The Huawei P50 Pro is out to do one thing, and that is photography. Following the legacy of its P series predecessors – P9, P20, P30 and P40 series – this is form and function in one exquisitely designed phone. That’s a lot of promises, so how does it really work?

DESIGN

At 195g and 8.5mm thickness, the Huawei P50 Pro’s weight feels right in the hand. When it comes to the “shape”, so to speak, you can feel its curves since it does carry a curved edge display, also applicable to the polished edge on the back of the phone. The glossy glass material makes it look extremely attractive, which unfortunately, is very easy to leave fingerprints on.

A metal frame “bridges” the front and back, so that you can actually get a good grip on the phone. The curvature extends to this frame, with the side slightly curved. The dual ring design for the lens makes the phone stand out more, besides the gloss itself. Placement-wise, the Type-C port and SIM card slot is on the bottom, with speakers on both the top and bottom.

SCREEN

The 6.6-inch OLED dual-curved screen has a 2700 x 1228 resolution. Following the P40 Pro, the bezels are extremely narrow. To get more screen real estate, the front camera utilizes a punch hole design to further enable a larger screen-to-body ratio. When it comes to performance, it has up to 120Hz refresh rate, supporting 1.07 billion colours, so most definitely respectable when it comes to colours, colour accuracy, and details for reviewing your photos, or for a spot of gaming and videos.

PERFORMANCE

Packing a Snapdragon 888 processor and UFS3.1 super-fast flash memory, the Huawei P50 Pro will transfer those large photos and videos without breaking a sweat. 256G ROM and 8GB RAM also enables a smoother gaming experience. Numerically, the 609,836 score via AnTuTu is pretty good for a flagship phone. The 4360mAh battery has 66W super wired fast charging and 50W wireless fast charging support, though the phone itself only came with a wired charger for me. There isn’t much of a concern, when a full charge from 1% takes a mere 50 minutes.

That said, it’s time to test the Huawei P50 Pro’s actual gaming performance. At the highest possible settings:

MOBILE LEGENDS: BANG BANG

No problems here. The game runs buttery smooth, and has no issue with lag.

CALL OF DUTY MOBILE

For the most part, it’s quite smooth, but too many effects can cause the frames to drop.

GENSHIN IMPACT

The “true” test, shall we say? It can run at over 30 FPS smoothly enough, dropping when there are more enemies around, and falters even further once the particle effects come in.

After 30 minutes of gaming, the Huawei P50 Pro does start feeling warm. It’s not necessarily uncomfortable, but something to take note of.

CAMERA PERFORMANCE

After the build up over the camera, let’s talk about it.

Compared to other options in the market, the Huawei P50 Pro’s telephoto lens is relatively conservative, a mere 90mm 3.5x option. However, the resulting photos possess incredibly impressive quality, remaining sharp and clear even as you zoom in.

Technology has improved as such that the AIS Pro super-antishake allows the image to remain stable, whichever lens you decide to use. With the issue of shaky images resolved, there’s the consideration about colour accuracy. XD Fusion Pro takes care of that, making the necessary adjustments. This is further assisted by True-chroma shot, so you will always have the most colour accurate pictures be it indoors or outdoors.

One major change for the Huawei P50 Pro is in its wide angle lens. The 3:2 ratio offered quality, at the cost of angles. This phone can now offer you it all: 120 degree, 13mm super wide angle for those sweeping shots, with any edge distortion corrected through internal algorithms. For any further edits, such as removing fixtures or obstacles, the AI remove feature exists. Voila, all major problems solved!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

As 5G becomes more common, the Huawei P50 Pro only having 4G could be a disadvantage. For the Malaysian market, that future is a little further away, so may not be as big as a factor. If 5G is not a concern for you, then the Huawei P50 Pro must be considered when looking for the best camera phone.

SPECIFICATIONS IN BRIEF