Huawei P50 Pro review: impressive imaging meets uphill battle

 Huawei P50 Pro review: impressive imaging 

meets uphill battle

Huawei phones have been swimming upstream recently; will this change?

Huawei's new P50 Pro has some excellent features, which is not surprising given that the P30 Pro was one of the best phones of its generation, and the P40 Pro's camera is still excellent (the P40 wasn't bad either). It's no secret, however, that Huawei has been swimming upstream in recent years, with no Google apps and limited access to components.

What's most unfortunate for Huawei is that, while it's been on the defensive, attempting to build entire ecosystems while also innovating its hardware, competition has thrived. Google's Pixel 6 Pro is a reasonably priced camera champ. OnePlus, Oppo and Xiaomi are operating with no restrictions and great handsets outside of China, and Apple is doing better than ever.

The P50 Pro is priced at €1,199 (approximately £1,000). Can its Dual-Matrix Camera with Fusion Pro image engine, smart EMUI 12 interface, and sleek design justify its high price? Or are the trade-offs – no 5G, no Google Play, and a general lack of UX polish – too great for the latest P-series flagship?

Design: Mirror mirror

Huawei's P50 Pro resembles the P30 Pro more than the P40 Pro in appearance - curved screen, rounded glass back, metal frame - fancy smartphone by numbers. While it lacks the all-sided curve of the P40 Pro (which we actually prefer), it still looks nice, updating the line with a small punch-hole front camera while remaining slim at 8.5mm.

The P50 Pro, like most flagships, is dust and water-resistant, and it's neither too heavy nor too light, weighing 195 grams - more than an iPhone 13, less than a 13 Pro Max. The P50 Pro, which comes in Cocoa Gold and Golden Black with a mirror finish, loves fingerprints and gets grubby quickly; however, slip on the case that comes with it and you can keep it smudge-free and protected.

While the phone has a somewhat generic feel to it, the camera surround does a good job of teasing Huawei's new imaging hardware. The camera section is made up of two stacked circles that form a figure-eight shape, with the stepped top ring housing the wide, mono, and ultra-wide cameras, and the bottom ring introducing the new 64MP telephoto camera with a roughly 92mm focal length (3.3x optical zoom) and a flash.

Also worth noting is the presence of an IR blaster at the top, allowing the phone to function as a TV/AV system remote control. There is no headphone jack, only a single USB-C port for charging and data transfer.

Screen: Checks boxes

For those deep, unctuous, inky blacks and punchy colors, today's flagship screen must be OLED. It must have a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and a competitive touch sampling rate for responsive gaming. It also helps if the screen is 10-bit, which means it can display over a billion colors, making gradients look smoother and sharper. The display on the P50 Pro ticks all of those boxes.

The final frontier of flagship screen status is software, and the P50 Pro doesn't let you down with an Eye Comfort mode and control over the display white balance. With its 20:9 aspect ratio and generous 6.6-inch size, it's also ideal for watching movies without being a pocket behemoth.

The under-display fingerprint scanner is accurate, quick, and can be combined with face recognition for quick unlocking.

Camera: Huawei’s still got it

The P50 Pro features a new camera setup that includes a 50MP primary camera, a 40MP monochrome sensor (with a wide-open f/1.6 aperture), a 13MP ultra-wide camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera with a 3.3x zoom.

Years before Apple promoted portrait mode as the next big thing and Google made night scenes look like day, Huawei pioneered computational smartphone photography. As a result, it's no surprise that the P50 Pro's photos have a lot of pop, are sharp, contrasted, and ready for the 'gram'.

When compared to the Pixel 6 Pro, the P50 Pro brightens things up slightly more and often produces a more pleasing photo, even if it isn't more true-to-life. The P50 Pro's zoom camera cannot compete with the Pixel 6 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but somehow it easily produces better than the iPhone 13 Pro Max and OnePlus 9 Pro's telephoto cameras.

Huawei's ultra-wide camera works as a macro camera for super close-up shots, as well as capturing entire scenes with a 13mm focal length. It performs impressively in well-lit environments, but struggles in low-light conditions, even when night mode is enabled.

Huawei also equips the phone with a wide variety of shooting modes, including Monochrome, Dual-View, Snapshot, AR Lens, Story Creator, and the usual suspects like Pro mode and Panorama. All of this adds up to a fundamentally reliable camera experience, and while the P50 Pro's photos don't look as organic and smooth as those captured on Sony phones such as the Xperia I III and the Xperia Pro-I, the results will be preferable for the vast majority of users.

In terms of selfies, the P50 Pro's front camera is one of the most flattering we've used, with a resolution of 13MP. Meanwhile, video is captured at up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, and it looks fantastic in well-lit scenes, with clarity, sound capture, and image stabilization all working brilliantly together. Things become grainy in the dark, but no smartphone has night video.

Performance: Excellent and awful

The software on the P50 Pro is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has a snappy Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is great for gaming and day-to-day use, but due to Huawei sanctions, its 5G is disabled.

While this would not have been an issue previously – until recently, finding a 5G signal was like finding water in the desert – most major cities in the UK are now 5G connected. Our 4G speeds on the P50 Pro in a suburban London flat were roughly a tenth of our 5G speeds on an iPhone 13 Pro Max. 

It wasn't long ago that Huawei told us we needed 5G to live our best mobile lives, and this missing feature has an impact on Huawei's new flagship's future-proofing.

Before we even get to the lack of Google, the phone's interface is a beautiful vision of seamless multi-screen experiences riddled with dead ends and contentious regional misfires.

We saw Chinese and French in the Wallet app, and Huawei Books is at best problematic, with recommendations to read books like 'CEO Daddy, Don't Be Angry,' 'Arrogant Wife, Don't Run Away,' and 'Ex-Daddy, Don't be too Scheming,' among a variety of raunchy-covered alternatives.

The Huawei Books app is just one example of a broader lack of polish; the stories recommended on Huawei's Assistant screen are frequently low, ranging from "This is how farts can make you blind" to an image of someone bloodied after an injury as the lead photo for an article.

There's also gaming. The game selection in the Huawei AppGallery is limited in comparison to the App Store and Google Play Store, but when we tried out one of the native AppGallery games - Brain Test - we were directed to the Google Play Store by advertisements in the game.

Worse, Huawei has clearly gone to great lengths to plug gaps in its ecosystem. The phone runs smoothly, and the user interface is generally appealing. The P50 Pro's multi-screen connect experience across MateBook and MatePad devices is also excellent, allowing you to control your phone from a large screen.

Petal Search also made the majority of the apps we needed available, even if it feels a little hacked - Instagram, Netflix, Genshin Impact - we were able to get most with relative ease.

However, some apps continue to require access to the Google Play Store: HBO Max, Marvel Unlimited Comics, and any paid-for game that uses Google Play Games are all available to anyone in the United States (Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, and more). Most notably, you can still use WhatsApp to backup chats, and Google services like Docs and Meet will only work through the browser, not apps. Huawei has also removed USB-C video output, so connecting the phone to a large screen for a desktop view is no longer an option.

Despite Huawei's best efforts, the P50 Pro is a serious hardware treat with some massive experience clangers.

The battery life is more straightforward. The Huawei P50 Pro retains the Mate 40 Pro's fast wired and wireless charging as well as a 4360mAh battery. Without 5G, power consumption is lower than in much of the competition, so even though the cell is small, the P50 Pro lasted us a comfortable day.

When it comes to charging speeds, Huawei competes with the best, with 66W wired and 50W wireless charging powering it up completely in less than an hour. There is also reverse wireless charging, though it is limited to 5W. Finally, the onboard 256GB storage is exactly what we'd expect from a £1,000 flagship, and Huawei delivers it, along with 8GB RAM.

Conclusion

If you're not into apps and games, don't mind being fed sensationalist stories in your newsfeed on occasion, and can deal with elements that feel like a work in progress, the Huawei P50 Pro gets a lot right. It has one of the most dependable cameras on the market, provides the best multi-device collaboration experiences outside of Apple's ecosystem, and looks and feels stylish - from screen to design.

In regions where 5G isn't widely available and Google isn't as pervasive, the P50 Pro would be a relatively easy phone to recommend. In the UK, however, in a 5G area, where a working professional relies on Google Docs, Meet, and Sheets, Huawei's latest phone, despite its highlights, will most likely fall short.

TechliciousOfficial says...

Score: 3/5                                                       ⭐⭐⭐✰✰       It's a tough sell with a great camera and a sleek design but no Google or 5G.

• Good Stuff

+ Excellent design and screen

+ Outstanding camera system

+ Collaboration across multiple screens is fantastic.

• Bad Stuff

− The user interface is unpolished.

− There is no Google Play Store.

− No 5G

Tech specs

Screen: 6.6in 2700 x 1228 OLED screen, 120Hz refresh rate, 20:9 aspect ratio.          

Processor: Snapdragon 888 octa-core processor from Qualcomm.

Memory: 8GB RAM

Cameras: 50MP, f/1.8 (OIS), 40MP, f/1.6 monochrome, 64MP telephoto, f/3.5, 13MP, ultra-wide, f/2.2 

Storage: 256GB

Software: EMUI 12 software for Android 11

Battery: 4360mAh battery, 66W fast charging, 50W wireless charging.

Dimensions: 158.8mm x 72.8mm x 8.5mm

Weight:  195g