Huawei P50 Hands-on

In July 2021, Huawei unveiled the P50 and P50 Pro. In February 2022, it launched the latter in the Philippines, alongside the P50 Pocket. Huawei is silent about the P50, though, until now. Since it’s arriving in the country, read our first impressions here.

While we can consider the P50 as the smaller brother of the P50 Pro, it is still every bit a premium flagship. The frame is still cold metal with a chrome finish.

The front houses a slightly smaller 6.5-inch screen with an OLED panel and a resolution of 2700 x 1224 or equal to 458ppi. It also has a lower 90Hz refresh rate, and a flat screen, unlike the curved sides on the P50 Pro. Up top is the hole punch for the 13MP selfie camera.

On the right side are the power/lock button and the volume rocker. They’re really firm and clicky. They’re positioned a bit close to the top of the frame but they’re still reachable.

Up top, we have the microphones and the loudspeaker.

While down below, we have the USB-C port, loudspeaker, and card tray for two nano-sized SIM cards with the second slot able to accommodate Huawei’s NM cards.

At the back, we have the protruding camera modules that house the 50MP main, 13MP ultra-wide, and 12MP telephoto.

The back panel is also premium. It’s glass and has this frosted finish that can slightly repel smudges and fingerprints.

The P50 is 1mm wider than the P50 Pro but feels more compact. Probably because it has a shorter frame of 156.5mm and a thinner body measuring 7.9mm. It’s also lighter at 181g. So yeah, some might find the P50 to be easier to grip.

Powering the P50 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G chipset. Same as the P50 Pro. Yes, there’s no 5G here. Max clock speed is at 2.84GHz, has an Adreno 660 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. For the software, we have HarmonyOS 2.

It’s not as powerful as flagships with Snapdragon 8 Gen1 chipsets, but we’re sure that this device can still perform. Another factor is the price, which we’re expecting to be competitive. We’ll let you know about the device in our full review.

Huawei P50 specs:
6.5-inch FHD+ (2700 x 1224) OLED display, 458PPI
90Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G processor
Adreno 660 GPU
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
Triple rear cameras:
• 50MP F1.8 (main)
• 13MP F2.2 (ultra-wide)
• 12MP F3.4 (telephoto)
13MP F2.4 front camera
4G LTE
Dual-SIM
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
NFC
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, GALILEO, QZSS, NavIC
IP68 rating
USB Type-C
HarmonyOS 2
4,100mAh battery w/ 66W fast charging
156.5 x 73.8 x 7.92mm
181g
Black, Gold, White