Although in difficulty in the mobile phone market, Huawei does not give up and continues to invest in the high end with its flagship, the Mate 50 Pro. The Chinese manufacturer has chosen to release this model in France only, while it is composing, on the side of the Middle Kingdom, a quartet alongside Mate 50E, Mate 50 and Mate 50 RS Porsche Design.
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro offers almost everything for a high-end experience with its technical sheet embellished with the most premium technologies. But an absence is once again to be deplored, that of Google. This does not prevent the brand from marketing it at 1199€. A price that brings it to rival Apple’s iPhone 14 and soon Samsung Galaxy S23.
A “little” gem
The design of the Huawei Mate 50 Pro is decidedly high-end. The firm is once again successfully expressing its know-how in this area. All clad in glass, the smartphone is protected by an in-house coating called Kunlun Glass. Negative point, it has the annoying tendency to immortalize fingerprints. For the rest, nothing to reproach the Chinese flagship. The circular photo module with its refined look blends in particularly well with the rest of the chassis.
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro adopted an imposing format with dimensions of 162.1 x 75.5 x 8.5 mm, all for a weight of 205 g. Fortunately, the curved edges make it pleasant to hold the product.
The fingerprint reader located under the screen proves with great responsiveness. It is also possible to take advantage a 3D facial recognition system similar to Face ID, Apple’s technology.
Superb image quality
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro’s 6.74-inch display lives up to its sleek design. This is an OLED panel. The definition is 1212 x 2616 pixels, the resolution is 428 dpi and the adaptive refresh rate can go up to 120 Hz. The latter does not drop below 60 Hz, a sign that we are not benefiting from an LTPO panel.
By default, the display is set to “natural” mode and is characterized by accurate colorimetry. Besides the good resolution, the screen of the Mate 50 Pro guarantees comfortable readability in direct sunlight as well as in the dark. In short, Huawei’s flagship is perfect for gaming, binge-watching or for photo editing and scrolling on social networks.
A neat audio part
The two speakers of the Huawei Mate 50 Pro deliver an excellent performance. The bass is present and punchy, and the saturation is controlled for a clear and limpid sound.
It’s no surprise the Mate 50 Pro doesn’t have a mini-jack port. It supports Bluetooth 5.2 technology and can therefore be connected to wired headphones or earphones.
Always a smooth experience
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, the most powerful processor for Android smartphones at the moment, pending the arrival of its successor, the 8 Gen 2, on compatible phones. Note that the flagship is not 5G compatible.
AnTuTu, Geekbench, PC Mark and 3D Mark
With its 8 GB of RAM, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro can perform any task and offer always smooth multitasking. He is also a very good smartphone player. Too bad the App Gallery catalog is limited. On the temperature management side, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro does quite well.
Good and bad with EMUI 13
You know the music, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro evolves under Android but without Google services. And unlike his tablets, the brand exempts its flagship product from HarmonyOS, its operating system. We therefore find ourselves faced with the EMUI 13 overlay with its clear interface embellished with widgets and folders with customizable sizes but also its too many pre-installed applications.
The App Gallery is the application store present on the smartphone. You can go through Petal Search to find your application on this store, download it via apk or access it via a web shortcut. And if the App Gallery is growing day by day, having to go through other means remains a brake.
A competition camera
Huawei’s flagships have always been recognized for their photographic quality, but until then the Chinese company worked in collaboration with Leica, the German photo specialist. Huawei is now talking about Xmage which refers to an alliance between hardware and software.
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro has a triple back sensor consisting of the following elements:
- A 50 megapixel sensor with wide-angle lens (f / 1.4-f / 4.0)
- A 64 megapixel sensor with periscopic telephoto lens (f / 3.5)
- A 13 megapixel sensor with ultra wide-angle lens (f / 2.2)
The first module has the particularity of having a mechanically variable aperture. You have the choice to let the smartphone manage this parameter automatically or to take care of it from the “Opening” or “Pro” menu.
This sensor is simply excellent., the images are ideally described, and the color processing is true to life. By default, the sensor takes 12.5 megapixel shots using the pixel binning technique, but you can also shoot in 50 megapixels for more qualitative cropping. The brightness then goes down a notch and the color rendering is less natural day and night, so avoid it.
At first glance, the 13 megapixel sensor dedicated to ultra-wide-angle may cause concern. We can indeed expect a noticeable loss of detail, but this is not the case. This module delivers a very attractive performance across the width of the stage. Its performance in low light is just as interesting despite a smoothing sometimes present in certain areas.
This same module offers an effective macro mode when the lighting is correct.
We end with the telephoto lens capable of achieving an optical magnification of 3.5x and digital up to 100x. The mini-window allowing to see the targeted place from 15x is welcome. The pictures are developed usable up to 10x. However, you should avoid using this sensor at night, otherwise the quality of the renderings will be degraded by more aggressive smoothing and less natural colorimetry.
3.5x zoom
Zoom 10x
3.5x zoom
3.5x zoom
Zoom 10x
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro houses two sensors in its imposing notch: a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle and a ToF. Huawei’s cameraphone turns out to be a very good selfie camera. It restores with precision the grain as well as the complexion of the skin.
On the portrait side, the Mate 50 Pro offers us multiple shooting options thanks to the variable aperture of its wide-angle. In practice, we are impressedthe bokeh is applied evenly to the background and perfectly highlights the subjects of the shot.
And if you’re more into video, Huawei’s smartphone is also an excellent companion. It can film in 4K at 60 fps max, in 1080p up to 480 fps or in 720p at 3840 fps and benefits from optical stabilization for wide-angle and telephoto.
Comfortable autonomy
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro has a 4700 mAh battery. Coupled with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor which manages energy consumption fairly well, this accumulator allows the terminal to hold a day and a half. A respectable autonomy at the height of what the competition offers. Huawei provides a 66W block that can recharge the entire battery in less than 40 minutes. The Mate 50 Pro also supports wireless charging up to 50W.
A note on the competition
Aiming at the premium market, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro can be compared to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Honor Magic 4 Pro, the Vivo X80 Pro or even the Find X5 Pro from Oppo. Android smartphones equipped with Google services and 5G which offer a complete experience on the OS of the American firm.
At Apple, the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max represent the very high end under iOS with presence.
Conclusion
Frustration. The Chinese years pass and look alike for the manufacturer on the mobile phone market. Technically speaking, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro is a competitive beast. It offers us a superb screen, quality versatile photo equipment, excellent performance, good autonomy, fast charging and a refined design. But now, despite all the progress of the brand, this very high-end smartphone is asking too much of us. We can only recommend it to hackers, the competition being sufficiently extensive for the general public.
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