Huawei P50 Pro review: Google compromise no longer viable in 2022
Huawei P50 Pro in a nutshell
The Huawei P50 Pro has been available for purchase since January 26, 2022 in Europe, but definitely not in the US. It arrives in a single configuration of 8/256 GB that is sold €1,199 (you can find it for sale in US markets via third-party online vendors for $1,200 thereabouts). It is the latest addition to Huawei's P range, which focuses on photography.
Dubbed "a legend reborn" by its manufacturer, the Huawei P50 Pro is content to maintain the status quo set two years ago by the P40, P40 Pro and the Mate 40 Pro. "Good hardware and a top-notch photo experience, but lacks Google services or 5G." Personally, I refuse to give in to this intellectual laziness that I've seen all too often in most of the Huawei P50 Pro reviews that I've come across.
Yes, the Huawei P50 Pro's specs are still worthy of a high-end Android smartphone. An AMOLED screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 888 SoC (without 5G), a quad-Leica 50+64+13+40 MP camera module with a periscopic telephoto lens, and a 4,360 mAh battery (a bit small for a flagship) that accepts 66-watts wired fast charging and 50-watts wireless charging.
But all of the above is not enough for me. It's not enough for anyone, anymore, these days. And that's even if EMUI 12's software experience that is based on an amped-up Android 11 remains viable for geeks and other technophiles who are on the lookout for an alternative to the Google suite. Minimizing the nuisance of this incomplete user experience is not the answer.
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