This evening all eyes will be on Apple as it reveals the new iPhone 14, but overnight Huawei has debuted a new offering of its own in the form of the Mate 50 series.
The device was revealed rather surreptitiously last night, with no live stream or any substantial announcements from the Chinese phone maker. As such, we will need to wait to see whether the Mate 50 series will be launched in regions outside of China in the coming months.
For now, the device is featuring a mix of different elements. For example it is well specced in terms of flagship phones, with a 6.7″ OLED (2700×1224) display up front, along with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor powering things. While that is some of the latest silicon from Qualcomm, the devices ship without 5G connectivity, which has been the case with more recent Huawei flagship phones.
In an effort to counterbalance that, the Mate 50 series does support satellite texting, facilitating short messages and navigation via China’s global BeiDou network. The upshot of this is the fact that you can still have communications in around areas where regular broadband connectivity is weak or unavailable.
This system is something that the likes of Apple were reportedly testing out last year, with T-Mobile and SpaceX announcing a partnership to facilitate satellite connectivity down the line.
It remains to be seen if this feature will be available on the Mate 50 series outside of China, but given that the satellite network operates, hopefully that will be the case. It should also be noted that the system is designed to send texts, not receive them, as this is more of an emergency option for now.
Shifting back to the devices, there is a standard model, Pro version and Porsche Design RS flavour.
In terms of other notable specifications, both standard and Pro variants have a 13MP ultra wide-angle lens, with the former sporting a 13MP telephoto lens and the latter boasting a 64MP one. 8GB RAM and 256GB onboard storage is also present on both options.
While we wait to see whether the Mate 50 series will land locally, we’ll have to see which other phone makers roll out satellite texting functionality.
