Huawei Mate 50, officially launched. What features it offers

Huawei has officially unveiled a new series of high-end smartphones, the first since “parting ways” with Leica. The Huawei Mate 50 is initially only available to buyers in China, but will eventually make its way to European stores, where the Huawei P50 is still the best performing series of phones on sale.

Huawei’s new family of phones includes three models: the Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro and Mate 50 RS Porsche Design. A Huawei Mate 50E model has also been announced, but this is a mid-range model that doesn’t quite fit the pattern of the flagship series.

All three models benefit from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, in the only version of this processor that doesn’t use a 5G-compatible modem. US restrictions on Huawei remain active, and that means they’ll be limited to 4G technologies only. Charging speeds are also capped at a maximum of 66W, the same as previous models, so we don’t see upgrades to 100W or more power as with other competitors.

All models in the series come with the same “island” design for the camera, only the hardware configuration differs. Being phones aimed at the Chinese market, they come with Harmony OS 3.0 pre-installed.

The Huawei Mate 50 and Mate 50E use a flat screen design with a central perforation next to the front camera. Design-wise, these two phones are extremely similar, with some differences on the hardware side. Both devices have the same display – 6.7-inch FullHD+ (2700 x 1224) OLED screen with 90 Hz refresh rate and 300 Hz touch control sample rate. The Huawei Mate 50 comes with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G, while the Mate 50E comes with Snapdragon 778G 4G. Both include 128GB and 256GB storage options, while the Mate 50 also has a 512GB variant. The storage is expandable, but only if you buy the memory card also from Huawei, at the price imposed by the Chinese manufacturer.

The photo configuration is an interesting one. The Mate 50 comes with a 50MP main camera (OIS, f/1.4 aperture lens), 13MP ultrawide camera and 12MP periscope camera (F/3.4 aperture, OIS, 5x optical zoom, 50x digital zoom). The front camera is a 13MP model with f/2.4 lens.

Both the Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro come with a 4460 mAh battery and 66W fast charging, the difference being the 50W speed reached when charging wirelessly on the more expensive model.

The Huawei Mate 50 can be ordered in stores in China for the equivalent of $718, with the price of the other variants not yet known. Huawei Mate 50 Pro

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is the company’s flagship flagship, and the RS Porsche Edition model is basically a luxury variant of it. The difference is mainly due to the design applied to the back, plus some exclusive software apps. But the rest of the specifications are virtually identical. Otherwise, the RS Porsche Edition is obviously more expensive.

The Mate 50 also includes a 64 MP periscope camera (F/3.5 aperture, OIS, 3.5x optical zoom, 100x digital zoom). The third camera on the Mate RS is a 48 MP tele – super macro mode (f/3.0 aperture, OIS). Both phones include a 13 MP ultrawide selfie camera (f/2.4 aperture), plus a sensor for applying depth effects.

The Huawei Mate 50 can be ordered in stores in China for the equivalent of $718, with the price of the other variants not yet known. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is priced at $977, while the RS Porsche Design trim costs $1877.