It wasn’t too long ago that Huawei dominated the market with fans flocking to the company’s feature-rich and competitively priced devices. However, since the 2019 US trade ban prevented the Chinese company from using any of Google’s apps and services – including Gmail, Chrome and the all-important Play Store – Huawei has struggled to sell outside of his country of origin.
In fact, recent stats from Counterpoint revealed that it has now dropped out of the top five with rivals such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi now selling significantly more devices in markets such as the US and Europe.
With sales declining rapidly, we haven’t seen many new devices launched by Huawei in the past 12 months, but it looks like the company is ready to start the battle again with two very high-end smartphones to come.
The new P50 Pro and foldable P50 Pocket were launched in China last year, but are now available for sale in markets including Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Huawei has also confirmed that these call makers will come to the UK at some point in the future.
The P50 Pro comes with a 6.6-inch curved OLED display that also gets a fast 120Hz refresh rate for fast scrolling.
For budding photographers, there are four rear cameras including a huge 50-megapixel main sensor plus a 40-megapixel mono sensor which should improve low-light shots and deliver better black-and-white images. Ultra-wide lenses are also packed into the rear housing, with Huawei boasting that the P50 Pro supports an unprecedented 200x zoom range.
The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processor and there’s a fast-charging battery as well as an in-display fingerprint scanner.
If you fancy something a little more innovative in your jeans, the P50 Pocket looks interesting.
Much like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 phone, this Huawei device folds in half. When opened, users will be treated to a 6.9-inch OLED display which, just like the P50, also gets that fast 120Hz refresh rate.
There’s also a small circular screen on the front for viewing messages without needing to open things up and a triple camera provides plenty of options for taking pictures for that family album.
Prices for the P50 Pro will start from around £1,000 and the Pocket is expected to start from £1,150.
This all sounds pretty exciting, but there’s still one issue that shouldn’t be overlooked, as these new flagship devices still don’t have that all-important access to Google.
Yes, Huawei has its new App Gallery which is growing by the day and the firm boasts that these phones will be powered by its latest EMUI 12 software which it says will “offer an innovative user interface look that brings the digital world to life. . “
However, if you’re a lover of all things Android, Huawei’s latest offerings will be disappointing as there’s still no sign of Google’s suite of popular apps and services returning any time soon.
