesture Control.

Turn the devices over and you will see that the Huawei Mate 40 Series adopts the Space Ring Design, an evolution of the Huawei Mate Series’ iconic circular and symmetrical design. Huawei Mate 40 and Huawei Mate 40 Pro are available in Black and White, as well as an enchanting Mystic Silver, a finish with a color-shifting effect that evokes the mysteries of the unseen.

There are also two vegan leather variants, Yellow and Green. Meanwhile, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ features an exquisite nano-tech ceramic back panel available in two iconic colors: Ceramic White and Ceramic Black.

Leap further ahead with Kirin 9000 setting a new standard for performance

Powering the best Mate ever, the Kirin 9000 Series is fully equipped for 5G, capable of handling intensive computations and multi-tasking operations with ease. Embedded in Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+, the Kirin 9000 is the most sophisticated 5nm 5G SoC available, delivering vastly improved performance and power efficiency over its predecessor.

For the first time ever, the flagship 5G SoC has more than 15.3 billion transistors, making it the densest and most full-featured 5G SoC to date. The powerful CPU features a three-level power efficiency architecture with cores running at clock frequencies of up to 3.13GHz.

Also integrated into the SoC is a 24-core Mali-G78 GPU, as well as an innovative NPU featuring two big cores and one tiny core, taking on-device AI to a new level.

The 24-core Mali-G78 GPU in Huawei Mate 40 Pro and HUAWEI Mate 40 Pro+ is the most powerful GPU ever seen on a Huawei device. This delivers advanced graphics performance and is complemented by an amazing audiovisual experience for immersive gaming.

The 90Hz display works together with a 240Hz touch sampling rate for greater responsiveness and now provides haptic feedback to correspond with the visual experience. This entertainment set-up is completed with dual stereo speakers to create experiences with super bass stereo.

The Huawei Mate 40 Series is also equipped with the battery technology that is needed to keep up with the demands of 5G, supporting the fastest iteration of Huawei SuperCharge.

Leap further ahead with an all-round imaging system engineered to make photography simple

The camera system on the Huawei Mate 40 Series has been co-engineered with Leica to provide the best camera solution possible and sees breakthrough upgrades to the ultra-wide-angle lens, powerful high-definition main camera, impressive telephoto camera, and more. With the Dual Cine Cameras and Dual Ultra Wide Cameras on Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+, users can capture amazing wide-angle videos and images from both the front- and rear-facing cameras.

When it comes to cinematic videography, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ are unparalleled. The Dual Cine Cameras feature a 3:2 cinema-style shooting ratio sensor. Capturing high-quality footage is easier than ever with Steady Shot, while the XD Fusion HDR Video ensures balanced exposure, even when users are capturing with extreme lighting contrast.

Other evolutions include Tracking Shot, while Story Creator allows for true cinematic effects. Background music, filters and effects can also be added with ease. Not neglecting audio, Huawei Mate 40 Series features Audio Focus, Audio Zoom, and dual stereo speakers.

The Ultra Wide Cine Camera now offers an even wider field of view, as well as richer detail, improved low light performance and distortion correction algorithms, allowing users to capture beautiful expansive landscapes, while the Super Sensing Wide Camera provides true high definition shots. Image quality has been further enhanced with Full Pixel Octa PD AutoFocus.

Improved distortion correction targets the face, body and limbs, making the ultra-wide angle lens useful in more scenarios than ever. Huawei Mate 40 Pro features a Periscope Telephoto Camera to support 10x hybrid zoom and 50x digital zoom, and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ takes it further with a dual-telephoto camera system that enables 20x hybrid zoom and 100x digital zoom.

The Ultra Vision Selfie Camera on the Huawei Mate 40 Series take selfies and videos to new heights with support for 4K capture and the option to shoot in one of three available fields of view, ranging from up close and personal to ultra-wide. Slow-Motion Selfie adds even more versatility to the front camera by letting users add a dramatic flair when documenting their fast-paced actions.

Leap further ahead with an all-new user experience

Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ are set to revolutionize how consumers integrate smartphones into their lives with new user-centric features including Smart Gesture Control, which allows total hands-free control of your device. Simply hover your hand over the device to wake it up or navigate your phone by swiping left, right, up, and down. There is also an air press gesture for call answering.

A device that is always there for you, the all-new dynamic Eyes on Display on Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ can be activated at a glance, with fully customizable interactive displays hosting all the information you need from your phone. The ring of incoming calls can be reduced by making eye contact with your phone.

Improved MeeTime functionality is a gateway to a better connected, more intelligent life. When combined with the power of Huawei’s 1+8+N ecosystem, Multi-screen Collaboration offers an intuitive way for users to operate multiple devices at once, running several apps simultaneously, combining smartphones and PC to deliver unique experiences.

When it comes to privacy and security, the EMUI 11 operating system has always featured comprehensive security solutions to protect Huawei device users. The Trusted Execution Environment operating system is CC EAL5+ certified, which is the highest certification level for commercialized security microkernel.

EMUI 11 also comes with new privacy features. When transferring images, users can easily purge sensitive personal data such as location, time, and device details from the file before it is sent.

Huawei Mate 40 Series comes equipped with the innovative Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), bringing users a smarter, richer, more convenient, and secure smartphone experience. During the launch, Huawei also unveiled new apps available for global Huawei users, including Petal Search, a search engine with support for multiple types of searches; Petal Maps, a map app that utilizes the Huawei Mate 40 Series’ gesture control feature; and HUAWEI Docs, a unified word document service.

These apps come together to lead the way towards a better digital life for the 700 million Huawei device users worldwide.

During the launch, Huawei also introduced Huawei FreeBuds Studio, the company’s first over-ear noise-canceling headphones and Porsche Design Huawei Watcch GT 2, and announced the global availability of the Huawei x Gentle Monster Eyewear II smart glasses and Huawei Sound wireless Hi-Fi.

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MSI GS66 Stealth review: Simplicity meets power

11/08/2020

The MSI GS66 Stealth presents itself as a device that caters to the demands of today’s generation. Offering desktop-like performance and portability but in a toned-down design. With that in mind, should power-users consider this for their next laptop?

I decided to take the MSI GS66 Stealth out for a spin by using it as my primary computer for working and for gaming. Being a power user myself, I exposed the device to various everyday tasks of mine such as editing, motion graphics work, and, of course, gaming.

Just a quick disclaimer. MSI did send us an engineering unit that may be different from the retail version. We’re not quite sure how different so our experience may or may not be exactly the same when using the retail unit. Nevertheless, if you want to know how it fared in our hands, read on!

Design

Needless to say, the GS66 Stealth’s design is pretty straightforward. Its chassis is decked out in an all-black color with a sandblasted finish that’s very nice to the touch and does well in resisting fingerprints. Its only embellishment is a barely-there, laser-etched dragon emblem upfront that sports a semi-gloss finish. Personally, I normally like designs with a little extra pop of color but I really took a liking to this minimalist blacked-out body.

Apart from its color, the GS66 Stealth maintains simplicity in its other aspects. There are no out-of-the-box design choices here which just makes sense considering its ‘stealth’ concept and maintains a classic look that will never go out of style.

Opening the device reveals a matching black keyboard with per-key RGB by Steelseries. Using the SteelSeries 3 Engine, you can customize the keyboard’s colors in a variety of ways. The program offers different preset styles as well as very flexible manual controls for detailed personalization.

In terms of performance, I found the keys to be a tad bit shallow compared to other laptops I’ve tested and it also felt clunky when typing. But despite that, usage was comfortable even through extended periods of work.

The overall build is undoubtedly sturdy and durable. It is quite heavy at 2.1 kilograms but it’s an acceptable weight considering all the powerful internals it’s packing and when compared to others in its class. It also has a 180-degree hinge if you ever want to share your screen with the person in front of you.

As for ports, you won’t find yourself lacking as the device houses plenty of them. You’re given one USB Type-C port on the right side along with two USB Type-A ports, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the opposite side, you have another USB Type-A port, Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI, and the AC jack for power.

Display and Multimedia

Now, onto its display. Again, playing on the concept of stealth, the display looks relatively plain but this 15.6-inch Full HD display is actually capable of a high 240Hz refresh rate. The close to 100% sRGB color space produced rich and vibrant images whether we were working, playing, or watching.

With Genshin Impact, for example, lines were crisp and sharp and colors were very vivid. Green fields were wonderfully saturated while more shadowy areas like cliffs exhibited impressive contrast. Color performance carries over when watching movies or shows or even when just browsing or editing photos. Where we found the screen lacking, however, was in its brightness. It wasn’t as impressive and you end up wanting more than it can offer.

The device also offers an 84% screen-to-body ratio with most of its bezel focused on the bottom. Hiding in the top bezel is a Windows Hello-enabled IR camera that made logging in a breeze. To round out the entertainment experience, the device houses front-firing speakers that are situated on either side of the device.

Audio quality wasn’t exceptional but performance was pleasant overall. It was a bit lacking in bass and volume, though, but the built-in equalizer can help remedy this. And besides, when you’re gaming, you’re most likely wearing headphones anyway.

Performance

Now on to the good stuff. We know it looks cool and has a fast display but what exactly can the GS66 Stealth do? Well, a lot.

Let’s talk specs first. We’ve got a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processor mated with an NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Super with Max-Q design. Our unit came with 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD for storage. On paper alone, the device looks to be highly capable of handling heavy loads. Additionally, the device is easily upgradeable and has extra slots for both memory and storage.

On the gaming front, we are able to run Genshin Impact at its highest graphics settings with a stable 60 frames per second. Lag was close to inexistent through hours of gameplay.

We also ran Doom Eternal to get a feel of the display’s high refresh rate. True enough, the gameplay was buttery smooth and the 3ms response time was incredible. We were able to achieve upwards of 200 frames per second on average as well.

It should be noted, though, that we were playing with the laptop plugged in and set to Ultimate Performance. We tried to play without being connected to the charger but the performance was quite inconsistent.

Alongside its gamer-ready specs are some software-based features that further enhance the gaming experience. MSI’s Gaming Mode 2.0 is a one-click optimization feature to easily get the best settings for your game. When activated, it optimizes and prioritizes system resources, frees up memory, automatically switches to pre-set keyboard lightning if available, change Nahimic’s audio settings to Game Mode, and lastly, switch to True Color Gamer mode all in one go.

Temperatures rise quite fast but luckily MSI’s Cooler Boost Trinity+ can quickly cool things down. The cooling system uses three fans that work very well at reducing temperatures almost immediately. At the highest fan speed though, it gets really loud but I didn’t mind since it meant better performance. It’s definitely not something you’d want to have when working remotely, though, like in a quiet coffee shop because it’ll most likely grab people’s attention.

There is a shortcut on the keyboard that will let you switch fan speeds on the fly. I usually just turn it on for a couple of minutes when I feel the device getting hot or let it run at full speed when I’m gaming at home. This usually brings down the temperature down to about 60 to 70-degrees Celsius from high temps of 80 to 90-degrees Celsius.

We did find the placement of the vents a little bothersome though. The right vent, specifically, would spew hot air onto my hand when I was using a mouse. Luckily, this isn’t a major problem and can be solved by moving a little further away.

Apart from gaming, we also tested how the laptop would fare with processor and graphics-intensive apps as well. Since we’re in the business of content creation, we tested it on different editing scenarios and we’re happy to report that it was able to show its worth.

Editing 1080p footage in Premiere Pro was no problem for the device even with some effects stacked. Rendering was fast and painless as well. I also tried doing moderately heavy motion graphics work and was pleased with its speedy performance. Large vector graphics would sometimes cause a few seconds of lag but things would speed up once it loaded.

So despite it being branded as a gaming laptop, the specs and performance work just as well for creators. My previous setup would have me switching from my work computer to my gaming laptop when I wanted to play but the GS66 Stealth eliminates that. You can easily transition from working to gaming without having to get up or change machines. In fact, I enjoyed its editing performance so much that I wished I had an extra monitor on-hand so I could work on a bigger screen.

Battery

The GS66 Stealth comes with a whopping 99.9Whr battery. That’s the largest battery available for laptops and is also, interestingly, the maximum capacity allowed on an airplane. MSI says the battery can last up to 9 hours when doing normal office work.

Since the bulk of our work centers around content creation and multimedia, we had a shorter battery life of just 2 hours on moderate power-saving settings while gaming continuously on Ultra Performance gave us just an hour and 15 minutes of juice. It’s definitely a lot shorter than what was promised but we did test battery life using more power-hungry apps and this very acceptable. Charging the laptop to full from zero took about two hours.

Additionally, the GS66 Stealth is also capable of charging via USB-C if you’re ever in a pinch. The only requirement is that the charging adapter is at least 65W. We tried to charge it with a 65W charger we had lying around but we were, unfortunately, unable to make it work. It may be because our unit is an engineering unit or maybe our charger isn’t really 65W. We really can’t say for sure.

Creature Comfort

In our reviews, The Modern Creatures looks for special features in devices that make them worth having — something that gives a product an edge over its peers. And our pick for the MSI GS66 Stealth would have to be its display.

It isn’t just the 240Hz refresh rate that we found impressive but also its color accuracy and 3ms response time. The high refresh rate is definitely a convenience not to mention it’s just plain impressive. Even if you may not get much use out of it outside of first-person shooter games, it’s good to know that high frame rates are always accessible. Pairing that with impressive color and fast response times, you get a flexible display that’s suitable for all kinds of activities.

Final thoughts

The MSI GS66 Stealth is branded as a laptop that helps users easily transition from work to play. In our time with the device, we can confidently say that it’s truly able to do so.

In terms of thin and light gaming laptops, it may be the most unique but it’s still worth considering for a device that’s both semi-portable but powerful. You get an impressive screen with really high refresh rates, top-notch performance, and a large-capacity battery. There may be a couple of shortcomings with its keyboard and audio but overall performance is still more than satisfactory.

Design-wise, you get a subtle and sleek-looking device that exudes class in its simplicity. True to its name, the MSI GS66 Stealth does well in executing its ‘stealth’ concept with its all-black interior and powerful internals hiding underneath. Whether you’re a gamer, content creator, or just a regular power-user, you’ll find something to love with this device.

 

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