Honor 50 review

108MP main camera leading the pack

The biggest difference, hardware-wise, between the Honor 50 and the nova 9 is the camera setup or, to be exact - the main camera. The Honor 50 replaces the nova 9's 50MP unit with a 108MP one. Unfortunately, we couldn't make the phone spill the beans about the manufacturer, but we can confirm it's a nona-bayer outputting 12MP stills. The sensor is 1/1.52" big and has 0.7µm pixels. The lens features an f/1.9 aperture.

The ultrawide is the same as on the nova 9 and plenty of other midrangers - 8MP with f/2.2 aperture providing 120-degree field of view. There are two more cameras - 2MP for macro shots and 2MP depth sensor used for portraits.

Inside the punch-hole, Honor put a 32MP, 1/3.14" camera with f/2.2 aperture - a slightly narrower opening than the f/2.0 found on the nova 9.

Camera software

The default camera app is nothing out of the ordinary - the main modes are arranged in a carousel, and you can switch between them by swiping. The "More" sub-menu holds the rest of the modes. The general camera settings are accessed via the wheel in the upper-right corner of the viewfinder.

Camera menus

The Pro mode gives you access to the autofocus, ISO, shutter speed, exposure and white balance. You can only tinker with the main camera, though, as the ultrawide isn't available in Pro mode.

Daylight samples

Main camera

The Honor 50's daylight shots look a lot better than the ones we took with the nova 9. They are consistently sharper, resolve plenty of detail, and dynamic range is also okay. Looking closer at the photos with apparent overcast, the shadows suggest that the software tends to go for a slightly lower exposure. Not a major issue, though, and it makes the images look a bit more contrasty.

Daylight main camera samples

Color reproduction isn't exactly accurate as most of the colors are a tad more saturated. On the other hand, that makes the stills more appealing and are not over the top by any means. We once again notice a slight magenta tint in almost all of the samples. Noise is mostly absent as well, and it's hard to spot even indoors, which is admirable. The handset maintains sharpness in poorly-lit scenarios as well.

Daylight main camera samples

However, just like the nova 9, the Honor 50 falls a bit short of its competitors when it comes to camera quality.

The so-called Hi-res mode shoots in 108MP, but those photos are hard to recommend. You do get plenty of detail, but the loss of sharpness and the increased noise are not worth it.

108MP daylight samples

2x zoom

It's rather unrealistic to expect the sharp 2x zoom photos since almost all phones crop from the binned photos and upscale to the desired resolution. The Honor 50 does the same and, sadly, doesn't utilize the full potential of the 108MP camera. Overall rendition is the same as the standard 1x zoom mode, but you get slightly noisier photos with considerably reduced sharpness. Still, they seem just about right for the class.

2x zoom daylight samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide shots are not much different from the competition's running the same 8MP camera. They are soft, with limited dynamic range, some colors look washed out, and fine detail is completely lost. There's also apparent color fringing even towards the middle of the frame.

Come to think of it, we've seen a tad better ultrawide samples from rivals with the same camera setup.

Ultrawide daylight samples

Macro camera

The quality of the macro shots is once again expected. Contrast is a bit on the low side, and colors need a bit more punch. Sharpness is fine as long as you hit the right focusing distance, but the detail isn't impressive due to the small, low-resolution 2MP sensor.

Macro samples

Low-light samples

Main camera

The nighttime shots are pretty good. Sharpness could be better, but we are also impressed by the amount of resolved detail, especially in the shadows, and there's obviously HDR being triggered in almost all of the shots. Dynamic range is excellent as highlights are contained without crushing the shadows along the way. Noise is almost non-existent, contrast is great, and colors are okay.

Low-light main camera samples

Shooting with the Night mode bears even better results, although hardly noticeable in some scenes. We've observed that the Night mode shines mostly in darker, more challenging environments. The shadows are boosted by a little resolving more detail, even the small traces of noise are cleared up, and more importantly, the software adds a little bit of sharpness. There's a small improvement in color reproduction - colors look more vivid, but you really have to look close enough. You can find the difference in plants or other small details around the buildings.

Night mode main camera samples

2x zoom

Cropping from the camera during the night is almost always a bad idea, and the samples below are here to prove it. The upscaling makes the photos look like watercolor paintings, and the noise is considerably more visible. Turning on the Night mode can only help with the shadows and noise, but that's about it. The stills remain soft.

Low-light 2x zoom: Normal • Night mode

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide struggles to deliver decent photos during the day, so we weren't expecting it to do so at night. The images are fuzzy, lack detail, have a narrow dynamic range and colors are washed out.

Low-light ultrawide samples

Here's how the primary camera on the Honor 50 stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Honor 50 vs. Xiaomi 11T and the Samsung Galaxy A72 in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Portraits look pretty good, and the edge detection is far superior to the one we saw on the nova 9. In fact, the bokeh blur behind the subject can get quite precise. Sharpness and detail are great and stay like that even when the light drops. Colors are vivid, whereas the subject's skin remains somewhat natural-looking.

Portrait samples

Selfies

The selfies look pretty good. In fact, these are one of the better selfies in the price range. Samples look detailed, sufficiently sharp, offer plenty of color and dynamic range is pretty wide too. Even in more challenging conditions, the subject's face remained somewhat well-exposed without clipping the bright background. Even indoors, where lighting isn't ideal, images look consistent overall.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

The faux bokeh effect is quite convincing as well, except for the last sample where the cat should have been taken into account and left in focus.

Video recording

The handset caps its recording at 2160p@30fps while the ultrawide camera can only do 1080p@30fps videos. Stabilization is available in 4K as well.

Honestly, we have nothing bad to say about the video. The 4K footage below looks sharp, detailed, with wide dynamic range, and great colors and contrast. The darker areas of the image do look a bit darker than usual, but we blame the overcast.

The Full HD ultrawide video shows similar processing, but it's considerably softer and less detailed. The contrast and colors look quite similar to the main camera's footage.

Just like the nova 9, the Honor 50 impresses with good stabilization in 2160p resolution. The EIS managed to smooth out the deliberately more "aggressive" walking.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Honor 50 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

2160p: Honor 50 vs. Xiaomi 11T and the Samsung Galaxy A72 in our Video compare tool