Huawei Mate 50 Pro review

31 October 2022


Sort by:

  • C
  • Czuba
  • SYG
  • 02 Nov 2022

Chavis, 01 Nov 2022The number is already on Page3.Where? I see only the white, cd/m^2 for 100% brightness but not for 0% brightness.

    • S
    • S Yu
    • Uis
    • 02 Nov 2022

    Ah, had a look at the studio shots, the Xiaomi is almost outright better in both lighting conditions. It trades all Huawei's assorted aliasing artifacts for a bit of false coloration in some of the blacks with rough texture, most of its details are more convincing than the Huawei's fake structure(the way the color gradients seem to lack a sense of depth, again, I would describe Huawei's output as almost coated in wax), with a notable advantage in actual resolution, while Huawei's sharpening is easily visible with haloing especially apparent in the low light shot, which should indicate the Xiaomi's ISO1175 is superior to the Huawei's ISO250, that's a more than 2 stop advantage. I was expecting the Huawei to put up more of a fight, honestly, but looks like its only advantage lies in the auxiliary modules. The lavish praise in this "review" is unwarranted.

      • S
      • S Yu
      • Uis
      • 02 Nov 2022

      Hmm, I'd say the day samples are better than the night samples, relative to the competition, and likewise the UWA and tele samples stand out more than the main's samples. The blur close up is decent, but that's determined by the exit pupil, and a Type 1/1.5 even at f/1.4 cannot enable "marvelous bokehy portraits", by the limits of physics. And I still cringe at the fake bokeh, because no matter how accurately(not that this is already pixel-perfect, not even at a glance) the edges are cut out, that's not the issue at this level of blur. The shallow DoF of a 28/1.4 at that magnification should render a person's ears slightly out of focus when the nose is perfectly in focus, and when the face is in focus, the pants would likely be somewhat out of focus. None of that's implemented so it can't possibly look realistic. There are some strange artifacts on his sweater though, but they don't seem to come from DoF, and they seem unnatural compared to the rendering of his face. Details also cannot be "resolved in the best possible way", because we're far from the limits of software processing, so nobody knows what's "the best possible way". Even some DNG output achieved with current software look more natural. The night samples have a *lot* of aliasing artifacts, suggesting lack of oversampling during processing combined with a detrimental upscaling step very far down the pipeline, and still have too much NR. At 1:1 they have the typical Huawei waxy look similar to models 2-3 years ago, and night mode doesn't help as much as it's supposed to.
      Anyhow, an objective review should avoid hyperbole such as those mentioned above, or those such as calling the camera setup "as cool as you can imagine" in the intro. I can easily imagine "cooler", thank you. This isn't supposed to be an ad piece, but it comes across as very unprofessional, not up to par with GSMA's usual reviews.

        YUKI93, 02 Nov 2022That is also a world first. There has never been any smartp... moreThere have been a few Xiaomi phones that have a telemacro lens, although they all had tiny 5MP sensors that would also struggle to focus on a distant subject. The one on Mate 50 RS is quite special because not only it doubles as a regular telephoto lens, does it also have a longer 90mm equivalent focal length and a much higher resolution sensor that allows for extreme cropping, making it far more versatile as a secondary camera.

          "The Portrait mode on the Mate 50 Pro offers 1x, 2x and 3x zoom levels - they all use the main camera and are shot at f/1.4 aperture for natural bokeh, rather than artificially generated one."

          No GSMArena, this is still a synthetic bokeh applied to the photos afterwards using the software processing. I get that the edge detection on this phone is so precise that it's hard to distinguish it from the "real" bokeh until you start zooming in, but it's impossible for any phone to produce this amount of blur with its relatively tiny optics - In fact these portrait shots seem to have just as much subject separation as what would be captured by a full-frame sensor paired with an F1.4 lens of the same 35mm equivalent focal length.

          Huawei is slowly coming to its senses in terms of image quality after the effective death of Kirin. The cameras on the SD variant of P50 Pro completely failed to impress, but this one seems to be a lot better rounded. The lens is now tack sharp all the way down to the extreme corners, details are no longer oversharpened (at least during the day, low light shots have more processed looking to them), and they finally nailed the colour balance on the RYYB CFA and managed to make the photos look pretty much indistinguishable from those taken by a regular RGGB sensor. 2x crop zoom shots look a bit blurry, but I guess that's due to their image stacking algorithms still not being properly optimised for a SD chipset. Hopefully Honor can learn a thing or two from Huawei to keep up their mobile photography game.

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • f4v
            • 02 Nov 2022

            huawei has the best cameras, this is an amazing phone

              YUKI93, 02 Nov 2022It's not really the end of the world as there are mult... moreBut not all of the apps work, and that is a big shame. I'm a bit lost now. I have a OnePlus 7T Pro, and I would like to replace it with something newer. I do care almost only about still shots. I can wait until the premiere of the Samsung S23 Ultra, and mobiles that I do consider are iPhone 14 PRO, Pixel 7 PRO, and S22 Ultra. For JPGs, they are somehow similar, but when it comes to RAWs iPhone shines, and I do care about it, as I used to care my mirrorless on vacations, and I would like to replace it with that new mobile. Huawei Mate 50 PRO looks great as for what I need, but I don't like the idea that some of the apps that I use might not be working on my new phone... Ehh..

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • tZk
                • 02 Nov 2022

                YUKI93, 02 Nov 2022It's not really the end of the world as there are mult... moreUnfortunately, there is still no 100% legal method to circumvent the lack of Google services. Googlefier is not usable from EMUI 11 upwards. The currently most used method Gspace is mostly usable but there are still grey areas of privacy protection, data safety and worse battery life reported by users.

                  Anonymous, 02 Nov 2022Xiaomi has telemacro lens. That one is a native macro sensor but with a telephoto focal length. In other words, it's still a macro camera in the first place. The one on the Mate 50 RS Porsche Design is the other way around, as in a native telephoto sensor but with macro autofocus capability.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • K1L
                    • 02 Nov 2022

                    YUKI93, 02 Nov 2022That is also a world first. There has never been any smartp... moreXiaomi has telemacro lens.

                      bulbulito.bayagbag, 31 Oct 2022Just like the other phones that came before it, the lack of... moreIt's not really the end of the world as there are multiple solutions to install GMS legally.

                        BMHater12, 01 Nov 2022They should also review the RS Porsche version soon because... moreThat is also a world first. There has never been any smartphone with telephoto camera that can also do macro, let alone having a large 64MP resolution.

                          Mr. Anonymous, 01 Nov 2022I wish Samsung and apple were as innovative in camera depar... moreSamsung is the first to create a 108MP Nona Bayer and 200MP 16-to-1 Bayer sensor, so at least they are trying their own idea. Can't say the same for Apple though.

                            bukeyolacan, 01 Nov 2022Kirin is not that good as people thinks, its just another A... moreAll other SoC use Mali GPU, including Samsung. Only Qualcomm has its own Adreno GPU. But for normal everyday use, I'm still impressed with Kirin. I've been using my Mate 20 for three months now and I'm really happy with its overall performance, even when using the EMUI Desktop feature.

                              As much as I like the camera performance, I still prefer the vanilla Mate 50 mainly because of the flat screen panel. It may only have a 90Hz refresh rate compared to this Pro's 120Hz, but I'm still okay with 90Hz since there are still loads of apps that can't go beyond 60Hz. I do have to lose the brilliant 64MP 3.5x zoom telephoto camera, but I'm glad to see Huawei didn't give a worse main camera for the vanilla and also the base 778G-powered 50E model.

                                adsubzero, 01 Nov 2022Not exactly true that nobody likes Apple or Samsung photos ... moreExactly. True photography enthusiast can easily tell how good or bad a smartphone photo is.

                                  • Z
                                  • Zuzuz
                                  • mA{
                                  • 02 Nov 2022

                                  bukeyolacan, 01 Nov 2022Kirin is not that good as people thinks, its just another A... moreKirin is very good. Not in the benchmarks, but when it comes to battery life, fluidity and response, Huawei was better than any Android around powered by Qualcomm. That's the reason of the rising over Samsung.

                                    • Z
                                    • Zuzuz
                                    • mA{
                                    • 02 Nov 2022

                                    Asd, 01 Nov 2022Does the ban affects the short outcome of the devices Huawe... moreThe most hurtful thing ifor Huawei s the access to production of Kirin chips. They receive SD chips but in limited numbers and without 5G. Also, the way they tweak the Kirin, made the Huawei extremely responsive without being a champion in tests. Also battery life is very good in those phones that used Kirin.

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • Nxb
                                      • 02 Nov 2022

                                      yalim, 01 Nov 2022it is a bit better on 2022 flagships in camera department b... moreThey make the best android skin around. So many useful features that no other brand has.

                                        Czuba, 01 Nov 2022Please add maximum white brightness when brightness set to ... moreThe number is already on Page3.

                                          4 of 8