Huawei P50 Professional Overview | Trusted Opinions

The Huawei P50 Professional has a wonderful digital camera array, and a superb zoom, however app points and a few out-of-date inclusions imply it’s a arduous promote on the worth.

Introduction

The Huawei P50 Professional is a wierd telephone: costly, outdated in elements and nice in others. There’s no 5G and the telephone has a last-gen processor.

However the important thing situation right here is, in fact, the one which impacts all Huawei telephones. No Google Cellular companies imply the Huawei P50 Professional has to make use of the corporate’s personal options to make up the distinction.

The accessible app library is poor consequently. Plus, the strategies Huawei makes use of to broaden it elevate safety issues – Huawei’s software program is extra conspicuously ad-packed than the norm, which grates whenever you’re spending over a grand on this telephone.

There are areas to understand, although. The Huawei P50 Professional’s digital camera is a blast to make use of. Very similar to the top-end Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely, there are at all times dozens of photographs you would take wherever you’re, because of the energy of the multi-camera lineup.

Color accuracy flies out of the window whenever you use the zoom for some purpose, however the primary digital camera is superb all-round. In a single sense, I’d prefer to see extra telephones just like the Huawei P50 Professional: Android handsets that aren’t enormous however that characteristic a robust periscope zoom. Nonetheless, this telephone specifically is hard to suggest to the typical purchaser, significantly at £1099.

Design

• Uncommon dual-disc design
• Curved glass front and back
• A mid-sized handset, simple to deal with

The visible design of the Huawei P50 Professional is prone to polarise. Its cameras sit in two nice massive glass discs. Within the gold model I’ve, specifically, the impact exudes a type of ostentatious opulence, nudging in direction of the kind of territory that jogs my memory of telephones from the defunct Vertu.

Vertu telephones have been nearly universally tasteless. I wouldn’t go that far in describing the Huawei P50 Professional, however the finish consequence does lack the tasteful end that has turn out to be the norm.

In actual fact, my first tackle the Huawei P50 Professional’s second digital camera disc is that, in telephone design phrases, it was the equal of a codpiece. There was little or no of this strategy to design in older Huawei flagships.

Nonetheless, having mulled it over a bit extra, I’ve discovered that the Huawei P50 Professional is definitely fairly spectacular from a technical perspective. This isn’t an enormous telephone, or a thick one; however Huawei has managed to slot in a periscope zoom digital camera with out utilizing a super-prominent digital camera bump. These periscope cameras use folded optics, the place a mirror bounces gentle by 90 levels to permit sufficient room for the lens parts that make a robust zoom work.

Using that second disc for the zoom digital camera retains all of this {hardware} away from the opposite cameras, none of that are tiny “filler” cameras. The Huawei P50 Professional look exudes extra, however below the hood the structure might be simply the results of wise engineering.

And so long as you don’t have palms so massive that your fingers will relaxation over the decrease digital camera bump, the Huawei P50 Professional feels nice. The back and front are curved glass; the perimeters shiny aluminium. The telephone doesn’t use Gorilla Glass – Huawei might have hassle working with Corning because of US sanctions – however neither is it some low-cost various. It’s a “high-aluminum lithium glass” co-developed by Huawei and BYD.

I don’t actually torture-test telephones, so all I can allay is that so far the handset stays scratch-free. Nonetheless, I can inform you that the again isn’t remotely oleophobic – it picks up fingerprint smudges in a short time, and so they take some effort to rub off.

The tough-sounding glass is matched with wonderful IP68 water-resistance, that means the Huawei P50 Professional is rated to face up to submersion in water at a depth of 1.5m. And a plastic display screen protector is utilized as normal – at all times a welcome contact.

The audio system listed here are good, too: a stereo pair with one driver at every finish of the telephone. Mids and treble sound effectively outlined and clear, nearly to a fault on the highest frequencies. Bass isn’t fairly as distinguished, however there’s sufficient to make sure kick-drums even have some presence.

The Huawei P50 Professional additionally has an IR blaster. Its Good Distant app makes use of this {hardware} to show the telephone right into a common distant.

The Huawei P50 Professional’s display screen is a uncommon factor, a robust OLED show that appears stylish and proper straight out of the field. It’s widespread for producers to set their telephones to a juiced-up color mode that reveals off OLED color energy, however tends to make your app icons look intensely saturated.

You solely get two choices right here. The primary units the color calibration robotically based mostly on the app used. Vivid makes use of a saturated look all through. There’s no choice to set the Huawei P50 Professional to a much less saturated normal equivalent to sRGB, however I don’t miss it as a result of the default is fairly reserved as-is. It’s a pleasant present of restraint from Huawei.

It is a high-resolution, 6.6-inch 2700 x 1228 pixel show. That’s an odd decision, sitting someplace between Full HD and the 1440p of the Oppo Discover X5 Professional and Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely. There’s a slight however noticeable enchancment to the smoothness of small textual content subsequent to most 1080p shows, because of its mid-level measurement.

The Huawei P50 Professional’s OLED additionally comes with adaptive refresh fee expertise. It might go as much as 120Hz, however drop again down when displaying static content material to avoid wasting battery life. Sadly, I can’t reveal precisely the way it operates as a result of, not like regular Android telephones, there’s no refresh fee indicator within the Developer Choices space on this handset’s settings menu.

You get the concept, although. The Huawei P50 Professional has a top-end OLED display screen that delivers wonderful color and distinction. Whereas its curved sides might not attraction to all, I discover this model makes a telephone seem dearer, even when it does trigger reflection pooling.

Most brightness in sunny circumstances isn’t best-in-class however is ample for good outside readability. Huawei might have gone simple right here as a result of the Huawei P50 Professional doesn’t have a super-sized battery.

Efficiency

• Final-generation Snapdragon CPU
• Lack of Google companies causes a bunch of points
• Nice for gaming

I’ve the “world” model of the Huawei P50 Professional. It runs the EMUI software program slightly than Concord OS, and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor slightly than Huawei’s personal Kirin 9000.

On the floor the software program feels very like it did in Huawei’s glory days. By default there’s no app drawer, however you possibly can add one again in for those who so need.

It appears similar to Android, as a result of deep down it’s Android. The Huawei P50 Professional’s software program is predicated round Android 11, simply with Google Cellular Providers stripped out.

It has Huawei’s AppGallery rather than Google Play, Petal Maps as an alternative of Google Maps, plus a Huawei e-mail consumer. Put together for this transformation for those who’re upgrading from a traditional Huawei handset such because the P30 Professional.

The app library is probably probably the most vital sacrifice. AppGallery’s personal library stays fairly dismal, with a lot of the apps I exploit day-to-day notable by their absence. Huawei makes an attempt to fill within the gaps with Petal Search.

If you seek for an app in AppGallery, the outcomes will likely be sprinkled with gadgets from Petal Search, hyperlinks to third-party app shops equivalent to ApkPure, ApkFab and ApkMonk. Use these hyperlinks and also you’re on the mercy of the anti-virus and anti-malware practices of those small third-party shops – and so they gained’t be almost as rigorous as these of the Google Play Retailer.

As well as, Petal Search solely seems to hyperlink you to free apps from these shops, and the mixed app attain stays poor. With out digging deeper there was no method to get video games equivalent to Hitman Sniper, all-time traditional The Room or mind.fm, a generative music app I generally use for background audio whereas working.

To make use of a Huawei P50 Professional is to rethink the apps you’ll use day-to-day, except you wish to discover a method to set up Google Play. And even then apps that depend on Google Cellular Providers probably gained’t work.

There are different complications, too. For instance, you possibly can obtain WhatsApp immediately from the official web site – good. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem to allow you to restore the chat backup out of your final telephone. That is presumably as a result of the information is saved in Google Drive, which the Huawei P50 Professional is blocked from accessing.

A flick thru the video games accessible immediately from AppGallery is miserable, a illustration of the worst of cell gaming. Stacks of low-quality copycats and button-clicker video games designed to hook you sufficient to get you spending, however few of the classics, and not one of the formidable stuff.

In higher information, you possibly can obtain Asphalt 9, Roblox and Fornite by way of the Epic installer. At the least these standard titles are coated.

The Huawei P50 Professional doesn’t have the very newest processor Qualcomm as a result of, whereas new to the West, this telephone was launched lengthy earlier than in China. It does have the perfect Qualcomm CPU accessible again in mid-2021, the Snapdragon 888.

Fortnite provides a superb take a look at of its energy. The Huawei P50 Professional can run the sport at Epic graphics, and the 60fps solely accessible to highly effective telephones is unlocked. Funnily sufficient, the sport appears to run at an uncapped body fee, too, hitting highs of 90-odd frames per second at occasions.

With all settings maxed, there are occasional drops under 30fps; however the sport nonetheless feels and appears about nearly as good because it will get. The Huawei P50 Professional scores 5649 factors in 3DMark’s Wild Life, which is – simply as you’d anticipate – on a par with the perfect of final 12 months’s Android telephones, however a step behind this 12 months’s prime crop.

It’s no biggie for real-world use at current, but it surely’s a purpose to go for one thing else. The dearth of 5G is an even bigger situation; there’s no 5G model of this telephone. Whereas the Snapdragon 888 is often thought-about a 5G chipset, the Huawei P50 Professional makes use of the later 4G-only one. It narrows the telephone’s attraction… together with all the opposite points talked about.

The telephone additionally turns into hotter than a lot of the different Android handsets I’ve used lately, significantly enjoying Fortnite. It’s the realm subsequent to the cameras that will get most toasty, presumably as a result of it’s the place the primary processor chips reside.

Digicam

• 3.5x zoom is superb
• Nice picture high quality, other than some color constancy points
• Extremely-wide digital camera is the one barely weaker space within the {hardware}

The Huawei P50 Professional has points – however the digital camera is world-class. It’s capable of sq. as much as any of the 2022 flagships in most respects, regardless of being developed a 12 months earlier than telephones such because the Oppo Discover X5 Professional.

You get a robust 50-megapixel main digital camera, a fab 3.5x zoom, an honest however not actually outstanding 13-megapixel ultra-wide, plus a 42-megapixel monochrome digital camera. Having a separate digital camera for monochrome pictures is a dumb concept. Sure, leaving out the color filter array permits extra usable gentle to hit the sensor, lowering noise and so forth – but it surely’s nonetheless dumb.

Nonetheless, Huawei leans on the monochrome sensor for depth sensing (within the Aperture and Portrait modes) and, hopefully, in Evening mode for HDR processing. So perhaps this monochrome digital camera isn’t so ineffective.

Earlier than we get onto the great things, let’s get the few complaints out of the way in which. First, color accuracy can typically be method off the mark when taking pictures with the ultra-wide and three.5x zoom cameras. I’ve nearly solely observed this impact in grass. It will get method too inexperienced, as if the Huawei P50 Professional has unkillable “AI” processing in these secondary cameras.

Huawei enables you to sort-of repair it utilizing one of many Leica color modes. However these are filters, providing completely different manufacturers of “that’s not fairly the inexperienced my eyes see”.

Subsequent, the ultra-wide digital camera is just first rate; it doesn’t maintain up that effectively in low-light circumstances. Lastly, although the “background blur” Aperture and Portrait modes use a really high-res depth sensor (42 megapxiels), the Huawei P50 Professional nonetheless mucks up its depth maps a lot of the time. This ends in elements of a picture that shouldn’t be blurred being blurred.

Aside from that, the Huawei P50 Professional is lots of enjoyable, and the perfect telephone digital camera I’ve used shortly. The dynamic vary in its pictures is superb, and Huawei enables you to watch the HDR doing its factor, too – kind of. If you first open up the digital camera and level it at your topic, you’ll see the picture quickly put collectively a preview of the excessive dynamic vary consequence, zapping overexposed elements of the sky that seem initially.

The three.5x zoom is superb, maybe the perfect I’ve seen at this 3-3.5x magnification. Whereas the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely is a extra versatile zoom digital camera all-around because of its 10x zoom, the Huawei P50 Professional may even do an honest job at 10x (for which it has a preset mode), so long as the scene isn’t so difficult that it highlights the processing concerned. In some 10x pictures a wierd hazy diamond patterning is seen, too.

Huawei’s Evening mode is superb, and does wonders for each the zoom and fundamental cameras, though at 3.5x the telephone does appear to revert to utilizing the first digital camera in some conditions. The tripod mode can also be damaged, on my P50 Professional a minimum of. That is the place the telephone senses it’s being held completely nonetheless, and takes its candy time for evening pictures. It both produces weirdly darkish, blue-looking photos or, extra typically, sticks on the “picture processing” half in perpetuity – as soon as fastened, it would little question produce excellent outcomes.

Video is essentially wonderful. Stabilisation is nice even whenever you shoot at 4K/60fps. And for those who zoom in throughout seize, the Huawei P50 Professional robotically switches to the 3x zoom digital camera at about 3.9x magnification. This, too, appears nice in daylight.

Why not 3.5x? I assume it’s right down to the sensor crop required for software program stabilisation.

The Huawei P50 Professional digital camera is up there with the Oppo Discover X5 Professional and newest Samsung handsets as the most effective telephone cameras accessible, even whether it is successfully a 2021 cell. Its ultra-wide is the weak level, however the top-notch zoom makes up for it in my estimation.

The front-facing digital camera has a 16-megapixel sensor and produces nice selfies in most conditions, though fantastic facial hairs do look a little bit processed up-close. Its normal taking pictures mode shouldn’t be good for darkish selfies, however there’s a Evening mode that makes use of the display screen as a flash. It really works wonders, as long as you’re shut sufficient for this makeshift flash to do its job.

Battery Life

• 45-minute cabled charging
• 50W wi-fi charging

Like most ultra-high-end telephones, the Huawei P50 Professional’s design doesn’t revolve round battery capability. The telephone features a 4360mAh battery, simply barely smaller than the cell discovered within the Samsung Galaxy S22+.

I often decide a telephone’s battery by the way it holds up in regular use. That was a bit difficult with the Huawei P50 Professional, as a result of I can’t use among the apps I sometimes open every day.

Nonetheless, the telephone does carry out effectively contemplating the one reasonable capability. It lasts a full day with a minimum of 20% cost left by mattress time, and energy administration is nice sufficient to make sure it loses little or no cost when the telephone isn’t in use.

Gaming does drain the battery shortly – not a shock given how toasty it will get, and that the Snapdragon 888 is a robust chipset.

The Huawei P50 Professional doesn’t have the quickest battery charging round, however does simply surpass Apple and Samsung. It comes with a 66W charger that will get you from flat to 50% cost in simply 17 minutes. A full cost took 45 minutes.

Quick wi-fi charging is an possibility, too, at an unusually excessive energy of as much as 50W. You’ll want a fast-charging dock to get this, although. Huawei’s personal prices round £72 on-line.

Newest offers