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Review Huawei P50 Pro: Smashing Camera Expectations

rubber_otter

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Huawei P50 Pro: Smashing Camera Expectations

The Huawei P50 Pro is a prime photography phone that delivers excellent images and video even if you don’t have the skill for it. It’s a premium smartphone with a day’s battery life and a full recharge under an hour. For R19’999, to be just a great camera smartphone might be a little too ambitious for some to bite, but if you really do want to focus on just that aspect, it belongs with you.


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Specs

CPUKirin 9000 chipset (5nm)
Memory8GB RAM / 256GB (NM card up to 256GB support)
Display6.6-inch 1228 x 2700 OLED 120Hz
Camera50MP – Wide
64MP – Periscope Telephoto, 5x optical zoom
13MP – Ultrawide
40MP – Monochromatic Lens
13MP- Dual Front-facing (with TOF 3D)
ConnectivityBluetooth 5.2, USB Type-C, 5G, Up to WiFi 6
Dual SIM Hybrid, e-SIM ready
OSEMUI 12 (Android 11)
Battery4360mAh 66W fast-charging / 50W wireless
Available ColorsGolden Black, Cocoa Gold
Retail PriceR 19'999



Design

“A Nova-esque design “

The P50 Pro is extremely mirrored in finish and feels very expensive. It’s your usual dual-glass design that’s metallic and really slim. It doesn’t feel as big as most phones of today and that makes it pocket-friendly. This is definitely HUAWEI’s style and it turned out to be a really classy looking piece.

In the front is a 6.6-inch OLED screen capable of up to 120Hz of smoothness. For those seeking to game, the P50 Pro manages up to a 300Hz touch-sampling rate. The edges are curved, paying much homage to last year’s Mate 40 Pro.

The rear just straight up looks like an expensive nova 9. The dual-circular camera module is prettier here though, obviously because of the better lenses that you’ll be getting. The rest of the back case is are just the Huawei and Leica wordings in silver. The Golden Black colour stands out more as the wordings will be in gold and the camera rings follow suit, over a black case and that’s probably one of the most tasteful choices I have ever seen.



Performs Admirably well

The Huawei P50 Pro’s Kirin 9000 chipset had proved to be a capable flagship class chipset. From navigations to games, the phone did not break a sweat. Moving around apps, taking photos and everything in between had no stutter or delay, but the one thing that irked me was the immense heat build up under heavy camera use. It’s an issue most phones suffer from these days, but the issue’s a little more apparent here because of its thin frame so keep that in mind and try not to be too surprised when you experience it first hand.

120Hz OLED. Great colors on a Great refresh rate.

For some reason, if you do intend to buy the P50 Pro and play some games, it won’t disappoint. The 120Hz display is gorgeous in both colour and smoothness, so you’ll have a visual treat when you’re playing around between movies and games.

However, you should do a little homework on whether your game progress is store on your social media or not, as there are no Google Play services therefore there’s a likeliness that your progress might not be able to appear on your designated game you choose to download on Petal Search or the Huawei App Gallery.

Sets A High Bar for How Smartphone Images Should Look Like​


Continuing the Leica legacy here, the P50 Pro features the collaboration’s latest and greatest tech, along with the return of a monochromatic sensor for you artsy folks out there. Let’s take a look at the breakdown from some testing.

The main 50MP f/1.9 sensor takes outstanding shots that are output to 12.5MP. You can get 50MP shots from within the settings, and that simply adds a lot of gorgeous detail into the mix.

Colours are definitely true to life with class-breaking contrast and excellent dynamic range. Sharpening is not overdone and it’s clear as day that you can actually finally put some faith into the AI’s scene optimization. I would still insist on going pro (aka manual mode) for more controlled shots or if you want to really get creative.

Ultrawide is equally impressive, considering the fact that it comes with autofocus. This means you’re actually able to capture some macro shots although it’s a hit and miss at times because of focus locking on infinity. The hit is, you will get a crispy, well defined macro shot with plenty of detail. The miss? just a soft, unusable mess. Practice enough and you’ll know what to do.

If you’re looking into just using ultrawide to capture landscapes or urban areas and need that wider perspective, then all I have is good news. The 13MP sensor is respectably capable and captures sharp images with great contrast and color. It’s worth noting that even the shots were corrected for distortion well and that’s rare for me to see outside of a Samsung.

Riding on the noise-free trip is the telephoto periscope, delivering a very nice level of detail with accompanying colours. It achieves lossless zoom over the main sensor, about 7x zoom maximum. I won’t be recommending taking shots at that range, as I feel the best is at half the value. 3.5 zoom shots are impressive with superb definition all across the board. They just have a natural look about them and it really fights against the stigma of zooming shots on smartphones would be of poor definition and quality.

The Monochromatic Lens is useful and beautiful​

Just like the main sensor, the monochrome lens outputs 12.5mp photos and we found the results equally stunning. There’s almost 0 noise to be found and it really puts the dynamic range and contrast on the main stage. With such level of depth for just B&W photos, you might find that the P50 Pro is almost unbeatable in this regard. And no, using software filters on colour photos will be able to match this kind of quality.

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The P50 Pro is made for a specific customer. If you absolutely love taking photos with your smartphone, then this would be the ultimate choice for you. I can literally see social media managers using a phone like this to take product shots, events and so on. However, that’s as far as my recommendation goes. If you have absolutely no room to fit an actual camera in your life, then this is it.

Below shot at 20h00 at night, in near total darkness.

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Conclusion​

After using the phone as my daily driver for 2 weeks, I have come to the realization that living without Google Mobile services is not as bad as people make it out to me. Yes, there will be haters, and keyboard warriors knocking their phones for only running HMS. But, as the saying goes, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
 

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