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Daily Authority: 😅 HUAWEI is still trying

Huawei's still pushing its flagships, Galaxy Unpacked date announced, and more tech news you need to know today!
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Published onJanuary 26, 2022

HUAWEI P50 Pro rear panel in hand
Kris Carlon / Android Authority

☕ Good morning! Just a week ago, Microsoft bought Activision. Time flies.

Huawei’s latest

HUAWEI P50 Pro home screen in hand
Kris Carlon / Android Authority

The HUAWEI P50 Pro, P50 Pocket launched globally today, bringing a new foldable to markets outside of China for the first time.

  • And yes, these remain Google-free devices, with mixed app availability, and they’re running on 4G-only Snapdragon chipsets.
  • As to why HUAWEI is doing this? Well, let’s get into it after a look at these phones


P50 Pro:

  • It’s taken about six months, but the flagship P50 Pro launched outside of China running EMUI 12, not HarmonyOS.
  • The big selling points of HUAWEI remain great hardware and a strong push on true-to-life photography, with its giant circular rings housing cameras, in the “200x zoom range” Dual-Matrix camera setup, with ultrawide and 50MP main shooter (f/1.8 with OIS).
  • The display is a 6.6-inch 120Hz OLED screen, and underneath you get the Snapdragon 888 4G SoC here, 8GB/256GB, and IP68 water and dust resistance, complete with two circular camera housings on the back.
  • HUAWEI has never tried to compete on price, for those who are tempted by HUAWEI’s quality but really want Google’s apps and mobile services. Accordingly, the P50 Pro starts at €1,199, or probably about $1,200 if you exclude taxes and equate to US terms, not that the US is in the plans of the “global” launch.

P50 Pocket:

  • The clamshell foldable P50 Pocket packs similar-ish specs: it’s a 6.9-inch device with a ratio that’s much taller, has the external roughly 1-inch screen, and a triple camera setup that goes for something unusual: a 40MP f/1.8 main camera, a 13MP ultrawide shooter, and the trick 32MP “super-spectrum” sensor that shows fluorescent lighting, to do things like “see” if you have covered your face in sunblock properly.
  • It’s also super glitzy and over the top in terms of look, with a shimmering gold/silver color and really pushes towards being fancy.
  • It’s also not at all a bargain, starting at €1,299 ($1,300 or so?) which is a lot more than the Samsung Galaxy Flip 3.
  • I can only see one early video review at TechAltar, but maybe there’ll be more, or maybe not, given that it’ll also, of course, skip the US.

And what’s the point?

  • The P50 seems to be coming out about a year late, as competitors move on to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.
  • Harmony OS isn’t here either, with HUAWEI sticking with EMUI 12, HUAWEI’s standard Android skin.
  • It means you definitely won’t get all your standard apps, like Firefox or LastPass, or Wolt — they just aren’t in HUAWEI’s App Gallery.
  • So back to the question. Why is HUAWEI still trying? What’s the point?
  • I think HUAWEI still wants to show it has great devices. They’re not on the right release schedule, there’s a lot of baggage and reasons not to buy, but HUAWEI is selling these in China and might as well show the world it still has the right stuff in the mix, if it was allowed off its leash.
  • The P50 Pocket pushes that further: great tech, and by releasing it, HUAWEI beats the likes of OPPO which hasn’t yet released the Find N outside of China despite lots of press for it — and neither has one-time HUAWEI company HONOR with its Magic V, so this seems like a flex.
  • And, while you or I might not find the compromises of the HUAWEI app world acceptable, I bet some expats from China will buy them in some regions where they want to use HUAWEI phones.

Roundup

Weirdness Wednesday

ibeer
Tristan Rayner / Android Authority

Two bits of fun weird:

  • Remember the original iPhone beer app, iBeer? So dumb, so fun, so simple, and it made its creator $20,000 a day; a story of a down-and-out magician who made it big because, in his words, Apple asked him to (Mel Magazine).
  • “Apple started scouting for developers, and they approached me because I’d made a YouTube video where I made the phone look like a glass of beer,” Steve Sheraton recalled. “They wanted me to make an app out of that because they obviously thought it would show off the phone pretty well.”
  • The original iPhone apps really printed cash, back when things were early and fun, still.

Also:

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor

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