Huawei Mate 50 Pro Review: Not App to Scratch

Reviewing a Huawei telephone lately (not to mention utilizing one full time) is an train in acute frustration.

The telephone maker was, in early 2019, driving the crest of a good looking Android wave. The P30 Professional was the most effective telephones ever made and Huawei was actually difficult Samsung’s market dominance.

Almost 4 years on and one US commerce ban later, Huawei’s smartphones are hobbled by an absence of native Google app and repair assist, and an incapacity to supply 5G modems.

That doesn’t make telephones just like the Mate 50 Professional unusable – removed from it – but it surely does make them difficult to make use of such as you would every other Android telephone.

Design & construct

• Pretty glossy design
• Matt glass again
• Curved edges

Huawei nonetheless is aware of learn how to make beautiful {hardware}. The Mate 50 Professional is likely one of the finest feeling and looking telephones I’ve examined in 2022, with a frosted silver glass again and simply the correct quantity of curve to the perimeters of the show to make it really feel slim within the hand.

There’s additionally a black model out there in Europe, although the most effective wanting model, with orange vegan leather-based with gold highlights, will not be out there within the UK.

Curiously, that orange model has Huawei’s extra sturdy Kunlun glass on the show and is water-resistant as much as six metres – the silver and black variations get an unspecified, much less hardy glass and solely two metres of water resistance.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Most eye-catching concerning the telephone is its massive round digital camera module on the again, which homes three lenses (although it’s made to appear like 4 because of a laser auto focus unit). Its central positioning means the telephone doesn’t rock when on a tabletop however my phrase, this can be a slippery telephone. There’s a low high quality TPU case within the field that I usually wouldn’t use, however needed to as a result of with out it the telephone slid off chairs, tables, and desks.

This can be a massive telephone that I discovered not possible to make use of with one hand, needing two to grip it to achieve the highest of the show. Up there’s a lengthy skinny notch now not often seen on new Android telephones. It homes the selfie digital camera and time-of-flight (TOF) sensor for biometric face unlocking of the telephone.

Display screen & audio system

• 6.74in curved OLED
• 120Hz refresh fee
•  Strong stereo audio system

The telephone is massive due to the massive 6.74in OLED display, which has glorious colors and a excessive, sharp decision of 1212 x 2616p. It’s an outstanding panel with a 120Hz refresh fee, although it doesn’t have the LTPO tech that permits different telephones just like the iPhone 14 Professional to scale down the speed to 1Hz as acceptable to preserve energy – Huawei’s auto settings solely enable the telephone to go between 60Hz and 90Hz.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Movies and photographs look superb when considered full display, with that top decision actually paying off if the content material is suitable. YouTube movies in 2160p can scale at full decision right here not like different premium telephones with decrease res shows.

Peak brightness could be very excessive, and although the panel is curved on the edges, colors don’t distort.

The stereo audio system that use the earpiece grille and down firing speaker on the underside edge are properly full sounding for enjoying movies, the radio, or podcasts.

Specs & efficiency

• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset
• 4G solely – no 5G
• 66W wired charging

Huawei used to make use of its personal Kirin chipsets however the Mate 50 Professional as an alternative makes use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, a really succesful chip that on the time of launch in late 2022 has solely simply been outmoded by the 8 Gen 2.

On account of Huawei’s commerce limitations, it’s solely able to 4G networking, so you may’t entry 5G. It’s not the tip of the world, however whenever you’re spending over a grand on a telephone it’d be good for it to be futureproofed for when 5G actually comes into its personal.

Regardless of that, efficiency is superb for my use circumstances, which is to be trustworthy not pushing the telephone to its extremes. To check that, I fired up some excessive finish cell video games equivalent to PUBG Cell and so they ran and not using a hitch.

That’s good contemplating all fashions of the telephone include 8GB RAM, a determine that’s really a bit of low in comparison with different high-end Android telephones. The cheaper £629 OnePlus 10T has 16GB, and the identical chip however with 5G.

Most fashions, my unit included, have 256GB storage which is expandable, however solely utilizing Huawei’s personal nano reminiscence playing cards.

You additionally get a formidable array of location expertise inbuilt with dual-band GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, GALILEO, QZSS and NavIC, although the European fashions don’t get assist for sending messages by way of satellite tv for pc just like the Chinese language model does.

Digital camera & video

• 10-step variable aperture
• Beautiful most important sensor
• Versatile ultrawide and telephoto

The principle function of the Mate 50 Professional is its variable aperture most important digital camera sensor. It’s the primary telephone ever to have a lens whose aperture could be manually modified between greater than two stops.

You’ll be able to choose ten steps between f/1.4 and f/4.0in the digital camera app’s professional mode, or let the system choose for you in auto.

Selecting nearer to f/1.4 allows extra mild, giving pictures a pure bokeh impact the place the shut topic is in focus and the background is blurred, whereas nearer to f/4.0 allows much less mild however the background comes extra into focus.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Henry Burrell / Foundry

It’s a neat trick, and fairly astonishing that Huawei has match a 10-step transferring half into the again of a smartphone. However in precise use, I didn’t discover it that ground-breaking. It’s enjoyable to make use of, notably on objects up near see the impact of adjusting the aperture – however precise images don’t mirror the intelligent expertise as a result of they only find yourself regular pictures.

Fortunately, the principle 50Mp sensor is excellent, and the Mate 50 Professional genuinely produces a few of the finest photographs of any smartphone digital camera ever. It makes use of Huawei’s most popular RYYB (purple yellow yellow blue) sensor arrange the place the standard inexperienced pixel is changed by a second yellow pixel, which in flip allows extra purple and inexperienced mild. This lets extra mild into the sensor and improves low mild images.

Pictures in daylight are beautiful with very good element and tasteful dynamic vary for pleasingly actual to life photographs. In low mild the dynamic vary can be phenomenal, with good element and light-weight administration the place different telephone cameras may blow out the white of the sky or a lightweight supply at midnight. I typically didn’t want the evening mode within the digital camera app to get wonderful night-time pictures.

There’s additionally an ultrawide f/2.2 sensor that may take close-up macro pictures, and a 64Mp, f/3.5 periscope zoom lens with optical picture stabilisation that has a 3.5x optical zoom.

It makes for a flexible digital camera, and one which most of the time I used to be pleased with. It’s pretty much as good because the Vivo X80 Professional and Google Pixel 7 Professional in lots of situations. Taking pictures in 4K as much as 60fps additionally seems to be extremely crisp.

On the entrance of the telephone is a 13Mp ultrawide angle f/2.4 selfie digital camera that’s completely good for selfies and video calls, which sits alongside a TOF sensor that permits for 3D safe face unlock – making the Mate 50 Professional one of many few Android telephones to have a face unlock function that’s equally safe to Apple’s Face ID on the iPhone.

Battery & charging

• 4700mAh battery
• 66W quick charging
• Simply in the future on a cost

The Mate 50 Professional’s 4700mAh battery is sizable however not the most important on a tool with specs this excessive, that calls for lots of energy for processing the display. Regardless of that it simply lasted a full day of use on 4G, utilizing maps, taking photographs, and messaging as I usually would.

Within the field is a 66W energy brick and cable that expenses the telephone by way of USB in about 40 minutes from empty. That is fairly quick, and higher than you’ll discover on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely or Google Pixel 7 Professional.

It’s additionally obtained 50W wi-fi charging, however I couldn’t check that because the suitable charging pad is offered individually.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Software program & updates

• No native Google assist
• Poor app choice in AppGallery
• No computerized updates for sideloaded apps

The Achilles’ Heel of any Huawei telephone, this one included, is software program. I’ll attempt to put it as merely and pretty as potential.

The telephone runs on EMUI 13, which relies on open supply Android. There’s no indication how lengthy Huawei plans to maintain the telephone up to date for.

The Mate 50 Professional can not natively run Google apps or companies correctly. It’s because it can not use Google’s model of Android with software program that helps the companies correctly.

The telephone doesn’t include the Google Play Retailer put in, so as an alternative it’s important to obtain apps from Huawei’s AppGallery app retailer. The problem is AppGallery doesn’t have a lot of the apps you need – and as an apart, this can be a fairly spammy place with a lot of full display advertisements, not one thing I count on from a tool this costly.

If the one apps you utilize are TikTok, Telegram, Snapchat, Tinder, Microsoft Outlook, WeChat, and Deezer you then’ll be wonderful.

However WhatsApp, Fb, Instagram, Netflix, Disney+, Twitter, PayPal, and plenty of different well-liked apps should not out there – however you may obtain them.

Huawei means that you can seek for these apps both in AppGallery or its separate Petal Search app, which provides you a complicated itemizing web page for potential APK recordsdata to obtain in an effort to set up the apps from a unique supply.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

That is authorized and one thing Android permits for. It’s referred to as sideloading. The issue is, sideloading will not be very user-friendly.

There’s additionally a query of safety right here. Huawei says it retains tabs on the APKs its system reveals you, and it additionally says it performs safety scans on recordsdata earlier than they’re downloaded. However with out the consolation that these recordsdata have been handed as protected by an app retailer infrastructure, you’ll nonetheless need to watch out you’re not putting in one thing dodgy.

Let me be clear: downloading the apps you need on this telephone is feasible, however complicated and never a superb person expertise. I obtained Twitter, Instagram, Libby, Fb Messenger, and Netflix working wonderful utilizing APK downloads. I might sign up, they labored, and I obtained notifications as regular.

Updates to apps are additionally dealt with robotically, although typically take a bit of longer – as there’s a delay between the app developer pushing an replace to Google Play Retailer and that up to date APK making it on-line. You’ll must be sure you’ve enabled notification permissions to Petal Seek for these updates to return via although.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Whereas many apps will work wonderful, there are exceptions. Google apps could be put in however can’t entry Google servers, so are severely hampered. You can also’t run apps like Uber or Citymapper as a result of they require Google Maps entry, and you’ll’t obtain your WhatsApp historical past from an outdated Android telephone as a result of it’s backed up in Google Drive.

You may get Google companies operating utilizing a sandbox software like GBox, however don’t trouble. It’s far too difficult and unreliable. Simply purchase one other telephone.

Apps apart, the telephone’s software program is sort of engaging and makes use of its personal system font moderately than the one most telephones use from Google referred to as Roboto. You’ll be able to create engaging widgets and put apps into massive house display folders so you may open apps with out opening the folder. Petal Maps can be surprisingly good and if you wish to use Huawei’s native apps for messaging, contacts, climate, and cloud storage all of them work as you’d count on.

I do get pleasure from how one can hyperlink the telephone with a Huawei laptop computer or pill for straightforward file sharing and display mirroring, although that requires you to go all in on Huawei units in your life.

Funnily, the Mate 50 Professional might be the most effective telephone available on the market if you wish to get off grid from Google. For everybody else, it’s annoyingly restrictive and doesn’t act how Android is designed to.

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Value & availability

The Huawei Mate 50 Professional prices £1,199 within the UK in silver or black. You should purchase it straight from Huawei.

In Europe it prices €1,299, or €1,399 for the particular orange version. It’s not on sale within the US.

The value makes the telephone a good tougher promote. It’s such a excessive worth to pay for a software program expertise that frustrates, and even an outstanding display and superb digital camera can’t make up for that.

Try our choose of the most effective Android telephones for a variety of different choices with the complete Google expertise – or the most effective Huawei telephones for extra from the identical model.

Verdict

The Huawei Mate 50 Professional is a fantastically made smartphone with a tremendous digital camera however probably the most irritating Android software program available on the market.

In case you genuinely don’t want Google apps and companies – or don’t need to have a telephone related to them – then it’s the most effective picks on the market.

Nevertheless it’s not simply entry to Google apps that the Mate 50 Professional misses out on. With out entry to many apps within the official app retailer, you’ll need to sideload a few of the hottest apps on the market, and settle for that a number of gained’t work in any respect.

As extremely good because the cameras are on the telephone, I don’t suppose they’re definitely worth the ache of utilizing the remainder of the system. Huawei is set to push on with out Google but it surely’s very arduous to advocate you go alongside for the experience.

Specs

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G
• EMUI 13
• 6.74in 120Hz OLED show
• 8GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage
• Nano reminiscence card expandable
• 66W wired charging
• 50W wi-fi charging
• Digital camera:
  • 50Mp f/1.4-f/4.0 most important digital camera with OIS
  • 64Mp f/3.5 telephoto digital camera with OIS
  • 13Mp f/2.2 ultrawide digital camera
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5.2
• 162.1 x 75.5 x 8.5 mm
• 205g
• Silver, Black, Orange