The upcoming Huawei P40 lineup is scheduled to be announced in Paris on 26 March, which means that these leaks are right on schedule. A journalist at Digital Trends got access to a prototype of the upcoming device from… Wait for it… Huawei itself.

This hands-on gives us the clearest look yet at the next-gen P-series device. We don’t actually know whether this is the P40, P40 Pro or the P40 Lite, but one thing’s for sure. It looks extremely similar to its predecessor.

“What do you do when you’re happily spending quality time with the Huawei Mate Xs folding smartphone, and the Huawei staff member with you happens to put a phone that you’d never seen before down on the table?” The journalist proceeded to ask if he can take pictures of the foreign device, after which the Huawei employee agreed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A curvy boi

It does look like he only got to film the back of the device, which means that the front can still hold some surprises. Same goes for the internals — all the specs on these devices are still rumoured, and the candid pics didn’t necessarily help clear that up.

The pictured device features a slightly curved glass back, a metal frame, and a camera block housing three lenses that looks suspiciously like the P30’s camera housing. One of the camera lenses look like a time-of-flight depth sensor, and to the side, you can see the flash.

What we can take away from the extensive article published on Digital Trends, is that the writer really enjoyed the physical feel of the phone. We need to remember that this is a prototype, and the final version could actually look completely different. Maybe this is an extensive diversion tactic. We’ll see on 26 March.

What we do know, however, is that these will definitely launch without Google Mobile Servies. That is unless Google gains the ability to trade with Huawei again within the next two weeks…