In this generation of Mate40 series, the number of new flagships in the same period in history. In addition to the three Mate 40 medium cups, large cups, and super large cups, Huawei also launched the luxury cup Mate40 RS Porsche design version. However, this time the imaging capability of the Mate40 RS Porsche design is between the Mate40 Pro and Mate40 Pro+. The task of exploring the unmanned area of the image is still handed over to the super-large flagship Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ in accordance with the old tradition.
The camera is equipped with five Leica cameras on the rear, the main camera is 50 Megapixels, the ultra-wide-angle lens is 20 Megapixels, and the telephoto lens becomes two, both of 8 Megapixels (F2.4 + F4.4). It supports 3x and 10x optical zooms, 20x hybrid zoom, 100x binocular digital zoom, and a 3D ToF lens (progressive depth of field).
It is worth mentioning that the Mate40 Pro+ continues to be entangled with ultra-wide-angle images. Its 20-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera uses the industry’s first free-form lens and cooperates with Huawei’s anti-distortion algorithm to greatly improve image edge distortion and face correction. Kuai Technology has acquired this phone recently. The following is our detailed evaluation analysis.
Design & Appearance
The front appearance of Huawei Mate40 Pro+ is exactly the same as Mate40 Pro, there is no difference. The 88° curved ring screen and curved glass body conform to the stable and high-end product positioning of the Huawei Mate series, and it is also artistic.
Thanks to the high screen-to-body ratio brought by the hyper-curved screen, you can experience an excellent sense of immersion when you use Mate40 Pro+. The display content continues from the middle of the screen to the edge of the screen.
In terms of screen parameters, the 6.76-inch screen of Huawei Mate40 Pro+ is exactly the same on paper parameters as Mate40 Pro. The resolution is 2772×1344 and it is still OLED material. The biggest change is that it supports up to 90Hz refresh rate.
The oval black area in the upper left corner of the screen has the same opening position and size as the Mate40 Pro. There is also a 13-megapixel selfie lens plus a 3D deep camera. The phone can automatically switch to three wide-angle shooting when taking horizontal selfies and group photos. It supports distortion Correction, Selfie slow motion, front and rear dual scene recording, 4K video recording, 3D face recognition, AI air operation.
There are two speakers on the top and bottom, and dual stereo speakers are also designed. Physical volume button (while retaining the virtual volume button). In terms of the back, except for the camera area and the body material, the two have the same shape.
Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ is available in bright black, glaze white, secret silver, and two plain leather versions of Populus euphratica in summer and Populus euphratica in autumn. Huawei Mate40 Pro+ is only available in ceramic black and ceramic white. It’s worth mentioning that the “Starring” of the rear lens module of Huawei Mate40 Pro+ is slightly larger than that of Mate40 Pro. The ring flash protective shell of Mate40 Pro cannot be put on the body of Mate40 Pro+.
Huawei Mate40 Pro+ and Mate40 Pro have the same length and width, and the thickness of about 8.8mm is even thinner than the latter (9.1mm-9.5mm). However, considering that the ceramic body and internal stacking components are more complicated, Mate40 Pro+ is heavier than any version of Mate40 Pro, reaching 230 grams, which is relatively solid.
Cameras
In photography, it is quite common to encounter obvious or inconspicuous distortion of the final image. This is a problem at the lens end and is common. It represents the degree of distortion of the image formed by the optical system on the object relative to the object itself. The reason for this phenomenon is very complicated.
To put it simply, the camera lens is composed of multiple groups of lenses, but these lenses are further subdivided into convex and concave lenses, the center and edge thickness between each other, and the way of refracting light (if you have knowledge of middle school physics You will know that there is a difference between the convex lens converging light and the concave lens diverging light.
This means that the final image is refracted by lenses with different center/edge thickness/magnification (ratio of image size to actual size)/refraction method. When the magnification increases with the incident angle of the beam, it is With positive distortion, the picture shrinks toward the middle, which is called pincushion distortion; when the magnification decreases with the increase of the incident angle, negative distortion is formed, which will form an expanded barrel distortion.
There is also a kind of perspective distortion that is difficult to solve, also called linear distortion. The distortion that is easy to appear when shooting a straight structure object at close range is due to perspective transformation. Any lens will produce this kind of distortion under certain conditions. Correction at the software level.
As a result, photos were taken by a wide-angle lens usually have a certain degree of distortion, and the larger the field of view, the greater the distortion and the greater the distortion, which seriously affects the final image perception. This is also one of the reasons why Huawei emphasized image quality before completely solving the problem of a large field of view photography distortion, and has always selected a small field of view lenses for flagship models.
For example, the ultra-wide-angle lens of the iPhone11 has an equivalent focal length of 13mm, while the Mate30 Pro ultra-wide-angle lens of the same period has an equivalent focal length of 18mm.
Mankind’s desire and motivation to overcome distortions are always quite abundant. In order to get rid of image distortion, the industry has created a free-form optical design between traditional spherical and aspherical surfaces. This is an indescribable non-axisymmetric and irregularly curved surface. Since the optical knowledge involved is extremely complex, It will not be discussed in depth here. Example of free-form surface refracted light from DynaOptics, an optical equipment company
Compared with traditional lenses, free-form surface lenses have greater design freedom, helping to achieve individual control of light in different areas of the field of view to suppress distortion. Generally speaking, in the optical system, the free-form surface can freely distribute the light intensity, and can artificially control the angle and even the direction of each light.
According to relevant industry sources, combined with the figure above, in practical applications using two or more free-form surface lenses, the point-to-point alignment of all surfaces between each lens is currently almost impossible. It is estimated that Huawei Mate40 Pro+ uses only one free-form surface lens, and the other groups should be traditional lenses if no accidents occur.
Huawei eats the first crab of “free-form surface” in the mobile phone field
Free-form lenses have long been used in other fields, such as lighting, printing and scanning, displays, ophthalmology, projection, and data storage. In particular, low-precision free-form surfaces have been widely used in optical lighting systems, greatly improving the lighting uniformity and energy efficiency of the lighting system.
Low-distortion, narrow field of view, wide-angle fish-eye, high-distortion, and wide field of view free-form surface application effect (source DynaOptics example)
In the field of mobile phones, according to existing reports, there is no precedent for the successful application of free-form lenses on mobile phones. This is related to the small size of smartphones, high technology integration, and extremely complicated internal component stacking.
Therefore, the introduction of optical free-form surfaces into mobile phone images requires theoretical argumentation on the one hand and very high requirements on its processing design technology.
However, existing data show that Huawei only began research on the application of free-form surfaces in ultra-wide-angle mobile phone lenses in 2018. After a year of theoretical design and simulation, by introducing a free-form surface lens, it designed a distortion-free ultra-wide-angle lens. Then apply the above results to the Mate40 Pro+ mobile phone and mass-produce it.
Generally speaking, there is always a long distance from technology research and development to industrial applications. Judging from the speed at which the free-form surface solution has landed on Mate40 Pro+, Huawei’s high sensitivity to the cutting-edge fields of technology and conversion efficiency are really staggering.
Next, let’s take Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ and compare it with iPhone11 and Mate40 Pro (equipped with traditional ultra-wide-angle lens but with distortion correction algorithm). Ultra-wide-angle imaging compared with indoor lights.
Here is a brief introduction, the ultra-wide-angle lens of Huawei Mate40 Pro is 18mm focal length, the ultra-wide-angle lens of Mate40 Pro+ is 14mm focal length, and the ultra-wide-angle lens of iPhone11 is equivalent 13mm focal length.
Therefore, as shown in the above picture, in terms of field of view, iPhone11 will obviously have more advantages, but Mate40 Pro+ is already very close to iPhone11, which has always emphasized a wide field of view, and it is equivalent to the narrow field of view Mate40 Pro The level of picture quality, especially the fineness and purity of the picture, is obviously better than that of the iPhone 11 (click the large image to view).
It can be clearly seen that the iPhone 11 does not seem to have a distortion correction algorithm. The door frame at the edge of the image has shown the characteristics of barrel distortion, “expanding outward”, while the door frame of Mate40 Pro+ is still straight, and from the details, The latter is better than the former in terms of fineness, brightness, and purity of the picture. The Mate40 Pro has a small field of view and is not comparable.
Due to the introduction of free-form surfaces, the imaging quality of the Mate40 Pro+ lens is indeed very high, and the optical distortion is quite small, which means that distortion-free high-definition images can be obtained without software distortion correction. In this way, when shooting, the processing of distortion correction is omitted, and distortion-free images and videos can be produced faster.
Of course, most people may not be sensitive to small distortions of ordinary scenes, so we introduced a group of photos with portraits on the edges of the image for comparison.
From the above comparison, it can be seen that the free-form surface uses a higher degree of freedom in the lens design to avoid distortion in a physical way. It is particularly effective in correcting the perspective distortion of people at the edge, without losing the width of the field of view, but also To correct the problem of elongated faces, no other models, even flagships of other Huawei brands, can fight.
It is worth mentioning that Huawei Mate40 Pro+ is also equipped with an ultra-wide-angle camera module on the front. Although it is not a free-form surface lens, it has a distortion correction algorithm that participates in portrait distortion correction. From shooting to opening the album, you can see that XD Fusion has corrected the distortion. When the seriously distorted Selfie was rescued, the feeling was quite refreshing.
Fourth, the comprehensive experience of the imaging system: Compared with Mate40 Pro, is the perception of optical image stabilization strong?
In the parameter table comparison section at the end of the preface, you should have noticed that Mate40 Pro+ is compared to Huawei Mate 40 Pro+. Their main camera uses 50 million pixels and a 1/1.28-inch large sensor, but the flagship of the large cup has one more OIS. Optical image stabilization.
Is OIS strong on the main camera of the Mate40 series?
The author had this question at the beginning of the series’ release, but never got the answer, so I took this opportunity to test it. In the actual experience, we found that OIS does have an impact on the final imaging, but it is mainly not in the 1X default mode.
After all, XD Fusion can stack more sample samples. The main camera of Mate40 Pro does not have OIS, which has minimal impact on daily or even night shooting. In the default mode, XD Fusion will increase the ISO, add samples, and stack to offset the displacement to compensate for OIS optics. The lack of anti-shake ensures the clarity of the picture.
Mate40 Pro without OIS at night 1X low light shooting is not inferior to Mate40 Pro+
One of the main effects is handheld shooting in professional mode. Without the assistance of XD Fusion, the probability of maintaining clarity is not as good as that of Mate40 Pro+. The former requires manual ISO to reduce the shutter speed, which is not easy to produce.
Another situation is that in the case of 10X zoom, Mate40 Pro will call the main camera and the periscope telephoto with OIS optical image stabilization to image together. Through the following two sets of samples, you can clearly see the Mate40 Pro’s 10X night scene mode The sampling pressure rises sharply, and the details are slightly jittery. The final image is even worse than the Mate40 Pro+ which only depends on the OIS telephoto end under 10X, and the corresponding sensor has a slightly smaller light input in a low-light environment.
In the imaging system of Huawei Mate40 Pro+, except for the rear-mounted free-form ultra-wide-angle lens, the others are basically the same as the Huawei Mate40 RS Porsche design, including:
50 Megapixel super-sensing camera (wide-angle, f/1.9 aperture, support OIS optical image stabilization) + 20 Megapixel movie camera (free-form surface ultra-wide angle, f/2.4 aperture) + 12 Megapixel telephoto camera (f/2.4 aperture, Support OIS optical image stabilization) + 8 Megapixel super zoom camera (10x optical zoom, f/4.4 aperture, support OIS optical image stabilization) + 3D deep-sensing camera, support autofocus.
In addition, the ISP and NPU of the Kirin 9000 chip combined with XD Fusion has significantly optimized the full focal length of the Mate40 Pro+. Especially for the optimization of details in the dark, the color correction under complex lighting, and the necessary HDR optimization are excellent.
Next, let’s take a look directly at the proofs.
At night, the main camera and ultra-wide-angle of Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ can still maintain a high degree of color consistency.
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Verdict
After conquering the dark night with the RYYB super-sensitive main camera and conquering the vertical space with the periscope ultra-long-distance telephoto lens, the battle of the Mate series to conquer the ultra-wide-angle image has entered a white-hot stage.
Although I haven’t waited for the liquid lens that currently only exists in the legend, the addition of the free-form surface lens to the Mate40 Pro+ is also enough to be shocking. It mainly solves the optical distortion of wide-angle shooting, which is mainly manifested as barrel distortion. Of course, through our previous experience with Mate40 Pro, we can find that the algorithm can also correct some distortions, but it will lose edge resolution.
The free-form surface is a physical way to avoid distortion through a higher degree of freedom in lens design. Through the actual shooting experience, it can be seen that the real strength of the free-form surface lens is to correct the perspective distortion of the person at the edge, without losing the foe, but also correcting the distortion problems including the elongated face. Currently, there is no inside the Huawei flagship model. opponent.
Moreover, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ also realizes front and rear double wide-angle. The algorithm corrects portrait distortion and can play a role in both front and rear ultra-wide-angle images. From shooting to opening the album, you can see that the XD Fusion algorithm saves distortion and distortion. The feeling of coming back is quite refreshing. Of course, if there are any difficulties in Huawei’s free-form surface solution introduced in mobile phones, it is the manufacturing link.
As we said before, before the Huawei Mate40 Pro+, there was no precedent for the successful application of free-form lenses on mobile phones. This is related to the small size of smartphones, high technical integration, and extremely complex internal component stacking, which is related to the design technology. And equipment performance is extremely demanding, which will inevitably lead to a decline in production speed and yield.
And because of well-known reasons, Huawei is still in a difficult time when industrial technology elements are unsustainable and consumer business is under tremendous pressure. These are likely to be factors that make it difficult for Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ to sell in stock.
In terms of price, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ is only available for 12G+256G, which is 8999 yuan. Its pricing is currently second only to Mate40 RS Porsche Design, which can be regarded as a very expensive phone and not suitable for everyone. This is the reason why there are also Huawei Mate40 Pro and Huawei Mate40, which can bring flagship experience without spending too much money.
In other words, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ is still the existence of the Mate series of image benchmarks, suitable for users who are not price-sensitive and pursue the most cutting-edge imaging technology experience, while Mate40 and Mate40 Pro are more suitable for most users. At the same time, since the specifications of Huawei Mate40 Pro+, including performance, battery, and charging, are exactly the same as those of the Mate40 Pro that have been evaluated before, we will not repeat the test here. You can read past articles to understand.