Huawei P50 Pocket Detailed Review Part-I
Introduction:
The Huawei P50 Pocket is the company’s latest foldable, and this one is available globally for the first time. Unlike last year’s Mate X2, the Pocket will be marketed outside of China, and its EUR1300 beginning price is almost acceptable, plus it’s the other type of form factor that you might also call tiny.
The P50 Pocket, like the Galaxy Z Flip series, is a half-phone-to-full-phone foldable, leaving the tablet-sized Mate X2 for those with wider pockets (and access to the Chinese market). When folded, the Pocket is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but it opens up to expose a large 6.9-inch OLED display on the inside, making it somewhat more significant than the Flip. It’s also a little heavier, but it has a bigger battery to compensate.
The Pocket gets a Snapdragon 888 chipset as part of the high-end P50 series, but without 5G support due to the US-China trade war dragging Huawei’s smartphone industry down for more than three years. The Pocket seems solid on the essentials, with a base configuration of 256GB and 8GB of RAM (512GB/12GB is also available). It has an external memory slot, albeit NanoMemory, so it outperforms the Flip once more.
Does the Galaxy have a UV illuminator on the rear and a sunscreen mode for its camera in the spirit of Flip comparisons? One of the Pocket’s primary features is a dedicated 32MP module on the back, one of the device’s key features. It also features two average cameras, a 40MP primary and a 13MP ultrawide, because the monochrome and periscope are kept for the P50 Pro.
At a glance, here are the specifications for the Huawei P50 Pocket:
- The glass back, aluminium frame; 170.0×75.5×7.2mm, 190g
- 6.90 Display “1B colors, 120Hz, 1188x2790px resolution, 21(-ish):9 aspect ratio, 442ppi; foldable OLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, 1188x2790px resolution, 21(-ish):9 aspect ratio, 442ppi; 1.04-inch OLED display with a resolution of 340 × 340 pixels and a pixel density of 328 pixels per inch.
- Octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 680 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680 & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680); Adreno 660; Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 4G (5 nm)
- Memory: 256GB RAM (8GB), 512GB RAM (12GB); NM (Nano Memory) up to 256GB (uses shared SIM slot).
- HarmonyOS 2.0 (China), EMUI 12 (Europe), and Google Play Services are unavailable.
- Wide (main): 40 MP, f/1.8, PDAF, Laser AF; Ultra wide angle: 13 MP, f/2.2, 120, AF; UV: 32 MP, f/1.8, 1/3.14, AF; UV: 32 MP, f/1.8, 1/3.14, AF “, AF, 0.7 m
- 10.7 MP, f/2.2, front camera (ultrawide).
- Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/120/240fps, gyro-EIS; rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps, gyro-EIS.
- 4000mAh battery; 40W fast charging, 5W reverse charging
- NFC; UV illuminator; fingerprint reader (side-mounted).
- The Pocket lacks an IP rating, but the Samsung Z Flip3 has an IPX8 certification. Despite the larger battery, Huawei does not support wireless charging. It does, however, offer faster-wired charging.
- There’s also the issue of Huawei phones not having Google Play services, so the Pocket will have to be very convincing in other areas to compensate.
Unboxing of the Huawei P50 Pocket:
The components in the box help a little, as it’s a more comprehensive package than the Galaxy’s cable-only version. This proprietary charging mechanism still relies on USB-A on the brick end, so we ordered a 40W Huawei SuperCharge converter and USB-A-to-C cable to go with it.
A two-piece protective cover is also supplied, featuring adhesive strips around the side borders to keep it fastened to the phone. The metallic-looking shape echoes the phone’s frame, while the transparent back panels show the textured glass.
Design:
The Huawei P50 Pocket in the hero Premium Edition livery with golden-coloured embellished glass panels has most likely been seen online. That wasn’t the one that showed up on our doorstep, but after a brief period of disappointment, we began to love our white unit’s more understated design.
However, the Pocket is anything but ordinary, even in this more constrained garb. It almost feels redundant to say that about a foldable phone, but this one stands out even among foldable.
The two circular islands on the top half of the phone and the different finishes on the panels ensure that the Pocket stands out. If you want a more modest flat shell with a screen that still folds in half on the inside, the black edition, if available in your market, maybe just the appropriate understated flat surface with a screen that still folds in half on the inside.
Returning to our white review unit, we have to say that we like the colour and the crosshatch design, which is barely noticeable with your fingertips but not so much with your eyes. It’s debatable how gripping it is, and the answer will likely vary from person to person, but we’d say it’s more secure than a frosted matte back and comparable to a glossy glass back.
We couldn’t decide whether the back feels lovely and premium or cheap and ugly. For the record, the critic penning these lines belongs to the former camp.
Each of the two black circles has a distinct function. One houses the cameras and is elevated slightly; thus, it can be called an island. The cover display is housed in the other, flush with the rear panel. The overall design is similar to the non-Pocket P50 and P50 Pro, except that the two black circles are positioned on a raised platform. Huawei managed to accommodate the display within the allowable thickness on the Pocket; therefore, no protrusion for the bottom circle was required.
The display is modest, measuring just over an inch in diameter, but it’s the right size for the camera cluster, which allows you to have two circles of the same size. It serves as an essential viewfinder for the back cameras and displays a clock and notifications.
Metal Frame:
Metal frames on the sides define the two halves of the Pocket, which in the white colourway are gleaming polished silver. The side frame extends to the back of the phone, where two aluminium strips meet in the middle of the unfurled telephone, creating a subtle contrast to the checkered pattern. In essence, it’s incredibly similar to the Z Flip3’s construction.
However, the hinge and how the display folds within differ. The inner screen of the Pocket bends around a wider radius than the Flip’s, forming a water droplet shape at the fold inside the body when closed, with the two halves left parallel. Unlike the Flip, which folds with a smaller radius and goes the two sections at an angle, the Flip folds with a larger radius and leaves the two portions at an angle.
Because the Pocket’s unique bending mechanism can essentially close tight, leaving no gap between the two pieces. There is no visible gap between the frame and the display, but there is some air between the two sections – which, of course, you want to avoid hurting them.
With its non-parallel sides and 2mm gap at the hinge end, the Flip seems nearly like an early prototype design compared to the Pocket.
Size of Huwaei P50 Pocket:
There’s also the fact that the Pocket is thinner, both physically and tangibly. That’s partly owing to the curved frame (the Flip’s is flat). Still, it’s also exceptionally objectively detectable because of the different screen bending concepts and, as a result, the gapless closing.
Oh, and why didn’t we do this first? When the Pocket is opened, the crease in the middle of the display is shallower and less… sharp than the Flips. It’s something that you may enjoy not just with your eyes but also with your touch. Creases on foldable are one of those things we like to claim there if you look for them, but they tend to go away as you become one with your phone, but there’s just less of it on the Pocket, to begin with for your brain to learn to ignore as time goes on.
We haven’t seen Huawei say that the hinge and display have been tested for a specific amount of folds, which makes sense at this stage. There’s no reason to cast doubts about the technology’s soundness now that it’s several generations old.
Flaws in Flip:
However, compared to the Flip, the Pocket’s design has several flaws. Its hinge doesn’t like to stay in any middle position, preferring to either close or fully open – the Z Flip3 can be left at almost any angle. We’re not fans of having the Flip partially open, but if you can imagine yourself employing this ‘functionality’ as a makeshift ‘tripod,’ the Pocket might be a better option.
Also, once it’s been closed for a long, we can’t help but assume that the Pocket doesn’t quite stretch and open up completely flat. It’s the tiniest of angles, but there’s something there. This reviewer recently came across an LG Flex2 at work; the Pocket isn’t quite as concave, but the connection was made.
This got us thinking, so we investigated the Flip3, only to discover that its display isn’t flat even when it’s open. It’s only that the Pocket manages to bring that reality to the forefront.
Moving on, the Huawei P50 Pocket is not water-resistant. We understand that designing a foldable gadget with moving parts and exposed apertures is complex. Still, the Galaxy Z Flip3 has an IPX8 rating, which sounds more reassuring even if it protects against water and not dust.
The SIM tray does have a gasket, so even though the Pocket doesn’t have an official IP rating, precautions have been taken to limit exposure to the outdoors.
Nano SIM:
The tray may hold two nano SIMs or a nano-SIM and a Nano Memory card, Huawei’s proprietary external memory standard. Although it isn’t quite as handy as a microSD card, it is still preferable to no expansion. However, with at least 256GB of built-in storage, you’re unlikely to need the additional capacity.
A power button with an incorporated fingerprint scanner and a volume rocker is located on the right side of the P50 Pocket, on the top half of the handset (when unfolded).
Using your fingerprint to unlock your phone is a two-step process requiring you to open the phone and then touch the capacitive scanner to unlock it. That’s a similar experience to what we had with the Z Flip; the implementation is nearly identical. However, as we previously stated, the Pocket’s physical shape makes ‘locking’ it less necessary than on a standard bar phone. After all, you’re not likely to unintentionally touch the display when it’s folded in half.
The sensor performs as predicted, unlocking with an exact reliability rate with both the left index finger and the right thumb and doing so quickly. It’s a bit of a stretch to reach with the left index finger, but we can’t complain because they couldn’t have put it any lower.
Loudspeaker:
The main loudspeaker (earpiece makes it a pair of speakers), the primary mic, and the USB-C port are located on the bottom. Another microphone is located on the roof.
On the bottom, there’s a primary speaker and a USB-C port. On the top, there’s an extra microphone.
The Pocket benefits significantly from the gapless design. It is, as previously said, thinner than the Flip3 when both phones are closed, which is all the more impressive considering the Galaxy’s halves are lighter. When folded, the Pocket is 87.3×75.5×15.2mm, and when opened, it measures 170×75.5×7.2mm.
The 190g of the Pocket is nearly identical to the 183g of the Flip. However, Huawei’s foldable is more than 3mm more expansive, and the difference is noticeable. Not so much the Huawei’s extra 4mm in height; you won’t be able to reach the top of either phone anyway.
Still, Huawei’s phone appears to make a stronger case for being ‘compact,’ with no wasted space between the two sides and two parallel surfaces on the outside, and an overall sense of density that gives the impression of obtaining more phones in the same or less space.
It not only folds, but it also has a somewhat brighter colour than the Pros.
Folding Display:
The P50 Pocket is distinguished by its folding display. The OLED panel measures 6.9 inches diagonally in its open position and has a resolution of 1188×2790 pixels, which is unusual by other phone standards but not unusual for Huawei. The aspect ratio is also odd at 21.1:9, but it makes more sense when viewed as 2.35:1, the widescreen film aspect ratio. The pixel density is calculated to be 44ppi.
The display offers a 120Hz maximum refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate. Huawei specifies that it dims with a 1440Hz pulse width modulation (basically, very rapid flickering). This assertion cannot be measured or tested since we lack the necessary equipment. PWM isn’t usually something to brag about because it can create tiredness in those who are more sensitive to it. Still, this one is high-frequency enough that it wouldn’t matter – at least, we assume the reasoning behind publishing the number in their specs.
Brightness:
We have the tools to test maximum brightness, and the Pocket is capable of little over 800nits in bright ambient settings when the adaptive mode is enabled. This is 50nits brighter than the P50 Pro, but still 130nits less than the Galaxy Z Flip3. We achieved 521nits using the slider manually, which was only a bit higher than the Flip3 but lower than the P50 Pro’s 609nits.
A two-mode switch in the display menu controls colour, with a colour wheel allowing for further temperature tuning. The default Normal mode should move between the sRGB and DCI-PI colour gamuts depending on the content. For the sRGB colour swatches in our tests, the average dE2000 was a fantastic 1.3. Colours pop and become more saturated in Vivid mode, making no claims to colour accuracy.
There are three refresh rate modes: Dynamic, High, and Standard. The Standard is simple: it maintains a 60Hz frequency. Different types of auto-switching behaviour are the other two.
Dynamic Mode:
Most of the time, Dynamic mode keeps things at 90Hz, switching to 120Hz while you’re in the settings menu. If there is no activity for a few seconds, it will dip to 60Hz throughout the board, but when you touch it, it will jump to 90 or 120Hz.
With no inactivity-based down-switching, high is more of an always-on 120Hz. The phone’s UI and most programs, including browsers, will run at 120 frames per second.
In both High and Dynamic settings, games that support a high frame rate will get the full 120Hz, which is fantastic.
When the phone heated up too much, we noticed an unusual behaviour: it switched to 60Hz. That’s undesirable, given that gaming, for example, creates a lot of heat build-up, but it’s also one of the used situations where the fast refresh rate is expressly desired.
The P50 Pocket has Widevine L1 certification; therefore, it should theoretically be able to play FullHD HDR content. The streaming providers must cooperate for this to happen, and the Pocket isn’t getting it. Sideloaded Netflix and Amazon Prime won’t let you watch in FullHD or HDR, sideloaded YouTube won’t let you watch in FullHD or HDR, and YouTube in a browser will only allow you to watch in 720p with no HDR.
Battery life of Huawei P50 Pocket:
The P50 Pocket has a 4,000mAh battery, which may not seem like much for a 6.9-inch phone, but it’s significantly more than the Galaxy Z Flip3 (3,300mAh). Meanwhile, the P50 Pro adds a tiny boost to the Pocket’s battery capacity, increasing it to 4,360mAh, which isn’t a massive figure among its peers.
Despite the Pocket’s rather large cell, we found the phone underwhelming. In the movie playing test (at 60Hz, as expected), we got 11:04 hours, but only 9 hours of web browsing via Wi-Fi (that, too, at 60Hz because the HRR logic blacklisted our testing software). The 23 hours of voice call time are pretty adequate in this situation.
The Endurance rating of the P50 Pocket was then calculated to be 66 hours.
Things aren’t all that bad compared to the Galaxy Z Flip3, with the Pocket having a significant advantage in voice calls and just losing by around an hour in the onscreen testing. It’s also worth noting that the Flip doesn’t run at 120Hz when browsing the web.
Charging Speed:
The P50 Pocket comes with a 40W charger that follows the company’s SuperCharge protocol. We took 54 minutes to go from 0 to 100 per cent using that adapter, and the first half-hour got us from flat to 70%.
Despite the seeming significant difference in output capability (66W on the Pro), the Pocket is slightly slower than the Pro, albeit the Pro has a bit more capacity to fill. The Pocket is substantially faster in these parameters than the Flip, and it also outperforms recent iPhones.
The P50 Pocket lacks wireless charging, but Samsung managed to cram one of the induction coils into the bottom part of the Z Flip3.
Test of the speaker
The P50 Pocket has a traditional stereo speaker system, with the main loudspeaker firing from the bottom of the phone and the earpiece serving as an auxiliary channel. The earpiece isn’t as loud or full-bodied as the bottom unit, and the base unit will have more presence, but channel separation in the mids and highs is still present. The reasoning is also standard: when the phone is held in portrait, the earpiece is on the left track, and when the phone is held in landscape, the phone swaps channels to reflect its position accurately.
The earpiece also functions as a speaker.
The Pocket isn’t breaking any records in terms of volume. It scored in the ‘Below Average’ category in our test, whereas the Pro is a couple of notches above ‘Good.’ Compared to the Flip, the Pocket is noticeably underpowered. Overall, it’s not a particularly impressive performance, but you get stereo separation for less demanding use cases in calmer surroundings.
