Huawei debuts the sleek P50 Pro and compact P50 Pocket foldable

Huawei has launched its P50 series in Europe – the P50 Pro has been available for ages in China, while the P50 Pocket debuted there just before Christmas.

As before, neither feature Google apps due to Huawei’s long struggles with the US government. Both still run Huawei’s own EMUI 12 interface on top of open-source Android in Europe rather than Huawei’s own HarmonyOS.

The 190g P50 Pocket is the most interesting device in concept and is similar in form factor to Samsung’s Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G – it’s a compact foldable with a 6.9-inch display when unfolded and is powered by Qualcomm’s 2021 flagship smartphone platform – the Snapdragon 888.

There’s a small 1-inch OLED external display so you can still catch up on the basics when it’s folded. A triple camera is included and it’ll be available in striking gold and silver as well as black when it becomes available. Plus there’s a Premium edition available of the Pocket, too, developed with designer Iris van Herpen.

The 6.6-inch P50 Pro continues the often-epic P Series Huawei smartphone lineup that reached its zenith with the brilliant P30 Pro. While the phone is powered by Huawei Kirin hardware in China, it uses Snapdragon 888 in Europe. It’s available with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, as is the P50 Pocket.

The P50 Pro boasts a quad-camera setup again developed in cahoots with Leica; 50 megapixel wide, 64 megapixel telephoto, 13 megapixel ultrawide plus a 40 megapixel monochrome camera. Huawei says that its True-Chroma Image Engine has improved its improve its ability to detect ambient light and colour accuracy by 50 percent and 20 percent respectively.

A new AIS Pro image stabilisation tech means you can more easily capture stable handheld videos, even when you’re zoomed-into a subject. There’s also a couple of other interesting modes, too – 4K time-lapse and AI cinemagraph for creative.

At present we only have the following Euro pricing for the range, with UK pricing to follow:

• P50 Pro:
• P50 Pocket: €1299
• P50 Pocket Premium Edition: €1599

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home