This isn’t the first time for Huawei to launch a foldable smartphone. For many years, they have tried to perfect this technology to probably not just keep up with Samsung’s leadership, but to prove that they too can be better in this new trend.
Huawei P50 Pocket is a testament of Huawei’s resolve to compete in this category, and it may very well be one of the company’s best smartphones with one single major concern – price.
There’s no doubt that Huawei seems to be following the growing demand for foldable smartphone devices. As you can see, style and design aside, the Huawei P50 Pocket employs a clamshell build with Huawei’s very own hinge mechanism. Now, before I get into other topics, I believe that this is the most important feature of the phone as it defines its structural integrity and even its overall purpose.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this hinge. Don’t get me wrong, it seems to be engineered very well and it does minimize the display’s crease. I can smoothly unfold the display or even flick-open it without worrying about compromising the hinge. However, it does not have anything similar to Samsung’s Flex mode. This means that you have to cheat your way to unfold the phone halfway if you want, for instance, to use some camera features. This isn’t a deal breaker, by any means, because as you can see, the phone in folded mode manages to make it both look good and fits more inside your pocket. When it’s folded, there’s no way of knowing that it’s hiding a 6.9-inch display.
Now, this brings me to the next topic – display. The Huawei P50 Pocket uses a foldable OLED display that is capable of up to 120Hz refresh rate with 300Hz touch sampling rate. It can display up to one billion colors with a P3 wide color gamut. When it’s folded, the Huawei P50 Pocket also features a circular OLED cover screen, which can be used to show contextual content and even has privacy support. You can also use it as your selfie display screen while using its rear facing camera or even take a look at notifications and other supported widgets.
The only thing that bothers me with Huawei P50 Pocket’s display is the lack of Gorilla Glass protection. While this is the case, I was informed by Huawei that they have applied a similar protective coating on the displays. It does, however, have a nano optical layer, which eliminates reflection and glare that affect the quality of images displayed on screen.
Now, let’s talk about its overall appearance. There is no doubt that this is the best and most stylish looking foldable smartphone I’ve seen. In fact, even the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G would not even match the aesthetic design of this smartphone.
The device, however, is a smudge-magnet. It does not have any special coating that repels smudges, which is a missed opportunity by Huawei. This device costs PhP69,990; and if you want the most premium one, you will have to shell out PhP89,999. Huawei could have, at least, invested on a coating that repels smudges.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of GadgetPilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.