Huawei P50 Pro Review: Specifications | A flagship to be proud of

The Huawei P50 Pro’s camera bump is certainly unique

The Huawei P50 Pro features a one-of-a-kind design that can’t be found on any other phone, with two enormous circles enclosing the device’s quad-camera array. It’s daring and eye-catching, but not in a negative manner, even if it takes some getting accustomed to. The model we received is in “Cocoa Gold,” albeit the colour changes depending on the lighting. Sometimes it seems grey, sometimes it appears gold, and sometimes it appears brown. This is a fingerprint magnet, but aside from the smudges, it’s one of my favourite devices in terms of appearance right now, and it’s really attractive.

Even better, considering its size, the phone is pleasant to hold in one hand. The curved edges undoubtedly help with that, but it does occasionally result in unintended contact. It’s also lightweight and not too slick when removed from the accompanying case.

The display, on the other hand, is hampered by a single front-facing punch hole camera and has curved edges on both the left and right sides. The in-display fingerprint sensor is a tad low on the display (though it’s OK when using the phone one-handed), and the 6.6-inch display’s top and bottom bezels are nearly perfectly even.

Finally, the phone’s chassis’s bottom and bottom are fully flat. At the top, there’s an IR sensor, microphone, and speaker, while at the bottom, there’s another speaker, a USB-C connector for 66W wired charging, and the SIM tray. The volume rocker and power button are located on the right side.
Really, this is a beautiful design, and the phone looks fantastic, just like the Huawei MatePad 11. In terms of phones, the Huawei P50 Pro is stunning, especially in person. I can see how the camera placement would bother some people, but I honestly believe it works nicely here. It offers the phone a distinct appearance and personality that distinguishes it from anything else on the market right now.

AppGallery continues to improve

Huawei’s main issue will always be software, and the Huawei P50 Pro, like every other Huawei smartphone in recent memory, uses the AppGallery to distribute programmes to users. It lacks a large number of apps, and some must be installed through third-party APK websites. You can’t sign in to YouTube without using anything like YouTube Vanced or MicroG, and other programmes like Gmail won’t work either.

The Huawei P50 Pro is the first Huawei device I’ve used exclusively as a daily driver since the event, although my dependency on Google services made this challenging. I couldn’t use Gmail, so I looked at some of the top Android email apps and settled on Nine. It works, however push notifications occur every fifteen minutes, which is far from the same as receiving a notification as soon as an email arrives.

Furthermore, the apps on AppGallery were not always usable in Ireland. The Just Eat app, for example, is a takeaway app in Ireland (other users may recognise it as Lieferando, GrubHub, Takeaway.com, and so on), but it’s a regional app. The app that is officially published in Ireland through AppGallery is the U.K. app, not the Irish version, and does not work here. Only after I sideloaded the Irish app on my phone did it function.

In terms of contactless payments, Huawei collaborated with payment provider Curve. Curve is a payment provider with which you may link your existing cards, as well as a lot of other fascinating features, which essentially involve swapping all of your cards for one card, then using the app to swap which card is now active. It’s a fairly cool service that I was already familiar with, so configuring it on the Huawei P50 Pro was a breeze. I had a few challenges getting it up that eventually resolved themselves (perhaps due to the phone being unreleased at the time), however it does not work for contactless payments.

Curve instructs me to place my phone near an NFC reader, however this does not function. I checked that it can read NFC tags, and simply placing the phone against another phone activates the Huawei Wallet app.

To be honest, the main problem I’ve encountered with AppGallery is a lack of apps. While the company’s Petal Search performs the legwork for you in terms of discovering APK files to install, there are a few surprises. Apart from Twitter Lite, there is no Twitter app (for some reason, even Petal Search cannot find one), and there are no automatic upgrades for apps that you install. If you don’t go out of your way to sideload your favourite apps, you might miss out. I installed Aurora Store, a FOSS alternative to Google Play that works with most apps, however some apps that rely on Google services continue to fail. Unfortunately, there is no way around it, and it appears that what we now have on Huawei phones is the best that it will get.

HarmonyOS? No, EMUI

Remember when Huawei was intended to deliver HarmonyOS to western devices, even with its tablets and when upgrading some of its older phones? That’s right… about that. Despite seeming identical to HarmonyOS, the Huawei P50 Pro in the West runs EMUI 12. I compared it to my Huawei MatePad 11, and it looks exactly the same – with the exception of a few tablet-specific modifications.

To be honest, it feels a lot like EMUI, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Despite being excluded from energy improvements, several programmes (such as Facebook Messenger and Slack) struggle to inform me when a message arrives. It can take several minutes for a message to appear on the Huawei P50 Pro that my Google Pixel 6 Pro alerted me to within five seconds of it being delivered.

I like how EMUI looks, and there are a few quality-of-life enhancements that I like. There’s a control centre, for example, that can be accessed by swiping down from the right side of the display (exactly like on MIUI… or an iPhone), and the animations are beautiful. App multi-window support works perfectly, and I have no problems regarding what’s included.

Unfortunately, many of the software issues are outside Huwaei’s control due to sanctions, and it would be wrong to blame many of the company’s software woes on that. The phone comes preinstalled with the company’s own AI speech translation capabilities, as well as an AI lens that functions similarly to Google Lens. You can also use it to scan products near you in order to buy them online, but it always appears to favour websites like AliExpress. It’s a valiant effort, but I don’t see many people in Europe using it.

Overall, it’s the same EMUI you’ve grown accustomed to… from HarmonyOS. It’s basically the same experience, just on a smartphone. If you like the aesthetic of HarmonyOS, you’ll appreciate EMUI 12.

When it comes to cameras, Huawei’s still got it

On the rear of the Huawei P50 Pro is a quad-camera array consisting of a 50MP primary sensor, a 64MP 3.5x telephoto lens, a 13MP ultra-wide camera, and a 40MP monochrome camera. The camera system is designed in collaboration with Leica, as has been the case with past Huawei phones, and it’s the type of camera system you’ve come to expect from Huawei. Photos are crisp and clear.

Huawei has always been known for its camera prowess, with their phones capable of some of the best images in the industry. This time is no exception, as the Huawei P50 Pro can effortlessly generate excellent images that are sharp with correct colours. It’s a traditional point-and-shoot camera. My only big complaint is that it struggles with moving animals and people, but it excels with everything else. The new XD Optics camera algorithm, which debuted with this phone, is what makes the P50 Pro’s cameras sparkle. XD Optics is essentially Huawei’s version of computational photography, and it does an excellent job at producing vibrant colours that are true to life.
On a software note, another issue I’ve discovered (though it’s far from a dealbreaker) is that the Huawei P50 Pro’s night mode does not activate automatically and must be enabled manually. Almost every phone I use nowadays will automatically activate night mode when taking images in low-light conditions, but the Huawei P50 Pro is an exception. It is, however, a minor annoyance.

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