Huawei P50 Pocket Review – If you are one of those people who is tired of seeing phones with huge screens and want something like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, then you are in luck today. Clamshell-like foldable phones can certainly solve the issue of huge phones that seem to slip out of their pockets every now and then. The new Huawei P50 Pocket smartphone will give you the clamshell foldable experience while being a whole lot more premium than other foldable phones.
The name and camera design look similar to the Huawei P50. The P50 Pocket foldable phone first launched in China on December 23 and then launched in the global market on January 12. Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t have 5G support even though it is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, which does support 5G. Let’s start with a detailed review of the Huawei P50 Pocket smartphone.
Table of Contents
Huawei P50 Pocket Review
Highlights
- The Huawei P50 Pocket features a dual OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1B colors on a foldable screen.
- It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor that is manufactured with a 5nm EUV manufacturing process and Adreno 660 GPU.
- The phone runs on Huawei’s HarmonyOS 2.0 in China and EMUI 12 OS for Europe.
- The smartphone has a triple camera system in the back with a 40MP wide sensor, a 10.7 MP ultrawide selfie camera.
- The battery powering the smartphone is a Li-Po 4000mAh cell with 40W of fast charging and 5W of reverse charging.
Design and Display
From the side view, the Huawei P50 Pocket smartphone can be confused with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3. But once you get a closer look at its design, you will know just how premium it is. The beautiful wings-like pattern of the gold color is just exquisite. However, the white color has a diamond-cut pattern that looks just as elegant as the gold. At last, there’s a black variant, and this is for those who want something clean and simple.
The top rear part of the phone houses the triple camera system and the 1.04-inch OLED cover display, which has a resolution of 340p, and that’s more than enough for a display of that size. Once you unfold the smartphone, you will be greeted with the 6.9 inches foldable OLED Full HD+ display powered by 1B colors and has a 120Hz refresh rate for a buttery smooth experience.
Memory and Internal
The Huawei P50 Pocket smartphone is powered by the tried and tested 5nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Chipset. Although the omission of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset may irritate some people, you will hardly feel any difference between the two chipsets for most day-to-day activity. While the Snapdragon 888 chipset supports 5G, Huawei has only included the 4G, and there’s no 5G support.
We have no idea why Huawei decided not to include 5G, but rumor has it that a 5G version of the smartphone is indeed coming, and it is believed to be powered by the Kirin 9000 chipset. But take this with a grain of salt as the final specification can change anytime. The base variant has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, and that’s pretty generous on the storage side. However, the top variant has 12GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage.
Due to the high clock speed of 1x 2.84 GHz on the main core of the Snapdragon 888 SoC, multitasking and user experience will be smooth. While the interface is smooth, the software experience will certainly be different. That’s because we get a very different software experience.
It’s not your regular android that you see on every other phone. The company claims that it is running on a brand new OS called HarmonyOS 2.0. It will also run android apps as long as they are not dependent on Google’s GMS platform. Depending on your usage and what kind of apps you like to use, this “new OS” may or may not be a good thing.
Camera
The camera is where the Huawei P50 Pocket shines. The 40MP main rear sensor takes detailed images with a very natural color tone, which is almost impossible to find on other devices. That’s partly thanks to the 32MP Ultra spectrum camera, whose sole purpose is to capture as much color as possible. This provides the camera system’s integrated signal processor or ISP to process the right colors.
What you get in the end result is an image with the right colors and perfect details. The ultra-wide camera in this smartphone is a 13MP sensor which is vastly superior to the 8MP or 12MP that you usually find in other smartphones and takes a 120-degree field of view with a decent amount of details. But night photography is a bit different scenario.
While the main 40MP sensor takes decent night shots with dedicated night mode, the ultra-wide camera struggles here even with night mode turned on. The photos can be a bit soft due to the loss of details. The selfie camera comes with a 10.7MP sensor and the shots taken with this sensor are decent. Both the selfie and rear camera system can record crisp and detailed videos at up to 4K at 30fps with gyro-EIS.
Battery and Others
The P50 Pocket battery powering the smartphone is a Li-Po 4000mAh cell with 40W of fast charging and 5W reverse charging support. Apart from that, you get Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, tri-band GPS for even more accurate GPS data, along with a USB Type C 2.0 port, a 1.04-inch OLED cover display, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and a foldable display.
Also, there are zero gaps between the top and bottom halves when the phone folds, unlike the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, where there is a considerable gap. The gap allows dust particles to sweep in more easily. The price of the Huawei P50 Pocket starts at $ 1400 (Rs 1,05,000 in India) approx.
Huawei P50 Pocket Pros and Cons
Huawei P50 Pocket Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Huawei P50 Pocket smartphone.
| Specifications | Huawei P50 Pocket |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G |
| Announced | December 2021 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | Unfolded: 170 x 75.5 x 7.2 mm Folded: 87.3 x 75.5 x 15.2 mm |
| Weight | 190 grams |
| Size | Foldable: 6.9 inches Cover: 1.04 inches |
| Display | Foldable: OLED 1B colors 120Hz 21:9 ratio ~442 PPI density Cover: OLED ~328 PPI density |
| Protection | No |
| Resolution | Foldable: 1188 x 2790 pixels Cover: 340 x 340 pixels |
| OS | HarmonyOS 2.0 |
| Chipset | 5nm – Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 4G |
| CPU | Octa-core 1×2.84 GHz Kryo 680 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680 |
| GPU | Adreno 660 |
| Card slot | Yes (Nano memory shared SIM) |
| RAM | 8GB, 12GB |
| Internal | 256GB , 512GB |
| Camera | 40 MP (wide), PDAF, Laser AF 13 MP (120Ëš ultrawide) 32 MP LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – 4K@30fps, gyro-EIS |
| Selfie | 10.7 MP (ultrawide) HDR, panorama Max – 4K@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | No |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS. Up to tri-band: GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS, NavIC |
| NFC | Yes |
| Infrared port | No |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go |
| Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, color spectrum |
| Battery | Li-Po 4000 mAh Fast charging 40W Reverse charging 5W |
| Colors | Black, Gold, Silver |
| Expected Price | $1,412 (Rs 1,05,499 in India) approx. |
Conclusion
The Huawei P50 Pocket is the best clamshell foldable phone that money can buy. Considering the specs inside and the experience that you get from this foldable device, justified the price, and many would love to buy. But the OS situation may also be something that you should think about before you spend your money. But if you don’t mind the different software experience, then this is a solid phone indeed.
But if the software experience is something that you care about, then you may go for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 or Oppo Find N. So, the end decision is up to you, and your buying decision depends on what you want out of this phone.
