The Huawei Mate 40 was first launched almost two years ago, back in October 2020, but that hasn’t stopped the company from reviving it with nothing but a new chipset as well as a new primary camera sensor. Recently, a new variant of the device was seen listed on the Chinese Tianyi Product Library with MediaTek’s Dimensity 1000+ processor, replacing the Kirin 9000E 5G SoC of its predecessor.
Although the Dimensity 1000+ chip isn’t exactly an upgrade, it was added out of necessity since Huawei has reportedly been running out of its Kirin stock due to the US sanctions, limiting the company’s options to secure future supply. Additionally, in Geekbench 5 tests, Dimensity 1000+ scored around 3,000 in multi-core and 800 in single-core tests respectively, as opposed to the Kirin 9000’s 3,600 and 950 scores.
Apart from the new chipset, the latest Mate 40 comes with an upgraded 64MP primary rear camera sensor, as opposed to the 50MP unit of the original Mate 40.
It’s also worth mentioning here that the phone will actually be sold under the moniker TD Tech M40 in its Chinese home market. While the reason behind the rebranding remains a mystery, speculations suggest that it has something to do with the US ban on the company. As a result, the back panel of the smartphone will no longer feature the “Huawei” branding, instead, it’ll be replaced with “TD Tech”.
TD Tech is one of the companies that hold a license to Huawei’s hardware. So far, the company has only launched a single smartphone called the TD Tech N8 Pro, which is a rebranded version of the Huawei Nova 8 Pro.
The rest of the specifications include a 6.5″ display, 8GB RAM with 128GB of internal storage. As far as the pricing is concerned, the TD Tech M40 will start at 4,599 Yuan (~$724) for the 8/128GB variant while the 8/256GB trim will be priced at 5,099 Yuan (~$802).