the device we must miss
Due to the US sanctions, Huawei is no longer as popular as it was a few years ago. A shame, we think, when we take the Huawei Mate 50 Pro at the Mobile World Congress.
Huawei Mate 50 Pro
With the Huawei Mate 30 series and Huawei P40 models, the many possibilities that Android has to offer on Android devices came to an end. The US sanctions threw a spanner in the works. Huawei is believed to be spying for the Chinese government. No evidence was ever found, but strict measures were taken. The result; Huawei is not allowed to do business with US companies. This means; no 5G chipsets from Qualcomm and no Google services on the Android devices. Huawei’s smartphone business has completely collapsed in Europe and several other regions.
I may say; i miss huawei. The brand made huge leaps and always managed to release a device with improvements. But the last models without Google services were unable to leave a perfect impression due to the lack of options with, for example, Google Maps and other services. A fine successor to the equally fine Mate 20 Pro and Huawei P30 Pro did not come and there will not be – for the time being. It does not appear that the US government is going to relax the rules for Huawei.
The Chinese brand was present with a gigantic stand at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Part of this was to display the smartphones. We stumbled upon the Huawei Mate 50 Pro. A device that is not released here, because it will probably not catch on anyway, like the other models without Google services. However, we are curious, what are we missing with the Huawei Mate 50 Pro?
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is the manufacturer’s high-end smartphone. The device offers an advanced camera system, but there is no longer cooperation with Leica. That baton has been taken over by Xiaomi, which we see with the Xiaomi 13 series, for example. Is that a problem? Not by definition. The camera of the Huawei Mate 50 Pro scores very high in the DXoMark tests. The brand was at the top for months. The new Honor Magic 5 Pro has now taken over this baton, but it says enough. There is a 50MP main camera, 13MP wide angle and 64MP telephoto lens. Zooming with the device is no problem, this is possible 10x.
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro, which was announced in November, is equipped with a 4700 mAh battery with 66W charging. There is a 6.74 inch OLED screen and a Snapdragon processor. Due to the sanctions, this is a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G chipset. So without 5G. In the phone itself there is very little that leads to the Android version. That is because it is hidden. With the operating system we only see that the device runs on EMUI 13. This is still the Android platform, but without all of Google’s bells and whistles.
Huawei itself is still fully committed to its own Huawei AppGallery. Those with a Huawei device can already use this. You can also download the DroidApp App from the AppGallery. But otherwise the offer still lags behind the competitors of Apple and Google. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro has 256GB/512GB of storage space as standard and you can still expand this. Not with a microSD memory card, but as with several other models only with the NM SD card. Less convenient perhaps, but it is possible.
Then there is the design of the device. Huawei has released the black and orange color in vegan leather. I still think that’s a great choice of material that feels great in the hand. That is also proven with the Huawei Mate 50 Pro. Other manufacturers seem to see little in it for the time being. I’m up for a leather phone; not for the price of the smartphone. The Mate 50 Pro will be sent home if you tap 1199 euros. A special Porsche Design version of the device has also been released with a separate design.
