I wonder how many people will buy a £1299 (RRP) Huawei, with outstanding threats to Android, etc, and no access to Play store?

I find it hard to judge ‘cos I wouldn’t pay that for any phone, regardless of spec and/or US/China trade issues. But I wouldn't.

Having seen one review of this.. the rest will follow suit. “Fantastic camera BUT”…“almost perfect BUT”…“this is the phone you been waiting for BUT”.. BUT….. being Google apps.

There will be people (small number) who have always wanted google off their devices, this is their chance. But for £1k+?

Question if you understand camera tech… could you buy a compact for around 350max e.g. Canon Powershot G9, spend 300 on a midrange phone and take better images than p40 pro+?

pp05
…..

There will be people (small number) who have always wanted google off their devices, this is their chance. But for £1k+?

Question if you understand camera tech… could you buy a compact for around 350max e.g. Canon Powershot G9, spend 300 on a midrange phone and take better images than p40 pro+?

As you know, I'm not exactly a Google fan, but …. really, we're Linda locked into either Google or Apple ecosystems. It's one reason why I avoided smartphones until very recently. But various events, including Covid, forced a direction change on me.

My ideal would be a smartphone where I could remove all those Google bits I don't want, and especially to opt out (or not opt in) to any off Google's obnoxious habits of data thievery and analysis. I ddo nnot want to be tracked by anybody, for any reason, be it Google, Apple, MS, Amazon …. or the Chinese government and it's appendages. I don't want any collecting, let alone analysis, of my data unless I explicitly choose to opt in.

So no, I don't want Google, but a better question, re: Huawei, is whether I'm prepared to end up locked into the Chinese ecosystem in order to avoid Google's ecosystem? The answer to that, having just decided between Huawei and Google is, a resounding no. Given that a P40, and IIRC, some P30 models meant being locked out of US-based corporates nd into Chinese lines, I went Samsung, and therefore Android/Google.

I don't like it, but I dislike it a smidge less than the other way. So if I was in the market for £1k phone (which I'm not) it wouldn't be a P40. As for the camera question, I don't know how good the P40 is at photo's but, nor do I care. I do have a very small sub-compact (Panasonic TZ-something, TZ30??) which I use for snapshots. Even the Samsung is probably good enough for snapshots.

But for serious photography, for me, no compact or phone is going to be good enough and I rely on ‘proper’ cameras and, more particularly, the associated ecosystem. One reason is a love of macro, and in many situations, that requires unusual flash support or lenses.

That, though, is going to be a minority position and for many people, modern smartphones will be photographically good enough.