HUAWEI P50 Long Term Review - Compact camera wonder!

We've had the pleasure of using the HUAWEI P50 for quite a while. It is the company's compact premium device priced at PHP 39,999. Here's our full review!

One of the last HUAWEI smartphones with Leica cameras!

Being a premium device, the HUAWEI P50 packs elegance, camera prowess, and performance into a compact body.

As a recap, it has a 6.5-inch OLED screen with up to 90Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 888 4G octa-core processor, Adreno 660 GPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB expandable storage, 50MP True-Chroma Color Camera with Leica lens, and a 4,100mAh battery with 66W SuperCharge technology.

It is also one of the last HUAWEI smartphones to feature the Leica branding.

Let's see how the smaller sibling of the P50 Pro fared!

Unboxing/Accessories

Here's the box!

The HUAWEI P50 came in a white box with the name of the device plastered on top in front. It also has two circles resembling the P50's camera islands at the back. Inside the circles, you get an image that resembles your device's color inside.

What's in the box?

Inside, it has what you expect from a 2022 release. First, you are greeted by the HUAWEI P50 itself. Underneath, you get a SIM eject tool, a silicone transparent protective case, a USB charging/data cord, and the 66W wall charger.

Again, as with most modern smartphone releases, the HUAWEI P50 does not have a 3.55mm headphone jack hence you will not get a pair of wired earphones too.

Build Quality/Design

It is a premium build of metal and glass!

The HUAWEI P50 continues the P-series' style of elegance and sleek looks. At the back, you get a curved glass panel with a matte finish. It is smooth to the touch yet easy to grip due to its slim form factor. It is not a fingerprint magnet as well. There is no indication of any scratch resistance at the back though but it is IP68 water and dust-resistant.

It also has two circular camera bumps at the back. The quad-camera setup is split between the two with 3 sensors at the top and a single one at the bottom with the LED flash. We found this camera bump style to be attractive and quite different from the sea of square and rectangle camera bumps.

In front, there's the 6.5-inch 90Hz OLED screen with slim bezels all around. It also has a top-center punch-hole cutout housing the selfie camera. No mention of dedicated screen protection here though. It also has an In-Display fingerprint sensor.

The frame of the device is made out of metal featuring curved corners and chamfered edges.

The top and bottom

At the bottom, you will find the other SIM card tray, another microphone hole, a USB-C port, and another speaker grille. On top, you will find a speaker grille and two microphone holes.

On the right of the device, there is the power button and volume rocker. The left side is perfectly blank.

Left and right sides of the device

Overall, we are really happy with how the HUAWEI P50 looks and feels.

Multimedia Experience

The screen of the HUAWEI P50

As mentioned earlier, the HUAWEI P50 features a 6.5-inch 2.5D curved OLED screen with a 2700 x 1224 resolution, a 90Hz refresh rate, a 300Hz touch sampling rate, and a 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, and a 456 ppi pixel density. It also has HDR10+ support and 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage with 1.07 billion colors for great color accuracy.

Being an OLED screen, it has amazing contrast with deep blacks and bright whites. It makes watching videos and movies immersive and enjoyable. The 1440Hz PWM dimming also helps take the strain off your eyes. It is fairly bright and can be very usable under direct sunlight.

It does have a 90Hz refresh rate which is a tad slower compared to the 120Hz the P50 Pro has. But, we are happy with how smooth the experience was in navigation, browsing, and gaming. You can switch between 90Hz and 60Hz to save battery life but we chose to keep it at 90Hz all the time since the battery was able to keep up.

The display has 10 points of touch in total and a 300Hz touch sampling rate making it very responsive in terms of fast inputs for gaming. It also has an Always-On display functionality which can be customized with your own signature messages.

Our only gripe here is the 90Hz refresh rate. The HUAWEI P50 is still part of the flagship series even though it is the base model. We still expect the 120Hz refresh rate to be a non-exclusive feature of the Pro variant.

In terms of audio, it has stereo speakers firing from the top and bottom of the device. It was an enjoyable experience, especially in games and movies. Although there is no mention of Dolby Atmos support, the spatial audio it can provide is good enough to add immersion.

For wired audio, it has a dedicated HiFi DAC. This means that you get a top-of-the-line audio experience especially if you have great headphones. Using our JBL Quantum 600 headphones, we experienced tight bass and clear highs and mids.

As expected, it has LDAC codec support which allows its users to enjoy high-quality wireless audio via Bluetooth 5.2 BLE. We really enjoyed the wireless audio experience using our JBL Live PRO+ TWS earbuds.

The microphones are clear and consistent during calls. The same is true for the earspeaker with no statics or cutouts experienced.

Camera

One of the last Leica camera setups for HUAWEI

The HUAWEI P50 is one of the company's last smartphones with Leica cameras. It features a triple-camera setup with 50MP f/1.8 True-Chroma Color Camera with True-Focus Fast Capture (Phase + Contrast focus) + 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera + 12MP f/3.4 Telephoto Camera w/ AF and OIS + LED flash. It also has a 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle selfie camera.

Camera UI

The camera app is also loaded with features such as Aperture mode, Night mode, Portrait mode, Pro mode, Slow-Mo, Panorama, Monochrome mode, AR Lens, Time-lapse, Stickers, Document, Underwater, Dual-View, High-Res, Story Creator, and Snapshot. It also has AI optimizations, Moving Pictures mode, and Leica filters.

The last HUAWEI with Leica in PH

The Leica Filters adjust colors according to the look or scenario you are choosing. There is Leica Standard, Leica Vivid, Leica Smooth, Classic, Dawn, Pure, Moody, Metallic, Blue, Cool, Caramel, Soft, and Valencia.

Here are some shots that we took!

Rear Camera Samples

Daylight

Daylight 10x zoom

Daylight ultra-wide

Indoor, well lit

Indoor close-up

Lowlight

Lowlight Night Mode

Portrait mode, lowlight

As expected, the HUAWEI P50 didn't disappoint in terms of camera performance. In daylight and well-lit indoor shots, the colors came out vibrant with crisp details. It also has reasonable contrast and shadows. Autofocus is fast and did not fail us even once.

The ultra-wide camera is also great. The 12MP sensor was able to retain a lot of details and colors as well. It also performed well with close-up and portrait shots as well. It has very good edge detection. AI enhancements are also fast with it detecting scenes in an instant.

In low light, the 50MP main camera performs amazingly with very usable shots even without Night Mode on. With Night Mode, it takes the shots to a different level with brighter shots with little to no noise. Ultra-wide with Night Mode is decent but we rarely used it.

The 13MP wide-angle selfie camera

For selfies, it has a 13MP f/2.4 Wide Angle camera. It is not a large sensor in itself but it does very well in well-lit and lowlight situations. It has a screen flash, filters, Beauty mode, and effects. It has three FOVs available as well with normal 1x, 0.8x wide, and a full-blown wide-angle mode. Night Mode is also available in selfies as well.

Here are some of our shots!

Selfie Camera Samples

Indoor selfie

Wide selfie

Lowlight selfie

As you can see, the HUAWEI P50's 13MP selfie camera did very well in different situations. It maintained a natural skin tone with great details. The addition of three FOV options allows for great group selfies as well.

During well-lit situations, the HUAWEI P50 produced amazing-looking selfies with good colors and great details. But, there are times that the photos came out more saturated than expected after post-processing.

Portrait Mode does not blur the background as much as when it was used with the rear cameras. The Night mode for selfies does brighten up the shots but the colors become a bit duller. This was corrected when we used the screen flash though.

Lowlight shots using the normal Photo mode came out great as well. However, if you have unsteady hands, you might need to take a couple of shots to ensure that the photos are clear.

For videos, it can take up to 4K 60fps footage for both the front and rear camera systems. The footage comes out smooth and clear. There is a feature called Efficient Video format that takes up 35 percent less storage space. However, this may make the video unplayable on other devices.

Performance

AnTuTu and Geekbench results

The HUAWEI P50 features the 5nm 2.84GHz Snapdragon 888 4G octa-core processor, Adreno 660 GPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB expandable storage, and a 4,100mAh battery with 66W SuperCharge. Due to the HUAWEI US trade ban, it has limited options in terms of the SoC it can use. The SD888 4G is still a capable SoC but it is easily beaten by newer offerings such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

HUAWEI P50 benchmark scores:

1. AnTuTu - 585,667

2. Geekbench - 1,097 (Single-Core), 3,291 (Multi-core)

3. 3DMark Wild Life - 5,904 and average 35.40 fps

4. AI Benchmark - DNF (Crashes)

6. CPDT - 415.41 MB/s (Sequential write speed), 850 MB/s (Sequential read speed)

3DMark and CPDT results

Based on our experience, we never had issues running most of the apps that we use for work and social media. Even when taking pictures, performance is instantaneous. Of course, there is the caveat of not having Google services. Although there are workarounds such as GSpace or YouTube Vanced (We kept a backup APK since it is not available officially anymore), it can still be a bother, especially in terms of games with Google Play Games requirements.

MLBB and CODM settings

Speaking of games, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang ran flawlessly on high settings for us. Even 90 fps is supported. Our graphic settings for Call of Duty: Mobile are set to Very High graphic quality and Max Frame Rate, and there is no lag or other issues. Performance-wise, there is no problem. However, these are the only two games we were able to test.

Fast for a camera phone!

League of Legends: Wild Rift always says that we are on an unofficial platform. So we can't play at all. The same goes for others such as Apex Legends Mobile and Diablo Immortal.

Connectivity-wise, WiFi 6 is a great option since it maintains strong connectivity both for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels of our modem router. Unfortunately, HUAWEI will be limited to 4G LTE until the US trade ban is lifted. 4G LTE is strong and fast in areas with strong reception.

Bluetooth 5.2 BLE works and maintains connectivity with my TWS earbuds. GPS works well with Petal Maps as well.

PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Life test result

The 4,100mAh battery was able to record 10 hours and 57 minutes with the PCMark Work 3.0 Battery benchmark. A bigger battery of at least 4,500mAh or even 5,000mAh could have been better. In terms of normal usage, we were able to fit in our 9AM to 6PM work day with around 30 percent to spare.

The 66W SuperCharge can fill it up from 10 percent to 100 percent in around 35 minutes. The 66W charging bring was included in the box which is a big plus considering big brands such as Samsung and Apple have veered away from including charging bricks.

For the interface, our review unit was stuck on EMUI 12.0.1. We cannot update any further though. It has icons with rounded square shapes. We chose to run the App Drawer option with Navigation buttons out of preference.

Swiping down on the right side of the status bar, you will get the Control Panel with media controls and the different Quick Settings toggles. Swiping down on the left side brings down the Notification Panel. The lock screen has a clock, an In-Display fingerprint scanner, and a camera shortcut.

Pros - Stylish build and design, amazing display, strong performance, fast charging, amazing cameras

Cons - Small battery, no 5G, no Google services

HUAWEI P50 Specs

Display: 6.5-inch 2.5D curved OLED screen w/ up to 90Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate, 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, 2700 x 1224 resolution at 456 ppi

CPU: 2.84GHz 5nm Snapdragon 888 4G octa-core processor

GPU: Adreno 660

RAM: 8GB RAM

ROM: 256GB expandable via NM card slot up to 256GB

Back Camera: 50MP f/1.8 True-Chroma Color Camera w/ True-Focus Fast Capture (Phase + Contrast focus) + 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera + 12MP f/3.4 Telephoto Camera w/ AF and OIS + LED flash

Selfie Camera: 13MP f/2.4 Wide Angle

Battery: 4,100mAh w/ 66W SuperCharge 

OS: HarmonyOS 2.0 w/ EMUI 12

Connectivity: WiFi 6, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.2 BLE (SBC, AAC, LDAC), NFC, GPS (L1 + L5), A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou (B1I + B1C + B2a), Galileo (E1 + E5a), QZSS (L1 + L5), NavIC, dual SIM

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic, pressure

Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, IR Blaster, IP68 water and dust resistance, HiFi DAC, stereo speakers, USB-C, Colors: Golden Black, Cocoa Gold

Dimensions: 156.5 x 73.8 x 7.92 mm

Weight: 181 g

Price: PHP 39,999

Verdict

Still solid for a flagship!

Being the last HUAWEI smartphone to feature Leica, the P50 was able to do it justice with amazing camera performance. It also has decent overall performance even if the Snapdragon 888 4G can be considered outdated now.

The things that we found subpar with it are out of HUAWEI's hands for the most part. The company can't use newer 5G-capable chips due to the HUAWEI US trade ban. The same reason goes for the lack of Google services. However, we believe that a bigger battery can be fitted while maintaining a slim profile.

We can still say that for the camera performance alone, the HUAWEI P50 is still a good buy if you can get over the cons we pointed out.

Build/Design - 4.5

Multimedia Experience - 4.25

Cameras - 4.5

Performance - 4.25

Average - 4.35/5