The Huawei P40 Pro is here and it’s shaping up to be a seriously impressive phone thanks to an exciting camera array, impressive fast charging and unique design.
Of course, one of the hits against the phone is that it lacks the necessary services to get the Google Play Store, however there’s a handy trick that’ll let you transfer over most of your favourite apps from another Android phone – and it only takes a few minutes.
With the Phone Clone app (available on the Play Store and preinstalled of Huawei devices) you can transfer over most of your Android apps. Simply download the app on your older device, connect it to your new P40 (or Mate 30 Pro) and start the transfer.
I demoed this by wirelessly transferring all the 78 apps over from my Pixel 4 XL to the new Huawei P40 Pro and it took less than 20 minutes. Once the transfer was complete I had a P40 Pro full of my everyday apps: Pocketcasts, Prime Video, Disney Plus, Spotify and Sonos. And this was all without downloading APKs or sideloading other app stores.
The system isn’t perfect though, and you will find some gaps. Google apps weren’t transferred over (even when something like Google Pay is sideloaded it doesn’t work) for obvious reasons, and both Netflix and Uber refused to move across. That’s to be expected, as both of those services use elements of Google’s Media Services which simply doesn’t exist on this phone. You also won’t be able to get app updates.
Even some apps that I moved across, Natwest banking, for example, didn’t work as intended.
Still, if you’re moving from an older Android phone to the Huawei P40, are happy to ditch Google’s services but still want your basic apps to make the move this is easily the quickest and most successful way I have found to do it.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
