There are two series of smartphones that Huawei is known for – the “P” series & the “Mate” series. This year, however, we did not get any phones under the “P” series. The Huawei P50 series launched in July, whereas the Mate 40 series in October. Today, the company launched its Mate 50 series, which includes three premium high-end phones – Huawei Mate 50, Huawei Mate 50 Pro, and Huawei Mate 50 RS.
It seems like Huawei wants to make sure the numbers in the names are in line for both the “P” and “Mate” series phones, and that is why there is no “P60” series this year, but we do have the “Mate 50” series. So, next year, we will get the “P60” and “Mate 60” series, with the numbers indicating that both these series are for the same year.
HUAWEI MATE 50
This is the most affordable phone in this series (for now), but still, Huawei hasn’t done any major cost cuttings compared to the other models. There is a premium glass and metal build, and the phone is IP68 certified. There is a circular camera module on the back with four circles, placed symmetrically. There are stereo speakers but no 3.5mm headphone jack. The thickness of the phone is 7.68mm, and the weight is around 206g.
On the front, the Mate 50 has a gorgeous 6.7-inch OLED panel with up to 90Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch-sampling rate. The resolution of this panel is 2700 × 1224 pixels, and it can output 10-bit colors. The renders show that the phone has symmetrical bezels around the display. Under the hood, there is Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset but still no 5G support.
The battery size is 4,460mAh, and the phone supports 66W fast wired charging and 50W fast wireless charging.
The cameras are pretty interesting, especially the primary camera. There is a triple camera setup on the rear where the primary camera has a 50MP RYYB sensor with OIS and a variable aperture which ranges from f/1.4 to f/4.0. The camera auto adjusts the aperture based on the environment, but if you use the Pro mode in the camera app, you can manually choose between 10 aperture sizes. The second camera is for ultrawide shots, and it has a 13MP sensor. Finally, the phone has a 12MP telephoto camera with 5X optical zoom and OIS.
For selfies, the Mate 50 has a 13MP camera on the front. Both the front and rear cameras are capable of 4K video recording. Finally, the phone runs on HarmonyOS 3.0.
Huawei Mate 50 starts at ¥4999 in China, which translates to around $719 / €724.
HUAWEI MATE 50 PRO
Next up, we have the Huawei Mate 50 Pro, which is the top-of-the-line premium flagship phone from the company. There are three colors to choose from – Black, Orange, and Silver. The Orange color variant features a leather finish on the back, whereas the other two have a plain glass back. There is the same circular camera module on the rear as on the vanilla model, but the arrangement of the camera lenses in the circles is slightly different.
The front design is different since there is a notch on top instead of a hole punch cutout. The display is also curved on the sides. This is a 6.74-inch OLED panel with up to 120Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch-sampling rate, 10-bit color depth, and 2616 × 1212 pixels resolution. Huawei says the display is protected with Kunlun Glass which is the first to get five-star glass drop resistance certification from Switzerland’s SGS.
The notch is there for a reason. There are two cameras in it – one has a 13MP sensor, and the other is a 3D depth-sensing camera. The battery size is 4700mAH, and the charging speed is the same as the vanilla model. Speaking of the cameras, the primary and the ultrawide cameras are the same as the vanilla model, but the third camera has a 64MP RYYB sensor which has a telephoto lens offering 3.5x optical zoom.
The Huawei Mate 50 Pro starts at ¥6799, which translates to around $977 / €987.
PORSCHE DESIGN HUAWEI MATE 50 RS
Every year, apart from the normal phones under the “Mate” series, we also get the Porsche Design phone. This year is no exception, so we also have the PORSCHE DESIGN HUAWEI Mate 50 RS. This phone looks completely different from the other two phones. It looks similar to the previous Porsche design phone, i.e., the Mate 40 RS. There is a similar ceramic back, octagon-shaped camera module, a curved display, a notch, etc.
Compared to Mate 50 Pro, the only major difference is that it does not have a 64MP sensor for the telephoto lens. Instead, there is a 48MP sensor that can shoot ultra macro photos.
The phone’s price is ¥12999 in China, which translates to around $1869 / €1886.