HUAWEI and the United States don’t really have a good relationship. The company was classified as a “national security threat” last year and was accused of installing a data backdoor. But things seem to be getting better for HUAWEI, as reported by Reuters. The United States officials have approved license applications for China’s blacklisted telecom HUAWEI to buy chips for its growing auto component business from the States.
HUAWEI sees the car business as one of the important verticals. Even though the company has entered “survival” mode, the company has seen enormous growth in the automotive sector. Today, the United States government authorized some suppliers to sell chips to HUAWEI for vehicle components such as video screens, sensors, and chips. The report says that the chips have 5G support.
“The government is granting licenses for chips in vehicles that may have other components with 5G capability.”
“Not everybody is a fan,” as the report says. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who’s been critical of HUAWEI before, said “it’s unacceptable for the Biden administration to ease the pressure campaign against Chinese spy companies like HUAWEI.” In a statement to Reuters, Senator Marco Rubio called the move “yet another example of President Biden’s failure to protect America’s economic and national security.”
Though the US officials continue to says that government continues to consistently apply licensing policies “to restrict HUAWEI’s access to commodities, software, or technology for activities that could harm U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.”
Richard Barnett, a chief at global electronics consultancy Supply Frame, says HUAWEI is in the “early innings” of trying to invest in the $5 trillion automotive markets. “Cars and trucks are now computers on wheels,” said Barnett, “That convergence is what’s driving HUAWEI’s strategic focus to be a bigger player in that area.”
Sanuj Bhatia
An engineer by degree, news reporter by profession, and an avid sports lover. You’ll find me scrolling Football Twitter when I’m not writing about cutting-edge technology. Have a tip? Noted a mistake? You can reach out using the email given below.
There’s just something about the HUAWEI MateBook X Pro which has “love at first sight” written all over it. We pretty much felt the same about the 2020 model, and the ones before it. Don’t get us wrong, at a first uneducated glance, its performance numbers match, at least on paper, those of the HONOR MagicBook 14 (2021) we reviewed last month, but the MateBook X Pro is just so much more.
Even though they are similarly equipped, they address two different target audiences, with two different price points. And, since they perform fairly similar, it’s just fair we put this year’s MateBook X Pro to the test and see where it stands out. This is our HUAWEI MateBook X Pro 2021 review.
Hardware
Why change something that has proven to successfully work? This is probably what engineers at HUAWEI had in mind when discussing the design of the 2021 MateBook X Pro, which went pretty much unadulterated for the past couple of years, and this is a good thing! It’s still as minimalistic and gorgeous as it ever was, and there’s absolutely no need to change that.
Mystic Silver is the third color available last year that didn’t make it to 2021. Instead, there’s a Space Grey and an Emerald Green (our unit) in the line-up.
With the same precision machining and crafting as the predecessor, the 2021 MateBook X Pro didn’t gain any pandemic weight, maintaining it at 1.33kg. Measurements are the same as well, with the computer maintaining its fitness at 14.6mm in height (thickness).
With no noticeable changes, you can expect the same chamfered edges that light nicely bounces off of, with a nice shine to it. You can find these around the edges, the trackpad, and the power button. Similar to last year, the power button includes a fingerprint scanner that has a cache, enough to hold on to your fingerprint and unlock Windows with a single touch of the button upon powering up.
Underneath the power button lies the precision, full-sized, Chiclet Keyboard, with a fine speaker grill to its left and right, containing a total of four (2 x 2) speakers, that cooperate with the 2 microphones. A considerable part underneath is taken up by the upgraded Touchpad with Multi-touch — the HUAWEI Free Touch — and this year, with HUAWEI Share built-in (more on that later).
The display retains its 14-inch (13.9) size, and its 3000 x 2000 resolution and 260PPI. It’s an LTPS panel, like last year, with a 1500:1 contrast ratio, 3:2 aspect ratio, 450 nits of brightness, and it is one damn fine display! Our only complaint is the fact that it’s shiny and highly reflective.
Viewing angles have been retained at 178 degrees, which is really something, as well as touch features via 10-point multi-touch sensitivity. Not only that, but HUAWEI got rid of everything else around the display, achieving a whopping 91% screen-to-body ratio, which you really have to experience in person to appreciate.
That means, subsequently, that the webcam, a 1MP 720p unit, is still inside the keyboard. The infamous “nosecam” has its advantages though, as tucking it in the body of the device makes hacking it, and subsequently your privacy, impossible.
We mentioned the similarities in the preamble of this review with the MagicBook 14 (2021). The MateBook X Pro (2021) comes equipped with either the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor or the 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 chip. Our particular unit, just like the MagicBook 14, comes with the Core i7, and, to put it simply, “damn, it is fast”!
8- and 16GB memory options are available, with the unit you see in the pictures having 16GB of 3733MHz RAM, and 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD (a version with 512GB is also available for you to configure if you need less storage and want to lower the price of the device).
Graphics are handled by the integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics, which is a step-up from last year’s dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX250.
The battery is rated 56Wh, and the connectivity is handled via Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, and Bluetooth 5.1. There are two USB Type C ports, for charging and connecting a display, a full-sized USB A 3.2 port, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack that doubles as a microphone input port. Of note is that you don’t have an HDMI connector, so keep that in mind when selecting external monitors or cables. You will need a USB Type C connectivity solution.
Software
Just like its predecessor (and the models in the line-up), the 2021 HUAWEI MateBook X Pro runs Windows 10. It’s the Home Edition that pops-up with the configuration screen out of the box, and HUAWEI added little to no bulk to it. Not that there wouldn’t be enough space on the generous 1TB storage drive, but this is pretty much how I’ve seen HUAWEI roll in the past. Keeping things as simple as possible.
A few firmware and software updates await for you to apply after your first setup, and that’s pretty much the entire effort you need to put into having a buttery smooth Windows 10 experience. We need to mention that the laptop is eligible for a Windows 11 upgrade, and no doubt it will handle it beautifully.
Those of you who owned previous generation MateBook computers will be familiar with the PC Manager suite. For those of you who are new to it, this application makes sure your drivers are up to date and helps you connect a HUAWEI (or HONOR) smartphone to your PC.
One of the novelties this year on the Pro model is that you no longer have the NFC sticker on the palm rest next to the trackpad. HUAWEI embedded it into the trackpad itself, a trackpad that has also been upgraded on the Pro line-up. It now features haptic feedback (called Free Touch) for a more precise feel and exquisite experience. Both of these features debuted at the end of last year on the MateBook X (sans Pro).
We went on a short hardware tangent there, but it made more sense to mention all of this while talking about the PC Manager.
We described the PC Manager and the entire “connecting your smartphone to your laptop” experience ad nauseam. In a nutshell, you get Multi-Screen collaboration with mirroring displays, copy-pasting content and images between devices, taking calls, sending texts, and more. Check out the details of that in our original MateBook X Pro review from 2020, this current one’s predecessor.
Not much else to mention on the software end, and, I can’t stress this enough, this is a good thing. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty vanilla Windows 10 experience, with the occasional frustration of compulsory and sometimes lengthy restarts upon system updates, but that’s a Microsoft issue, not a HUAWEI one.
Experience
Describing the experience using the 2021 MateBook X Pro is close to driving a fine, luxury, sports car. Everything just runs (literally, really fast!) smoothly, from the moment you unbox it, through the setup process, to the day-to-day operations and activities.
We’ve used this particular model as our daily driver for over a month, with some occasional breaks in-between.
The display is, simply put, gorgeous. The colors are rich, the blacks are deep, the contrast is spot on, brightness is enough for visibility even on the brightest outdoor days. If I was to nitpick, my only critique would be with its reflective nature. If you have a bright light behind you, it might make things a little difficult to discern on the reflective display.
Touch sensitivity is more than accurate (though I still can’t wrap my head around touch capabilities on a device that doesn’t fully convert into a tablet or handheld).
The keyboard is very pleasant and silent to type on, with enough key travel to get an actual feel for the keys you’re pushing down. Backlight is also nice, with no bleeding, and at times even too bright at its highest setting.
Probably my favorite component to input is the trackpad. Haptic feedback emulates an actual click/push down so well, and the feedback is so natural, that you’ll instantly love it. It will take a couple of minutes to get used to it, but once you do, you’ll love it!
The four speakers are pretty loud. While lacking a bit on the low end, which is normal considering their size, they’re loud, crisp, and clear, with no distortion even at high volumes.
With decent display brightness – by decent we mean normal usage, not forced maximum of 100% just for the sake of it – we got through one full workday and some relaxation at the end of it without an issue. And that is really something, as my workdays are not your regular ones, stretching towards 16 hours. Increase the brightness and do some heavier, more power-intensive tasks, and you will need to have a charger handy to make it through the day.
The system runs cool with only occasionally getting warm enough for the fans to kick in, and that’s mostly during gameplay, video rendering, or other intensive tasks.
Overall, it’s a great experience, to sum it all up.
Performance and Benchmarks
Nothing we threw at the 2021 MateBook X Pro made it stutter or managed to bog it down. It was chewing through tasks like the champ it is. App load times and even Windows boot-up are pretty fast, and overall operation is buttery smooth.
Office tasks (document management, emails, browsing, virtual calls, and everything in between you might do for work) are most of the times instant, fast at worst. Now, if you are doing heavy image manipulation, video rendering, CAD, or other demanding tasks, it will get the job done, but it will, as common sense implies, take more time.
Here at Pocketnow, we’re more inclined towards judging a product’s performance based on real-life operation, rather than numbers. However, for those of you who need to have analytic data based on benchmarks, we ran a couple and included the results above for your viewing pleasure.
– pop-up webcam angle is sometimes awkward. If it matters to you, buy an external webcam; – reflective display doesn’t make it the perfect outdoor laptop on a sunny day; – you’ll need to import it if you’re in the U.S.
Conclusion
We have no reservations in recommending the 2021 MateBook X Pro for those who want a beautiful laptop that’s fast, lightweight, portable, and, most importantly, future proof thanks to its great specs.
The 2021 HUAWEI MateBook X Pro is not for everyone. It’s the premium flagship laptop from the company, and it is also competing with the Apple MacBook Pro. That being the case, you should also expect a steeper price HUAWEI is asking for. It is not prohibitive, but it’s in the premium segment.
The 2021 HUAWEI MateBook X Pro goes for anywhere between €1.399,00 and £1399.99, depending on the region. Also, depending on where you are you might only have an option for the Core i5 version. Your configuration, based on processor and storage, will of course influence the price, and, depending on which country you are in, HUAWEI is running different discounts. Best to consult your local HUAWEI store for the price available to you.
All that being said, we have no reservations in recommending the 2021 MateBook X Pro for those who want a beautiful laptop that’s fast, lightweight, portable, and, most importantly, future proof thanks to its great specs.
HUAWEI Matebook X Pro HUAWEI 65 W USB-C Power Adapter USB-C Charger Cable Quick Start Guide Warranty Card
Keyboard & TouchPad
Full-size Backlit Chiclet Keyboard Touchpad with Multi-touch and HUAWEI Free Touch Huawei Share Built-in
Anton D. Nagy
Anton is the Editor-in-Chief of Pocketnow. As publication leader, he aims to bring Pocketnow even closer to you. His vision is mainly focused on, and oriented towards, the audience. Anton’s ambition, adopted by the entire team, is to transform Pocketnow into a reference media outlet.
HUAWEI doesn’t seem to have recovered from the US trade ban as the company reported a steep decline in its earnings during 2021 H1 results today. HUAWEI revenue dropped to CNY320.4 billion (~$49.5 billion) in the last quarter, almost a 30% decline year-on-year.
Despite the declining revenue, HUAWEI’s Chairman, Eric Xu, claims that the company has set its “strategic goals for the next five years.” He says that the company will do everything to “survive.”
“We are confident that our carrier and enterprise businesses will continue to grow steadily.”
On a slightly positive note, though, the company reported a 0.6% increase in profits, up from 9.2% in H1 2020 to 9.8% in 2021. HUAWEI says its enterprise business, which contributed only a little amount of over CNY42 billion, is booming and is the fastest-growing out of the rest three. Moreover, the company says it has no plans of cutting down on staff or shutting down its business overseas.
One of the major factors of this revenue decline is the delay in 5G deployment in China. China Mobile, one of China’s largest carriers, delayed its 700 Mhz 5G tender to mid-July. HUAWEI was expecting to mint money through the sale of this tender as the company had secured 60% of the contract.
Its mobile division isn’t doing well, either. The company ranked below OPPO, Vivo, and even Motorola in terms of smartphone shipments as Xiaomi closed the gap with Samsung.
With the US government showing no signs of making things easy for HUAWEI with respect to the existing trade restrictions – and made things even trickier for 5G equipment trade earlier this month – remains to be seen how the company charts its business plan for the international markets.
Huawei has announced back in September 2020 that HarmonyOS 2.0 will be coming to smartphones in 2021. Huawei also had plans to upgrade, not one, not a dozen, but 100 smartphones and tablets, and as it turns out, the company is getting close to delivering on its promise.
The official account of HarmonyOS just announced that 65 devices from Huawei and Honor would receive the new software update (via GSMArena). This isn’t a Beta or a Developer build, but an actual Stable version that’s ready to be used by the public. In the first wave, only Chinese device models will receive the update. There are no words on when it’ll reach the international market just yet.
The list will likely expand further in the first half of 2022, and older devices such as the Mate 10, Mate 9, P20, and even the P10 series are expected to be added and supported in the near future. It remains to be seen when HarmonyOS will debut globally. Hopefully, users won’t have to wait very long to finally make the switch to Huawei’s own custom operating system that’s based on Android. The list includes a lot of devices, including the dates when they’ll officially get the update.
As mentioned previously, Huawei has promised that about 100 devices will receive the update from Android to HarmonyOS 2.0, and it’s undoubtedly a good sign to see 65 devices added to support the new operating system. Upon taking a closer look, you’ll find devices such as the Honor 20 and Honor View 20, which were originally sold with Google’s services on the global market.
Huawei has also recently announced its much-awaited and long-anticipated smartphones, the Huawei P50 series. The P50 series are the first devices from the company to launch with HarmonyOS 2.0 pre-installed.
What are your thoughts about Huawei’s effort to upgrade so many devices? Let us know in the comments!
Roland Udvarlaki
Roland is a technology enthusiast and software engineer based in United Kingdom. He is also a content creator and writer, and is best known under the name “Techusiast”.
After months of waiting and a number of weeks and month-long delays, Huawei has finally unveiled the next generation of the Huawei P50 series at its Huawei P50 launch event. The new devices come with a circular camera module as we’ve seen previously in leaks, and come equipped with the X chipset.
At the Huawei P50 launch event today, Huawei has released two devices, the Huawei P50, and Huawei P50 Pro flagship devices. The event started out by first taking a look at some of the iconic devices from the past, including the P9, P10, P20, P30, P40 series from the company.
Both the Huawei P50 and Huawei P50 Pro devices support 66W fast wired charging and have stereo speakers. However, only the P50 Pro supports Huawei’s own 50W Wireless charging technology. The smartphones are also IP68 certified to withstand water and dust. Unfortunately, the rumors turned out to be accurate, and neither devices support 5G; therefore, they are both limited to 4G, 3G, and 2G only.
Huawei P50
The Huawei P50 has a 6.5-inch OLED FHD+ resolution 90Hz refresh rate display with a 300 Hz touch sampling rate. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 888 4G processor, and it will be available with 8GB of RAM and 128/256GB of internal storage. The storage can only be expanded via an NM memory card slot up to 256GB.
There’s a triple camera setup on the back, including a 50MP primary, 13MP ultrawide angle, and a 12MP telephoto sensor with OIS stabilization. It supports 5x optical zoom and 50x digital zoom. On the front, there’s a single 13MP ultrawide-angle camera. The battery capacity is 4,100 mAh, and it supports the same 66W fast wired charging as the P50 Pro model, but it lacks wireless charging.
Huawei P50 Pro
The Huawei P50 Pro is equipped with a large 6.6-inch flexible OLED FHD+ resolution and 120Hz high refresh rate, and 300Hz touch sampling rate curved display. It also features XD Fusion Pro, which is an image fusion system that can double the gathered light, compared to the P40 Pro. It can also increase the dynamic range by 28%.
The Huawei P50 Pro will be available in two versions – including one rocking a Kirin 9000 chipset, and another with Snapdragon 888. It will be available in multiple configurations, including 8GB of memory and 128/256/512GB of storage, and there’ll also be a higher-end model with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The storage will be expandable via an NM memory card up to 256GB.
The quad-camera setup on the back consists of a 50MP primary camera, 40MP monochrome sensor, a 13MP ultrawide angle camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera with OIS image stabilization and 3.5x optical zoom. The camera also supports 100x digital zoom. On the front, there is a 13MP ultrawide angle to spice up your selfie game. The battery has a capacity of 4,360 mAh, and it supports reverse wireless charging.
Availability & Colors
The Huawei P50 Pro will be available in five color combinations, including Yao Gold Black, Cocoa Tea Gold, Snowy White, Dawn Power, and Rippling Clouds. The standard Huawei P50 will receive three colors, Yao Gold Black, Cocoa Tea Gold, and Snowy White.
Model
SoC
Memory and Storage
Price
HUAWEI P50 Pro (Special Edition)
Kirin 9000
12GB + 512GB
¥ 8488 (~$1,313)
HUAWEI P50 Pro
Kirin 9000
12GB + 512GB
¥ 7988 (~$1,236)
8GB + 512GB
¥ 7488 (~$1,159)
8GB + 256GB
¥ 6488 (~$1,000)
Snapdragon 888 4G
8GB + 512GB
¥ 7488 (~$1,159)
8GB + 256GB
¥ 6488 (~$1,000)
8GB + 128GB
¥ 5988 (~$925)
HUAWEI P50
Snapdragon 888 4G
8GB + 256GB
¥ 4988 (~$772)
8GB + 128GB
¥ 4488 (~$695)
The Huawei P50 series are also the first flagship devices from the company to feature its own HarmonyOS 2, which goes head-to-head against Google’s Android operating system. Both the Huawei P50 and P50 Pro will be available globally, which might explain why they both only support 4G connectivity.
Roland Udvarlaki
Roland is a technology enthusiast and software engineer based in United Kingdom. He is also a content creator and writer, and is best known under the name “Techusiast”.
According to a new report posted earlier today, the global smartphone market grew 6.9 percent Year-over-Year to 299.1 million units in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 279.7 million units shipped in Q2 2020. Samsung is still leading, but Xiaomi is catching up very quickly.
The report was posted by Omdia, who reported the latest smartphone preliminary shipment results earlier today. The report reveals a few interesting details, such as the growth for a few OEMs, and a massive decline for Huawei and Honor.
Samsung took the top position by shipping 57.3 million units, up 5.6 percent Yoy compared to the 54.3 million units shipped in Q1 2020. Xiaomi reached second place in Q2 2021 with a shipment of 49.9 million devices, up 72.9 percent compared to Q2 2020. The shipments didn’t decline QoQ, instead, they grew under just one percent from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021. Xiaomi was also affected by lower production due to the spread of the Delta variant in India in the second quarter, but it was relatively small compared to Samsung.
Apple in the third position saw shipments increase to 7.5 percent YoY, thanks to a recovery in demand in developer markets and an increase in demand for premium smartphones in emerging markets, says the report
Oppo grew shipments by 44.7 percent and has shipped 32.5 million units. Vivo on the other hand has shipped 31.6 million devices and grew 33.5 percent compared to Q2 2020. Realme also grew shipments by a massive 174.5 percent to 11.4 million units, up from 4.2 million in Q2 last year.
The interesting part is that Motorola sold more phones than the once second-biggest OEM, Huawei. Huawei shipped only 9.8 million devices, which is 74.6 percent less than in Q2 last year. The company’s shipments declined by 33.3 percent and it remains to be seen how the Huawei P50 Series announcement will help the company recover a little. With LG gone from the market and Huawei being very limited, Xiaomi has slowly started to spread its wings and capture more of the market alongside Oppo, Samsung, and Apple, all wanting a bigger slice of the pie.
Roland Udvarlaki
Roland is a technology enthusiast and software engineer based in United Kingdom. He is also a content creator and writer, and is best known under the name “Techusiast”.
A new video from China shows off a possible dummy unit of the Huawei P50 Pro. The phone’s front and back can be seen in a lot of detail, revealing some of the ports, buttons, selfie camera, and rear camera setup.
Starting with the front display, the Huawei P50 Pro appears to have a curved panel with a punch-hole cutout at the top that’s housing a single selfie camera (via GSMArena). While it’s nearly impossible to tell the size of the display that’s shown on the video, previous leaks suggested that the Pro might have a 6.6-inch OLED panel, while the standard P50 will have a 6.3-inch display. The Pro might have a QHD+ OLED display with a refresh rate up to 120Hz, it’s currently unclear if this will also be on the standard P50 device.
Image Credit: OnLeaks / Voice
The demo unit’s design also lines up with the previous leaks and renders that we’ve seen so far from credible sources such as OnLeaks, which shows us a near-identical design, compared to the demo unit.
The back of the device appears to have a total of fives camera sensors built-in to the large circular camera modules. The rear cameras are rumored to have similar focal lengths to the Huawei P40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro series with a 125mm telephoto sensor, capable of soothing up to 5z zoom. There’s also a rumored 18mm ultrawide sensor, and while there is no information for the rest of the cameras, the primary sensor is reportedly a 1-inch IMX800.
The Huawei P50 series is going to be unveiled on July 29, and they’re expected to be globally available. As always, this is just a leak, and it could just be a demo/dummy unit, so take it with a grain of salt. We might finally have some more leaks about the much-delayed P50 series in the coming days as we get even closer to the announcement.
Roland Udvarlaki
Roland is a technology enthusiast and software engineer based in United Kingdom. He is also a content creator and writer, and is best known under the name “Techusiast”.
Huawei’s presence in the smartphone market has come under question several times since the imposition of trade sanctions by the United States. Limitations on 5G capability enabled by imported components have also resulted in lower sales within China. But the launch of the Mate 40 Series in the global market and the trade licenses granted to Sony, Omnivision, and even Qualcomm have provided some respite. Although this period of difficulty is not over, the brand seems prepared to globally launch the teased P50 Series near the end of this month.
As reported, the unveiling of the new line of smartphones will happen at an official event, confirmed for 29th July. But while we wait in anticipation to see what the Chinese OEM has in hand, here’s our compilation of all the information available about the devices to give you an idea of what to expect.
A little heads up, leaks to date make it seem that interested buyers will have three options to choose from, which include the standard P50 alongside the slightly larger P50 Pro and P50 Pro+.
Design and Display
Image Credit: OnLeaks / Voice
Leaks and rumors surrounding Huawei’s P50 Series first appeared at the end of December last year. Since then, renders presented by Steven H. (@OnLeaks) have showcased the designs claimed to be for the P50 and P50 Pro.
According to these, the Pro model features a curved display, whereas the standard will have a flat panel. While the curvature is not much different than what’s present on Huawei’s P40 Pro, the front camera design is a massive change from the pill-shaped cutout seen previously.
Following this, official-looking images shared by @RODENT950 corroborated the camera design, and Huawei’s teaser for the P50 Series seemingly confirmed the look.
So while we have an idea of what to expect in terms of design, what about the specifics? While there hasn’t been a mention of the type of display, leaks by Steven H. give us numbers for the size of the panel these devices will feature. The standard P50 will have a 6.3-inch display, whereas the Pro and Pro Plus will use a curved 6.6-inch unit.
From past trends, according to us, seeing an FHD+ OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate on the P50 will not be out of order, whereas a QHD+ OLED display with variable refresh rates up to 120Hz may be available on the P50 Pro and P50 Pro+. This information has not been leaked and is just what we expect you may see on the devices.
Camera
Huawei’s P Series has been known for its camera prowess, and as per rumors, the OEM will aim to better the experience it offers with a triple camera layout on the P50 and a quad-camera array on the P50 Pro and Pro Plus, which will also include the Sony IMX800, a 1-inch sensor for smartphones (via GSM Arena).
RODENT950 further states the Huawei P50 will use a 50MP primary sensor, a 40MP ultra-wide, and an 8MP telephoto with 3x zoom. The Huawei P50 Pro, on the other hand, is tipped to have a sensor system consisting of the Sony IMX800, the Omnivision OV64A, an unnamed 5X periscope lens, and a ToF or new unidentified sensor.
Performance and Battery
5G variants of the P50 Series are tipped to ship with Kirin 9000 5G
Year on year performance improvements have become commonplace in smartphones. Seeing how the P40 Series shared its chipset with the Mate 30 Series makes it likely the P50 lineup will use the Kirin 9000 5G available with the Mate 40 Series.
But as reported, it seems Huawei may have to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset in 4G-only variants of the P50 and P50 Pro, owing to a shortage of supply.
Stepping off the rumors, as for the batteries within these devices, last year we saw a 3,800mAh cell in the P40, while the P40 Pro and Pro Plus had a 4,200mAh unit. With the hope displays this year will have higher refresh rate panels, we would say you should expect slightly larger cells across the lineup. If this doesn’t happen, users may have to find respite in Huawei bringing their 66W wired SuperCharge standard to the devices.
What Extras will the P50 Series offer?
From analyzing the leaked images, we expect Huawei will introduce dual stereo speakers, which they also shipped on the Mate 40 Series. Next, last year’s P40 lineup had an IP rating, meaning we can expect it here too. Hopefully, it will be a uniform IP68 or better across the line of devices — the P40 had an IP53 rating while the P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ had IP68. The device’s image also showed an IR blaster along the top, another bonus for interested buyers.
When will the Huawei P50 Series be available?
With a global launch confirmed for the P50 Series, the question remains about its availability. Speculation from RODENT950 says the new phones will launch with the Snapdragon-powered P50 and P50 Pro in August, followed by 5G variants (using Kirin 9000 5G) in the Fall, and the P50 Pro Plus is said to have been postponed to later in the Fall and made China-exclusive.
With HarmonyOS 2.0 ready for smartphones and the launch of the P50 Series less than a week away, what are your expectations for the new devices? Let us know with your comments below.
Aryan Suren
A 21-year-old whose interest is peaked when someone says the word ‘Ecosystem’. When not doing any writing related to technology, you may find Aryan filming videos, doodling or diving into RPGs.
If you’re already familiar with my writing on Pocketnow, you’ll know that I love to use smartphones for photography, especially when I don’t feel like carrying around any of the big cameras. I was a huge fan of the old Nokia Lumia 1020, which had been my daily driver from 2013 until the Huawei P20 Pro was released in 2018 as nothing else quite came close to the Lumia 1020’s photography capabilities within those 5 years.
For 2020 and most of 2021 so far, I’ve got a new favorite smartphone when it comes to photography and that’s the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra. That’s right… NOT the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and not the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and I’ll tell you why.
First of all, the transparent version of the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is damn gorgeous! That was a big attraction for me. Its very unique look.
It’s also got a decent price. I got the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra for about $900 whereas the more highly rated Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ is much harder to get and much more expensive. Plus, Xiaomi can still use Google services where the Huawei phones don’t. But really, we’re here to talk about photography.
4 focal lengths = great range
The big reason I like the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is for its camera array. It has 4 cameras on the back and they’re all useful. Unlike some phones that might add rarely-used things like macro photography lenses… or terrible quality gimmicks like time-of-flight fake-background-blur depth sensors… the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra has 4 different focal lengths on 4 different cameras. That means I can get 4 different fields of view without changing my physical position, and that’s a huge advantage.
Better than Optical Zoom
Some people who don’t know any better (like Apple), will call this “optical zoom”, but it’s really the act of switching between different cameras with different focal lengths and different fields of view. Optical zoom is when the lens elements move in order to change the focal length and field of view. In other words, the optics zoom. Multi-camera zoom is where we’re actually changing cameras & lenses while combining the holes in the range with digital zoom. It’s like having one camera with a prime lens, and then putting that down and picking up another camera with a different kind of prime lens.
The problem with optical zoom is that we’re limited by the physics of light within the physical movement of the optical lens. By switching to a completely different lens and a completely different camera, you’ve got much more flexibility.
RAW output support
Another huge advantage is that all 4 cameras can output to RAW digital negative file formats. That’s not always the case with these multi-camera arrays. Often, the phone manufacturer thinks they’re smarter than you and will only output to processed JPG images, or maybe they’ll only let one of the cameras output to RAW format. Sorry, but since the first Nokia phones started outputting images to RAW format in 2013, I’ve been shooting RAW on my phones. I love being able to have full control over how the image data is processed after the fact. 50% of photography is in the editing.
Widest Ultra Wide
The 12mm focal length equivalent lens camera combination on the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is the widest wide-angle lens on a phone. It’s so wide that it will see your fingers holding the phone if you wrap your hand around the back of it instead of just holding the edges. I love having such an ultra-wide angle of view option and this kind of prime lens really isn’t something that would be possible with an actual optical zoom lens. Sure there’s some distortion, but it’s a really cool look in some cases.
Group portraits
Another awesome feature about the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is the timer burst shot feature which one might also call time lapse. This option lets me set up the camera on a tripod or a rock or a fence somewhere, set 5 seconds between photos, and let it take however many photos I want in a row. This is great for posed or candid group photos while out with friends. Unlike other phones’ time-lapse feature… this also works with the RAW format options so there’s still plenty of room for post-processing on the desktop later.
All of the Xiaomi phones have this feature in the software, but combine it with the 4 different focal lengths and we’ve got some awesome range for group photos. Some of the below were shot with the 70mm or 120mm telephoto focal lengths while the phone was set up fairly far away. I can shoot group photos with me in them from across the pond!
Telephoto shots
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra has both a 70mm equivalent and 120mm equivalent telephoto lens/camera combo. I like the 70mm focal length range for portraits, and the 120mm range is great for further away portraits with a little more narrow depth of field. Unlike a lot of other smartphone cameras, the “5X” 120mm telephoto camera has a 48-megapixel sensor. Sure that’s quad-Bayer which really means it’s a 12Mp image, but it’ll be a nice and clean 12Mp image. The 70mm focal length range has a lesser quality 12Mp sensor and there are some chromatic aberrations with that combo, but since it supports RAW, I can clean up those issues very easily. Still, I love having two telephoto lenses to switch between for different compositions in RAW as the telephoto lenses have less distortion than the 24mm and ultra wide-angle 12mm lenses. A lot of phones depend on digital zoom for the range between lens focal lengths, but this always reduces the quality of the image, so having dedicated lens/camera combinations for different focal lengths is a huge advantage.
48Mp normal shots
The “normal” 24mm focal length lens camera combination has a second 48Mp quad-Bayer sensor that’s pretty great, as well.
Video
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra does pretty good with video too. It can do 8K resolution at 24fps, or 4K resolution (and lower) at 60fps DEPENDING on which camera I’m using.
The Competition
Last year, the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra was on the top of the list for best smartphone camera phone on DXOmark. Today, it’s been surpassed by the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Huawei Mate 40 Pro+, and Huawei Mate 40 Pro… but I still like the Mi 10 Ultra better. The Huawei Mate 40 Pro’s are nice, but their RAW processing at 50Mp is slow and the RYYB sensor has a lot of chromatic aberration problems with specular highlights outdoors. The Mate 40 Pro only has 3 focal lengths, and the Mate 40 Pro+ has 4 focal lengths but with a range that’s less attractive to me. The Mate 40 Pro+ has a 23mm normal lens, 14mm wide-angle (not as wide as the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra), a 70mm lens (good, I like that), and a 240mm focal length (way too long). The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra only has 3 focal lengths instead of 4. The Mi 11 Ultra has a similar 12mm ultra-wide, 24mm wide, and 120mm telephoto focal length lens combination, but it lacks the 70mm focal length lens/camera combo and that’s something I would really want. Using the digital zoom on a 24mm lens to get a 70mm focal length crop is going to drop the image quality too much and certainly won’t give me a decent RAW image at that size (unless I crop the RAW manually later).
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is only around $750-$900 too. That’s a pretty good price whereas the Mi 11 Ultra is in the $1000-$1400 range, and the Huawei Mate 40 Pro is well over $1000 if you can even get it. The Huawei Mate 40 Pro Plus is even rarer and might set you back $3000-$5000 on eBay for example:
Sorry, but I think I’ll go with the one that’s under $1000 and has so many other advantages. Huawei phones can’t even use Google Services anymore!
Of course, there are disadvantages to the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra. It only has one focal length on the front-facing camera, and THAT camera doesn’t support RAW output. So that’s not so good. It’s also not waterproof, so I have to avoid taking it out on the river. Still, I’ve been very happy with the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra as a photographer even now after its successor, the Mi 11 Ultra has been released.
Adam Z. Lein
Adam has had interests in combining technology with art since his first use of a Koala pad on an Apple computer. He currently has a day job as a graphic designer, photographer, systems administrator and web developer at a small design firm in Westchester, NY. His love of technology extends to software development companies who have often implemented his ideas for usability and feature enhancements. Mobile computing has become a necessity for Adam since his first Uniden UniPro PC100 in 1998. He has been reviewing and writing about smartphones for Pocketnow.com since they first appeared on the market in 2002. Read more about Adam Lein!
We have been waiting patiently for the arrival of the new Huawei P50 series since it was first rumored to arrive back in March of the ongoing year. However, we know that the wait is almost over, as the Chinese Korean tech giant has officially announced that it will launch the new P50 series on the last week of July, and it seems that this new series will be available all around the world.
The new Huawei P50 series will be officially presented next week, on Thursday, August 29, to be precise. Now, given the company’s situation, we expected the new smartphone to have limited availability to China and maybe some other Asian countries, but according to a Huawei representative in Finland, the P50 will be available globally.
Unfortunately, the Huawei P50 series will not feature Google Services because of the US ban, but the company continues to develop a proprietary ecosystem that already offers 134,000 apps. Further, the company has more than 4 million developers signing in to the Harmony platform, which means that you may very well survive without preinstalled Google apps. And remember that there are ways to get around these roadblocks. And if you don’t really care for those issues, you may go for your new P50 that’s expected to arrive with Leica cameras.
It is also believed that the new Huawei P50 series may arrive with a 125mm periscope lens with f/3/4 aperture, at least in one of its models. Other rumors suggest that this may be the last Kirin-powered Huawei device, as the company may end up having to shift to a 4G-only variant of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, as its supply of Kirin 9000 chips may be somewhat limited. Whatever the case, we will be covering the launch event of the new P50 series, so we will keep you informed of everything you need to know about the upcoming Huawei P50.
Via GSM Arena
Samuel Martinez
A former bilingual teacher that left the classrooms to join the team of Pocketnow as a news editor and content creator for the Spanish audience. An artist by nature who enjoys video games, guitars, action figures, cooking, painting, drawing and good music.
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