Huawei has announced three new Mate 50 phones, all with the same variable aperture camera and the latest high-end Qualcomm processors — but no 5G support.
Two years after the release of the Mate 40 phone and a year after the initial release of the P50 Pro, the company is ready to launch a flagship with the latest specs.
The Huawei Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro and Mate 50 Pro RS Porsche Designs hit the Chinese market first, and the company hasn’t said if they’ll go further – but we hope they do. Here’s everything you need to know about Huawei‘s Mate 50 series, including the inside scoop on its satellite communications capabilities – a claimed world first.
When will Huawei Mate 50 be released?
The Mate 50 phones are available for pre-order from September 6, 2022. They will go on general sale on September 28.
What are the specifications and features of the Huawei Mate 50 phone?
All three Huawei Mate 50 phones are powered by Qualcomm’s latest high-end mobile processor, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.
Good to see, as rumor has it that these phones will stick to the Snapdragon 888 seen on the Huawei P50 Pro. As with all Huawei phones these days, the problem with the Mate 50 phones is that they are not 5G compatible.
The ongoing U.S. trade ban affecting the company means it cannot properly support new web standards. But at least these phones should perform as well as the other best Android phones this year.
These phones won’t run Google services or access the Google Play Store, like the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and the latest Huawei phones. Instead, they’ll run Huawei’s Harmony OS 3.0 software. You can still download apps from the Huawei AppGallery, but many Western favorites are still missing.
The regular Mate 50 has a 6.7-inch OLED display that can run a 90Hz refresh rate, while the Mate 50 Pro bumps that up to a 6.74-inch 120Hz OLED panel with 10-bit color depth.
Most interestingly, the Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro share the same main camera. It’s a 50Mp wide lens with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and a variable aperture between f/1.4 and f/4.0. One of the only phones with a variable aperture is the Samsung Galaxy S9 – oddly enough, future Samsung phones don’t keep it.
Hopefully it will become more mainstream, and Huawei‘s inclusion of it on the Mate 50 is a good sign. It could be the next big leap in smartphone photography, offering more manual controls similar to DSLRs based on hardware rather than software. Huawei says the Pro mode in the camera app has ten adjustable physical apertures.
While both phones feature the new technology for the main lens, the Mate 50 Pro has a higher-spec 64Mp telephoto lens with OIS and 3.5x optical zoom – although the 12Mp telephoto lens on the regular Mate 50 also has a higher-spec 64Mp telephoto lens. With OIS and 5x optical zoom. The Pro can crack the 100x digital zoom, though, while the Mate 50 is still stuck at an impressive 50x. Both phones share the same 13Mp ultra-wide-angle lens and appear to use the same 13Mp front-facing camera as well.
On the pricier Porsche Design Mate 50 RS, it’s really just a Mate 50 Pro with a more premium design, with one camera difference. It has a 48Mp periscope camera that can also take macro photos.
The Mate 50 comes with 128, 256 or 512GB of storage, while the Mate 50 Pro comes with 256 or 512GB. The ever-high-end Porsche model only offers 512GB. All of these are expandable via Huawei‘s proprietary Nano Memory (NM) card format. They also all feature IP68 dust and water resistance, 66W wired and 50W wireless charging, and stereo speakers.
Another way the Mate 50 series pushes the boundaries of technology is by supporting satellite communications. Using China’s Beidou Satellite Messaging system, the Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro and Mate 50 RS Porsche Designs will be able to send messages via satellite rather than terrestrial mobile networks – but crucially, they can only send, not receive.
Currently, the military and emergency services mainly use satellite communications on private networks in places that cannot be reached by standard mobile networks. Phones haven’t yet embraced the technology, perhaps because bypassing legacy mobile carriers is a dangerous business decision — historically, they haven’t been the right company.
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