HUAWEI P50 Review

A slightly affordable offering from Huawei’s Flagship with the same SOC

If we all can recall, earlier this year Huawei unveiled the Huawei P50 Pro and P50 Pocket, both device in my opinion does open the doors and shows how Huawei revolutionize further on the way of using the phone without the presence of the Google Mobile Services (GMS). This shows that even holding a flagship phone without GMS can keep you going enjoying the phone at the same time you are basically still connected to the apps that you need.

Today we will look over the review of the P50, one of Huawei’s P series flagship phone and we dive in on what this phone can do and the power beneath it.

Unboxing Contents

Upon unboxing you will get the following

• Huawei P50 Phone
• USB C Cable
• 66W fast charger
• Translucent Casing
• SIM PIN Ejector
• User Manual/QSG/Warranty Statement

Design

The Huawei P50 inherits the design from the Huawei P50 Pro, if you don’t measure the phone or not looking at it closely, it does look the same as the P50 Pro with difference on size only. Looking closely over the back portion of the phone it is made out of smooth plastic, while the material is a quality one which is much durable and you do not need to worry about shatters like a glass. Also, this phone is IP68 splash and water resistant. Towards the camera portion is an island design of two bump consisting of 3 camera sensors and a dual tone flash. bump wise, its not terribly annoying and the included slim profile translucent casing will solve the problem.

Over to the surrounding of the HUAWEI P50, on the right hand side, there is a volume up and down button and a power button, while the top houses two microphone, a speaker and an infrared sensor. Over to the bottom of the phone there is one dual shared NanoSIM/NM card slot, one microphone, one USB C port and a bottom speaker. All of the phone sides are made of plastic with silver or gold chrome finish to it. Over to the camera design, the same color applies to the side of the phone and the bottom/top part as well with mirror finishing touch to it. Since there is no 3.5mm audio jack, the Huawei P50 does not come with any converters, so you will have purchase one yourself which includes the headphone.

The HUAWEI P50 comes in two colors, Cocoa Gold and Golden Black. The Color that we are reviewing is the Cocoa Gold and overall impression holding it and using it over daily basis is nice to hold with the balanced symmetrical curves on all side with good gripping on hand even without using the included case. The weight of the phone is 181 Grams, which is lightweight and easily pocketable with slim thickness of just 7.92mm.

Display & Audio

Display wise, the Huawei P50 is powered by a 6.5 Inch QHD+ 90Hz curved OLED screen with 1 Billion color display that supports wide color gamut and HDR10. Since this is an OLED display, the color display is one of the strength with deep blacks displays out nice while at the same time not giving strains on the eye as it has PWM dimming up to 1440Hz.

It has adaptive refresh rate display which is set default in automatic mode, this gives the phone control on fluid scroll and display up to 90Hz while idle it will tune down to 60Hz, the phone will also adjust the refresh rates based on usage scenario and app compatibility while at the same time conserves battery life so that you can keep using it up to almost a whole day without worries. Other features include a 300Hz touch sampling rate which is a huge advantage when it comes to the accuracy and sensitivity over the touchscreen when gaming with the phone. On top of that with the density of 458PPI, it looks sharp and dense if you like to stream movies on it, or just to enjoy the pictures that you have captured with the phone’s camera. However due to lack of Google services, you will either need to load some of the streaming apps manually, however during over checks with DRMInfo, we found out that the P50 is HDCP 2.2 supported and L1 certified for Netflix.

From the Audio side, the P50 came with their own developed Histen sound effects that gave punchier Bass on music and movies while separation of voice and music can be clearly heard giving it focused clarity on gaming overall when connected to Earbuds or Wired Microphone. If you are not connected to any external audio, the stereo loudspeaker experience is good as well, especially on room environment enjoying your favorite movie or anime.

Camera

The Huawei P50 rear camera consists of one 50MP wide camera with PDAF and OIS, one 12MP telephoto lens with OIS, 13MP ultrawide lens, followed by a dual tone LED flash. Pictures taken are close to accurate with good clarity and details captured properly whether it is in automatic mode or Pro mode, however zooming in too much causes the images taken to loss certain details which is expected and we find 8X zoom is still the best, even during day time shots. The missing B/W sensor available on the higher end P50 Pro is not really a disappointment, you still can compensate with the filters available on software mode.

Night shots wise, the results were quite good as well, able to capture light and shadows surrounding the images within the frame on most environments using automatic mode. The selfie images are bright and good during day time as well which is powered by a 13MP wide angle lens. A few sample shots were taken over different modes as above and works as intended. A sample of 50x zoom, normal, 108MP and automatic shots taken were balanced, with some noise encountered. All of the AI camera optimizations are present with the hardware optics optimized by Leica.

Over to the video recording, the Huawei P50 supports up to 4K at 60 Frames defaulted to 16:9 aspect ratio, over the course of testing the video recording, frames are smooth and stable with live customized filter by Leica and Huawei. Selections of template is also available via the Story Creator mode where user can define the selections before recording to gave further cinematic effects. Above is a sample capture footage of 4K video by default

Performance & Benchmarks

Over to the performance of the phone, the Huawei P50 is powered by the slightly dated Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G Octa-Core Processor, 256GB of internal storage and 8GB RAM. Although dated but it is well stable and fast on performance with a choice of calling via VOLTE or WOWIFI depending on your Telco Carrier with the absence of 3G tower nationwide for data or calling. The phone does come with full 4G+ connectivity support, MiMo WiFi 6/AX, Bluetooth 5 and NFC. Testing over WiFi connection gets up to an average of 800MBPS transfer speeds, which is optimal for multimedia, download, gaming and streaming. Video call wise, the P50 does the job pretty good as well thanks to its 32MP true chroma front camera. If you have a WiFi 6 router, you will be able to take all the advantages without issues.

On the gaming side, the Huawei P50 can game pretty well with user defined settings within the games that you are playing. Most of the titles can be ran without issues and with titles that is optimized for high frame rate such as Temple Run 2. The Huawei P50 supports up to 90FPS. Certain games such as Genshin Impact or Asphalt 9 may needed to tweak the graphical settings to medium mixed with high, while maintaining the 60FPS cap. During gaming sessions however, it can get quite warm but after exiting out from the game, it cools down quite fast.

Above is the Benchmark performance, which delivers just slightly below on par scores on each of the test between its graphics, and processor performance along with other similar class SOC devices. The P50 is suitable for those seeking for a Mid to High range performance phone.

Battery performance wise, during our testing, we manage to use up to 11 hours on average, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few gaming sessions. Turning on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 2 hours of conservative usage. The Huawei P50 comes with a 66W fast charger, which will charge up the phone to 100% from 10% in around 50 minutes average. 

Features & Software

The Huawei P50 comes with Android 11, with EMUI 12 that brings in an UI that is simple to use, close to the Android Stock UI interface that features collaboration tools such as HUAWEI Share, mirroring your phone, file sharing, copy/paste and easy one tap NFC connection towards Huawei and HONOR series of Laptop. The camera UI is carry over from the P50 Pro on most of the features with the included tutorials and guide. While it lacks of Google Play Services, you still have Huawei AppGallery which hosts a vast variety of applications and games, which I find it a much improvement now with cleaner, sleeker UI and more selections. However if you really need Google Play Apps, Gspace and AuroraOSS can solve your problem, which it can be used for Whatsapp as well, but do take note GSpace can only do that much for productivity and chat apps because it is running on emulated space.

Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion 

The HUAWEI P50 is a device that proves sometimes utilizing on the current Qualcomm SOC can still fulfill the needs of mass majority users while retaining similar camera hardware configuration still gives good result over improved software and UI fixes that Huawei has been following up all along. At the same time daily usage on App support is still widely supported and available via Huawei AppGallery further gave a positive reputation that Huawei does care for it’s consumer with more compatible Apps tested and deployed. Even till this day, the overall design outlook of the phone is still relevant which is a phone that you can use on every occasion, sparking conversations and unveiling its beauty and speed.

Pros

• 90Hz Refresh Rate Display
• An OLED display with 1B colors
• 300hz touch sensitive display
• Good Camera lens combination

Cons

• Average battery capacity
• No support for 5G (hardware level)
• Gets quite warm when gaming
• No Wireless Charging

Pricing and availability

The Huawei P50 is now available at RM2,999, for more information VISIT HERE to know more about the HUAWEI P50