After a long delay, Huawei has finally released the P50 Pro on the market. This phone was first showcased to the public in mid-2021.
The reason for the delay was not clearly stated. But the possibilities are many. Chip scarcity, shipping issues, and so on.
But most importantly, the Huawei P50 Pro is now available in the country. What is Huawei's latest flagship phone like? Let's see the review below.
Design
Premium. In short, in terms of design, this is a phone that feels very premium. The dimensions are right in the hand, not too heavy, and have a different appearance compared to other phones.
What I mean by different is of course the rear view of the phone, because from the front, almost all existing cellphones look the same. What makes it unique? Of course the two large circles in the upper left that hold a number of rear cameras, which Huawei calls the 'Dual Matrix' camera system.
No, the camera isn't that big of a circle. Because one circle contains several cameras. The top circle contains the main, mono, and ultrawide cameras, while the bottom circle contains the camera with a periscope lens and LED flash.
The back body is a mixture of glass and aluminum. The edges are curved, both in front and back. Huawei doesn't seem to have joined the latest trend of phones sporting flat edges.
Which is better, curved or flat edges? It depends on taste. Curved edges do feel more ergonomic because there are no sharp corners. However, the curved screen can be said to be only for aesthetics, because it is difficult to type and uncomfortable to watch videos. But again, it's a matter of taste.
The screen is 6.6 inch OLED with a resolution of 2700 x 1228 pixels. Not up to QHD indeed, but a pixel density of 450 ppi is more than enough to display sharp and detailed images.
In my opinion, this 6.6-inch diagonal size is just right. Not too small, but not too big either. Of course, because it uses OLED, it is clear that this screen has a high level of contrast, stunning colors, and a high level of brightness.
Huawei did not 'tune' the P50 Pro screen too much. This means that the colors displayed are not too bright with excessive saturation. The 120Hz refresh rate also makes the animation displayed feels very smooth.
Camera
Since years ago, the cameras on Huawei's flagship phones from the collaboration with Leica, be it Mate or P, have always been stunning. Including the P50 Pro. The resulting image quality, both in light and dark conditions, is always captivating.
Good photo details, natural color tones (sometimes it feels a bit warm), highlights and shadows can be displayed well. Oh yes, this is consistent for all cameras, be it the main, ultra-wide, and tele cameras (except when the zoom is above 3x).
Optical zoom telenya can be up to 3x, but when combined with digital zoom can reach 100x. I do not recommend using zoom up to 10x, because the results are not very pleasing to the eye.
In short, the camera is very good, the camera menu is comfortable and easy to use. It's just that, when compared to other phones with a price of tens of millions, the difference in performance is not that far. It's different when the P20 Pro or Mate 20 Pro were just released, whose camera capabilities are still far from their competitors.
I don't think this is because Huawei's camera development is slowing down, but because other phone manufacturers can catch up with Huawei.
Performance
Snapdragon 888 is combined with 8GB/12GB RAM and 12GB/256GB/512GB storage. 4,360 mAh battery, 66W SuperCharge, and 50W wireless SuperCharge.
Even though it was only released in 2022, keep in mind that the P50 Pro is actually the first phone on display in 2021. So it's not surprising that the SoC used is the Snapdragon 888, which incidentally was last year's flagship SoC. After all, the performance of this SoC should be able to meet all the needs of its users.
All kinds of applications will be able to dilibas easily. Here are the scores of some of the synthetic test scores I did on the P50 Pro. The score obtained is not much adrift compared to other phones with the same SoC.
3DMark wildlife 5,820
3DMark Wildlife extreme 1.537
Geekbench 5 Single Core 896
Geekbench 5 Multi Core 3.345
Geekbench 5 Compute 4.730
AnTuTu 645,934
The efficiency of the battery with a capacity of 4,360 mAh is also good. It will easily be used all day without needing to recharge.
But unfortunately, the Snapdragon 888 used only has a 4G modem, which seems to be the 'price' Huawei has to pay to be able to use the SoC made by the company from the United States.
Anyone can argue, "5G coverage is still low, really". But the presence of 5G is a necessity. This means that in the next few years -- or even this year -- 5G networks (should) have expanded.
And when that happens, the P50 Pro will be a flagship phone that goes on sale in 2022 at a price of tens of millions that can't access the 5G network.
HarmonyOS 2.0
In terms of hardware and cameras, the P50 Pro is a very capable phone. But what about in terms of software? Because a cell phone cannot only be judged from the hardware side, but also its integration with software.
And as we know, since mid-2019, Huawei cannot use Google Mobile Services (GMS), although it can still use the Android OS. This means that there is no Play Store, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Photos, Gmail, and various other services that are the daily needs of mobile phone users.
Since then, Huawei has developed solutions, such as the App Gallery which now features Petal Search as a replacement for the Play Store, and HarmonyOS as a replacement for Android.
The HarmonyOS 2.0 interface used in the unit we tested is relatively easy to learn and feels light. It's not too difficult to adapt from an Android or iOS phone.
The number of applications available for this platform is constantly growing. It's a lot more than when I used the Mate 30 Pro in 2019. For apps that aren't available in the App Gallery, there's Petal Search, which will search for apps from other sources, which are usually not official sources.
Then there's Gspace, which can be downloaded from the App Gallery, which is basically a 'virtual phone' that runs on the P50 Pro, where you can install the Play Store and other Google services. Of course this is not an official Huawei app. So if you want to use it, of course, at your own risk.
Huawei claims to have ensured security and developer verification for applications in the App Gallery. Although there have also been cases of malware that successfully infiltrated the applications in the App Gallery.
You could say that 95% of the applications needed by mobile users are available through a combination of App Gallery and Petal Search. While the remaining 5% can be met through Gspace. Is it comfortable?
Our opinion
If you only look at the hardware side, the P50 Pro is a very capable phone. The design and body material of this phone is luxurious. The body is slim, comfortable to hold and the premium impression is felt.
For phones with batteries above 4,000 mAh, the P50 Pro also has a fairly light weight. Then the camera, yes the camera sector has been Huawei's mainstay in the Mate and P series since years ago, and the P50 Pro also has a stunning camera, although sometimes the colors produced are not very natural -- it's a matter of taste.
But can all the advantages cover the disadvantages of not having Google Mobile Services (GMS)? I don't think so. All the advantages in the design sector, materials, and others, can be obtained relatively in other flagship phones (which are both expensive).
So is the ability of the camera. The P50 Pro camera can indeed produce better pictures. But the difference in the ability of this camera compared to other flagship phones is not that big, really.
The difference in camera capabilities is not as drastic as when the P20 Pro or Mate 20 Pro were just released. At that time, when compared to other flagship phone cameras, the camera capabilities of the two phones were really wow. But then other phone manufacturers started to catch up.
The development of the App Gallery ecosystem is indeed quite fast, much better than when I used the Mate 30 Pro as my main phone about two years ago. But that's still not enough to allow me to switch from the comfort of Android to GMS or iOS.
Mainly because this is a cell phone, whose function is not only used to take pictures. There are many other things that need to be done comfortably on a cellphone, such as browsing, watching videos (including YouTube), messaging applications, online shopping, online motorcycle taxis, and so on.
Yes, run comfortably. Not just can. HarmonyOS can indeed carry out almost all the functions of other cellphones. However, at least for me, not quite comfortable.
If HarmonyOS existed 5 or 10 years ago, when Android and iOS were not yet mature and dominated the mobile device market, it might be easier to "persuade" users to use a new operating system like this.
How about you, would you like to "swap" a more familiar mobile phone experience with something new for a (slightly) better camera capability?