Hands-on review: Huawei P50 Pro

Huawei Consumer Business Group is back in the game with its new P Series. The company has launched the P50 Pro, which is considered to be lighter, and equipped with powerful performance.

We got a hold of the phone for a hands-on review, and here’s how it is different from its predecessor.

Design and display
Available in two colours – Cocoa Gold and Golden Black, the Huawei P50 Pro is a 6.6-inch device that weighs 195g. Although it occupies significant real estate on your palm, it is very comfortable to hold. P50 Pro features a curved OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 300Hz sampling rate, and a resolution of 2700×1228 pixels.

Dynamic refresh rate allows the smartphone to change from 120Hz to 60Hz depending on what the user is doing, thus saving battery life on a long-term basis. The display looks great, with contrast and dark modes. It is also bright enough, and I did not face any readability issues even in direct sunlight.

Performance
The smartphone is powered by the Snapdragon 888 4G. As for my experience using the phone, it was great. The processor is fast and can handle any games, applications, or multiple tabs without any issues. TheP50 Pro has 8GM RAM and 256GB ROM storage. Performance, as expected, is good. The applications launched quickly, and I did not encounter any issues with multi-tasking.

Connectivity and battery life
The P50 Pro comes with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and a USB-Type C port. Although this smartphone lacks 5G connection, this is due to trade issues and worldwide semiconductor shortages. In addition, the phone lacks a 3.5mm audio connector.

The P50 Pro comes with a 4,360mAh battery, which is still a reasonable amount among today’s flagships and will last a full day of light-to-moderate use if you enable power-saving features like dynamic refresh rate and dark mode.

The P50 Pro supports 66W wired fast charging with the supplied 66W Huawei SuperCharge charger and cable. It also supports 50W rapid wireless charging, but the wireless charger must be purchased separately.

Camera
HUAWEI’s P series smartphones are well-known for their photographic abilities. With its rear quad-camera system, the P50 Pro is no exception.

The HUAWEI P50 Pro’s dual-matrix camera system delivers images with extreme clarity. The P50 Pro also includes Huawei’s latest image-processing engine, XD Optics. It primarily consists of the company’s proprietary computational photography techniques.

While the XD Optics allow consumers to capture images and reproduce fine details, the true-chroma image engine delivers the highest possible colour accuracy.

The phone features a main 50-megapixel (MP) primary wide-angle camera, a 40MP monochrome wide-angle camera, and a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera. These are embedded in the top circular camera module. Furthermore, with a 64MP periscope telephoto camera, a 100-degree ultra-wide-angle front camera, and a zoom capability of up to 100x, this is a smartphone camera that one can spend hours playing with.

A monochrome camera may catch more details because it does not need to incorporate colour information. Furthermore, the monochrome camera aids in the detection of depth in portrait mode.

Images captured with an ultra-wide-angle or wide-angle camera in strong sunshine are clear and colourful, with plenty of details. Even when using the digital 10x zoom, the telephoto camera gave me splendid results.

The P50 Pro’s night mode performs an excellent job portraying low-light scenes without revealing the light sources. You can tell the difference between the standard and night images at a glance.

The phone supports 4K video recording across the full focal range. The all-new AIS Pro image stabilisation solution helps users easily capture stable handheld videos, while AI cinemograph is great for creative shots that showcase minor movements.

Pricing and Availability
The Huawei P50 Pro is available for pre-order in the UAE at a price of Dhs3,999 including gifts worth of Dhs1,359.