Huawei does not give up the smartphone market. She hinted it on a gray day of Milanoon a terrace overlooking the Duomo where to illuminate the scene we thought the new Mate 50 Prowhich comes ten years after the first Mate.
It still makes sense today to buy one smartphone Huawei that can’t rely on Google apps and the Play Store? But above all: it makes sense to buy a device of this type given its high cost, equal to 1199 euros?
It would seem that the Mate 50 Pro, despite the decisions steps forward of the Emui operating system – now in its 13th version – and the ecosystem of its apps (Huawei speaks of 5 million devices in Italy monthly active on the App Gallery out of a total of about 10 million smartphones in our country) – it still has one gear less than its main top-of-the-range competitors. Especially if you take the price into consideration.
Ma the answer is not so obviouson the other hand, if it takes into account the obstinate and admirable impulse towardsinnovation by Huawei, among the most generous companies in the world in terms of investments in the research and development department.
The results can be seen, because today we are again talking about the Shenzen company in terms of ‘Revolution‘, the same word that a few years ago welcomed the Mate Xthe first foldable smartphone to end up on the market.
Of course, in the case of the Mate 50 Pro the revolution is not of this magnitude but it is still appreciable, because it concerns an element that is widely used – if not the most used after phone calls – by those who own a smartphone. Let’s talk about his rear photographic compartmentenclosed in a circle as we have already seen on the previous Mate, which features a very special and innovative main room.
So let’s see what Huawei calls it “ultra aperture camera”.
We are talking about a 50 MP main camera equipped with an optical stabilizer but above all a adjustable diaphragm inside of smartphone. This diaphragm is formed by a series of blades that close or open, mechanically, to vary the amount of light that can pass. An adjustment possible thanks to the use of micro magnets that hold the slats together and allow them to move. It should be noted: no other smartphone on the market has (yet) a technology of this type.
This technology, which is solved – it is worth remembering – in the extremely limited thickness of a smartphonealready put to the test by the optics necessary for the telephoto lens, allows Huawei to propose on its Mate 50 Pro one of the brightest lenses on the market. The company’s data speak of a + 24% more light using a focal aperture of 1.4.
But the news does not end here. Alongside the mechanically adjustable focal aperture, which allows you to switch from f / 1.4 to f / 4 with a few simple touches, there is a ‘virtual’ focal aperture that Huawei makes available directly in its camera software. And this too is a revolutionary function, in its own way, because it practically allows you to focus on any point of a scene, subject or object, after having immortalized it.
The mechanical focal aperture, but also the virtual one, allow the Mate Pro 50 to position itself in a unreleased segment, for what concerns the lovers of shots taken with smartphones. The new phone may appeal to amateur photographers, but also professionals. And here we are back to the original question, with a few more elements to answer: why buy the new Mate? In summary, because it is lighter, thinner and more manageable than a compact digital camera and allows you to do some things that even reflex cameras are not able to do.
Federico Ciameione of the professional photographers involved by Huawei for a tour of the spiers of the Duomo that allowed us to put the new smartphone to work, explained just this, giving an illuminating example: the virtual focal aperture, which allows you to choose the best focus after shooting, makes it easier, more precise and above all fast an operation that is absolutely impossible to do with a reflex camera. With the latter, in fact, you have to shoot, study the shot and – if you are not satisfied – repeat everything again until you reach the best result.
The photographic proof of the new Mate 50 Pro
A series of shots taken between the spiers of the Duomo, on the day of the Italian launch of the new smartphone Huawei Mate 50 Pro
They complete the photographic sector of the Mate 50 Pro a 13 MP wide anglewhich can also be used for the macro photographyand telephoto lens which guarantees one optical zoom up to 3.5 x is one hybrid zoom up to 10 xa depth sensor, a laser autofocus and a ten-channel flash to better illuminate subjects or a particular scene.
The front of the smartphone has no revolutions: it is worth noting that the front camera offers a resolution of 13 MP which ‘intelligently’ varies the aperture in order to take selfies that actually include the subjects in front of the lens. In short, there is no risk that someone will be ‘cut’. There is also a ToF useful, as we know, to detect depth.
The operating system
Among the novelties of the latest version of the Huawei operating system, Emui 13there is a special focus on customization which allows you to work on the themes and widgets of the device. Lack of small – and very clever improvements – such as the ability to ‘collect’ content of various kinds that we want to share with friends (or customers) in a single space within your thumb’s reach, let’s say.
And therefore photos, screenshots, sentences of text or documents can be dragged to the side of the screen where what Huawei calls will appear “SuperHub”: a space where you can drag everything you intend to send to other devices, without having to think about file manager, folders or third-party tools for sharing. For example, you can open a simple email and attach all – or part of it – that the “SuperHub” contains. Obviously, for those who already own other Huawei machines, such as notebooks, this type of sharing is even more difficult thanks to the “super device” technology created by the company to improve work, but also study, which requires multitasking operations.
The price
Mate 50 Pro is already available in pre-order at a price of 1199 euros. The only version available is the one in the ‘black’ color from 8 Gb of Ram and 256 Gb for storage (a ‘silver’ version would be ‘coming soon’). Those who buy the smartphone by November 17, 2022 get the earphones for free Huawei Free Buds Pro 2 with noise cancellation, 6 months of screen protection warranty and 200 GB of cloud space for 3 months.