Huawei Announces New P50 Series of Smartphones

Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced the company’s new HUAWEI P50 Series, the latest in its P Series of smartphones.

The new series includes the P50 and P50 Pro, which will launch with HarmonyOS 2, Huawei’s own proprietary operating system (OS). The phones come with a feature that allows users to connect to other devices by dragging their corresponding icons to the middle of the display.

The P50 comes with a triple lens rear camera, while the P50 Pro comes with a quad lens rear camera, although they both have a 50-megapixel main sensor. New to Huawei phone cameras is XD Optics that, according to the company, can "rectify optical errors and reproduce fine details." Huawei claims the feature can restore up to 25% of the original image.

Despite being flagship phones, neither device will support 5G. Instead, both will be 4G. The P50 series comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G chipset installed. This is due in part to the semiconductor shortage impacting numerous industries, as well as the US sanctions against Huawei. These sanctions mean the P50 series will not offer Google services.

The P50 comes in an 8GB RAM, and the P50 Pro comes in an 8GB model and a 12GB model. Prices vary depending on storage size.

The P50 comes in two storage sizes: 128GB and 256GB, both costing around $700. The P50 Pro 8GB RAM model coms in three storage sizes: 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB which will set you back $930, $1,020, and $1,160 respectively.

The P50 Pro 12GB RAM model comes in one size: 512GB of storage at $1,240.

Huawei also claims that the OS is more efficient than previous installments and the device will still keep its speed even after three years.

The expected launch date is August 12 in China, with the international release date yet to be announced.