Huawei has officially introduced a new line of high-end smartphones, the first since the "breakup" from Leica. The Huawei Mate 50 is initially only available to buyers in China, but will eventually make its way to European stores, where the Huawei P50 is still the most powerful range of phones on sale.


The new family of Huawei phones includes three models: Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro and Mate 50 RS Porsche Design. The Huawei Mate 50E was also announced, but it's a model with mid-range features that doesn't quite fit into the flagship model.


All three models benefit from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, in the only version of this processor that does not use a modem compatible with 5G networks. US restrictions on Huawei remain active, meaning they will limit it to 4G technologies only. Also, the charging speed is limited to a maximum of 66W, as with previous models, so we don't see upgrades to 100W or more like other competing companies.


All models of the series come with the same "island" design for the camera, differing only in the hardware configuration. As these are phones aimed at the Chinese market, they come pre-installed with Harmony OS 3.0.



The Huawei Mate 50 and Mate 50E use a flat screen design with a central punch hole near the front camera. In terms of design, the two phones are very similar, with some differences on the hardware side. Both devices share the same display – a 6.7-inch OLED Full HD+ (2700 x 1224) display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch sampling rate. Huawei Mate 50 comes with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G while Mate 50E comes with Snapdragon 778G 4G. Both include 128GB and 256GB of storage, while the Mate 50 also has a 512GB variant. The storage space is expandable, but only if you buy a memory card also from Huawei, at the price prescribed by the Chinese manufacturer.


The photo settings are interesting. The Mate 50 comes with a 50MP main camera (OIS, f/1.4 aperture lens), a 13MP UltraWide camera and a 12MP periscope camera (F/3.4 aperture, OIS, 5x optical zoom, 50x digital zoom). The front camera is a 13MP model with an f/2.4 lens.


Both the Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro come with a 4460 mAh battery and 66W fast charging, the difference being the 50W wireless charging achieved by the more expensive model.


We can order the Huawei Mate 50 in stores in China for the equivalent of $718. The price of the other variants is not yet known. Huawei Mate 50 Pro.


The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is the company's top flagship, and the RS Porsche Edition is basically its luxury version. The design is mainly because of the difference applied to the back, plus some exclusive software applications. But the rest of the specifications are practically identical. Otherwise, the RS Porsche Edition model is more expensive.