Huawei P50 Pocket in the test: Nice waste

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The Huawei P50 Pocket

Photo: Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL

"Practical" is probably the last term that Huawei would like to associate with the folding smartphone P50 Pocket.

Especially when it comes to the Premium Edition, which I just tested for a week.

The adjective perfectly describes what I particularly liked about the new gadget, namely the same as with Motorola's Razr V3 almost 20 years ago: You flip it open and it's almost immediately ready;

you close it and can casually slip it into your pocket.

But owners of the P50 Pocket will probably prefer to put their smartphone on the table for people to admire.

Especially if it's the Premium Edition, the look of which was designed by fashion designer Iris van Herpen.

A relief engraved on the back cover is intended to represent »the natural textures of the earth« and is also found on the box in which the mobile phone is delivered.

At least that looks unusual.

The hinge that is used to fold and open the two halves of the cell phone is also unusual.

Not only because it bends very smoothly to the user's wishes, but because it ensures that the two halves actually lie flat on top of each other.

With the folding smartphones from competitor Samsung, there is always a small gap.

What Huawei can't do better than Samsung: When opened, the screen of the P50 Pocket also shows a crease, which is particularly visible with dark image content.

Laying the device half open on the table during video chats so that the selfie camera remains facing you did not always work in the test.

From an opening angle of around 90 degrees, the hinge tends to open the phone completely, whether you want to or not.

It felt like this happened more if I had previously opened the display for a long time.

Can it be one more screen?

After all: This is how the 6.9-inch OLED display is exposed.

With 2790 × 1188 pixels, this offers a very high resolution and, with a refresh rate that increases to up to 120 Hertz depending on the content, also very fluid animated movements.

But the P50 Pocket has a second display on the outside. On the circular screen, you can display the time, date and weather, control music playback and, if you want, even assess whether you have applied enough sunscreen. Above all, you can use it as a viewfinder to take selfies with the main cameras.

That would also be possible with the 10.7-megapixel selfie camera that is in the large display, but the three cameras on the outside enable better pictures.

The triplet consists of a 40-megapixel wide-angle camera with an aperture of F/1.8, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with an aperture of F/2.2 and a 32-megapixel "ultra-spectrum" camera.

The latter should capture "nuanced details beyond the visible light spectrum" and thus provide more depth in the recordings.

I can't see a noticeable advantage of this technology in my test images.

Only that you can use it to take pictures of fluorescent objects in the dark.

This is amusing gimmick.

Otherwise, the cameras take good to very good pictures as long as you keep your fingers off the zoom function (see photo gallery).

No Harmony OS, no Google

The operating system, which Huawei calls EMUI 12 but which is based on Android 11, can cause confusion. As a reminder, due to US sanctions, Google is not allowed to supply the Chinese company with a conventional version of Android. Instead, Huawei has to build its own operating system based on the open source version of Android. The company already uses its own Harmony OS, which Huawei has been promoting for years as an alternative to Google's software, on its smartwatches and in China also on smartphones, but not on the P50 Pocket.

More serious is the fact that Huawei is also not allowed to offer Google services on its smartphones due to the sanctions still imposed by the Trump administration.

Therefore you have to do without offers like Gmail, Google Maps and above all the Play Store.

Huawei tries to fill these gaps with its own offerings, but it only partially succeeds.

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The P50 Pocket is already loaded with many apps ex works

Photo: Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL

In Huawei's "App Gallery", for example, I can't find the Corona warning app or my bank's app or many other standards.

Huawei's search app takes you to alternative app stores from which you can download apps like Netflix, Spotify, and PayPal.

But I wouldn't entrust my bank details, for example, to an app obtained from these sources.

Lots of power – without 5G

Another shortcoming that Huawei can blame US sanctions for is the lack of 5G technology.

That's why the P50 Pocket is one of the few flagship smartphones that still connect to mobile networks via the old LTE standard.

Otherwise, everything on board is on board that belongs in such a device today: Wi-Fi 6, a fast Snapdragon 888 processor, ample 12 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 512 GB of storage space, at least in the premium edition.

But the normal P50 Pocket is also well equipped with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space.

Memory expansions are possible with Huawei's NM cards.

But then you have to sacrifice one of the two nano-SIM slots.

Huawei specifies the battery life in standby as almost 20 days, the talk time as up to 31 hours per battery charge.

In the test, the P50 Pocket got through a day with normal use and often had enough energy to at least partially last the following day.

There is no wireless charging function.

Conclusion

A lot works well with the P50 Pocket.

Especially the opening and closing.

The mechanical structure is great, the design is an eye-catcher, as is the round outer screen.

The large screen is convincing if you overlook the crease in the middle.

When it came to the cameras, I would have liked to have done without gimmicks such as the fluorescence mode in favor of a telephoto camera.

I could have overlooked the fact that it doesn't have 5G.

Actually, the P50 Pocket is a great foldable phone that is quite expensive at 1599 euros for the premium edition and 1299 euros for the standard model.

Unfortunately, it is a casualty of the US-China conflict.

The forced renunciation of Google services robs it of many functions and options that people in the West no longer want to do without.

Of course, some of this can be retrofitted via third-party providers, but not everyone wants to go down this route.

With Google on board, the P50 Pocket would be a hit.

Without it, it's a high-end gadget for enthusiasts.

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