After nearly two years of silence, Huawei has finally updated its flagship Mate series with four new phones. The new Mate 50 series is only available in China for now, and it consists of Huawei Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro, Mate 50 RS Porsche Design, and an upper mid-range Mate 50e.
In this article, we will discuss the Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro, which have nearly identical specifications.
Design and Display
Huawei is sticking with a circular camera design once again, but this time the lenses are located inside the cutout. The base Mate 50 has razor-thin bezels and a punch-hole selfie camera on top of a 6.7-inch OLED with 1080p resolution and a smooth 90Hz refresh rate. It has support for 1 billion colors and has an optical fingerprint sensor underneath the display.
The Mate 50 Pro has the same camera layout but with a bit more gap between larger lenses and laser autofocus units. The display is curved at the edges and has a wide iPhone-like notch that holds a selfie camera and a 3D face scanner. It is a 6.74-inch OLED with 1080p resolution, but a higher refresh rate at 120Hz. The touch sampling rate is 300Hz with 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming.
Internals and Storage
Surprisingly, both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, even though several reports predicted the standard SD8G1 from Samsung. However, this is the 4G version of SD8+G1 due to limitations imposed by the US sanctions. Since it is limited to 4G, it is also more battery efficient than the 5G variant.
Both phones have only 8 GB RAM, but storage options include 128/256/512 GB UFS 3.1. There is a memory card slot too, but it only supports proprietary nano memory cards from Huawei.
All devices in the series run on Huawei’s new Harmony OS 3.0 software, based on Android.
Cameras
The two Mates share the same main camera and ultrawide units, but differ when it comes to the telephoto lens. The main camera is a 50MP sensor with OIS and a six-blade variable aperture, which ranges from f/1.4 to f/4.0.
The ultrawide camera is a 13MP lens and the telephoto unit is a 12MP camera with 5x zoom. The Mate 50 Pro has a 64MP OIS telephoto sensor instead.
Both phones have the same 13MP ultrawide selfie camera, but the Mate 50 Pro has an additional 3D sensor for face unlocking.
Battery and Pricing
Battery specs are almost the same as well. The Pro model opts for a 4,700 mAh cell, while the base variant has a slightly smaller 4,460 mAh unit. Both support 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
Huawei Mate 50 has a starting price of $720 while the Mate 50 Pro will go for $980 in China. There is no word on international availability yet.
Specifications
| Huawei Mate 50 | Huawei Mate 50 Pro | |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 |
| CPU | Octa-core (1×3.19 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3×2.75 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4×2.0 GHz Cortex-A510) | Octa-core (1×3.19 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3×2.75 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4×2.0 GHz Cortex-A510) |
| GPU | Adreno 730 | Adreno 730 |
| OS | Harmony OS 3.0 | Harmony OS 3.0 |
| Supported Networks | 2G, 3G, 4G LTE | 2G, 3G, 4G LTE |
| Display | 6.7″ OLED, 1224 x 2700 pixels, 1B colors, 90Hz, 300Hz touch sampling | 6.74″ OLED, 1212 x 2616 pixels, 1B colors, 120Hz, 300Hz touch sampling |
| RAM | 8 GB | 8 GB |
| Storage | 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB | 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB |
| Card Slot | yes | yes |
| Main Camera | 50 MP, f/1.4-f/4.0, 24 mm (wide), PDAF, Laser AF, OIS 12 MP, f/3.4, 125 mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom 13 MP, f/2.2, 13 mm, 120Ëš (ultrawide), PDAF |
50 MP, f/1.4-f/4.0, 24 mm (wide), PDAF, Laser AF, OIS 64 MP, f/3.5, 90 mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3.5x optical zoom 13 MP, f/2.2, 13 mm, 120Ëš (ultrawide), PDAF |
| Front Camera | 13MP | 13MP, TOF 3D |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Under-display | Under-display |
| Colors | Black, Silver, Purple, Orange | Black, Silver, Purple, Orange |
| Battery |
4460 mAh, 66W wired charging, 50W wireless charging | 47000 mAh, 66W wired charging, 50W wireless charging |
| Price |
$720 | $980 |
