One of my favorite Android OEMs of all time is Huawei. It's always been a hardware king, packing incredible specifications into devices that were ahead of their time and giving us a window into what Android could be.

However, while the software has always been well done, it's not everybody's cup of tea. Anybody who's read my previous reviews of the Huawei P50 Pro or the Huawei MatePad 11 will know that without Google services, I've always found it hard to recommend Huawei devices. However, a growing AppGallery, the improvement of Petal Search, and alternative app stores have meant that using Huawei phones as daily drivers is no longer as difficult as it once was. Using the Huawei Mate 50 Pro as my daily driver proved that the company is only continuing to improve.

The phone is still a hard sell without Google services. If you can't imagine wanting to rely on workarounds and alternative app stores such as Aurora Store to access your emails consistently, then it definitely won't be interesting to you. However, if you don't mind those workarounds, then the Huawei Mate 50 Pro might actually be a smartphone to consider — especially if you can get it for cheap.

Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Pricing and availability

• This phone costs €1,199

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro costs €1,199 in Europe for the 256GB model, though the company hasn't confirmed if the 512GB model will be making its way to Europe, too. Like other Huawei devices, it's not available in the U.S.

Design: A bold camera housing

• Fake leather back
• Beautiful, big display
• Rounded camera island

This is a pretty polarizing design from the outset, and that's thanks to the loud, bold choices Huawei made in the design of this ludicrous camera housing. It has a massive circular camera housing on the back that contains all of its main sensors. Our unit also has a fake leather coating on the back, which is nice to hold thanks to the texture it gives for grip, though I prefer to use the phone in the included case.

The phone has a rather outdated-looking notch on the front, but given that notches aren't even all that prevalent anymore, it almost stands out because of it. It doesn't take over any screen real estate, especially because it doesn't cut deep enough into the display to take up the height of the status bar.

Other great aspects of the phone design are the weight distribution and overall feel of the device. The weight is evenly distributed throughout the phone, making it feel premium in the hand. The curved edges, while I will admit can sometimes get annoying, help it look a lot better than competitors, too. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is one of the best-looking phones released this year.

As for the display, it's a 2616 x 1212 120Hz OLED, and it looks amazing. It has a peak brightness of 1,750 nits, and it looks great for browsing the internet, watching videos, and just, in general, using your phone as any other person would. I really don't have any complaints about the phone's display. It's just excellent.

Camera: Is the variable aperture necessary?

• Variable aperture is useful, but the automatic camera can get the job done too
• Fantastic imaging quality
• Versatile camera system

The camera is the most important part of this entire package, and the Huawei Mate 50 Pro does an excellent job of taking pictures in all scenarios. Its hallmark feature is the variable aperture of the primary camera, but to be honest, it's an overstated and largely irrelevant feature. It's fun to play around with, but most of the time, the phone's software will actually do a better job figuring out all the settings in auto mode to take the picture for you.

You can choose a physical aperture of f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, or f/4 —the lower the aperture the more light that will be let into the sensor. A lower aperture also gives a greater depth effect, which means you can play around with it to try and pull off some cool shots. Again, it's a lot of work to use, and most of the time, automatic mode will be enough to take great shots. In automatic mode the aperture still changes by itself, so you get all the benefits of the variable aperture without needing to worry about messing around with it yourself.

Shots like the above are ones where the Huawei Mate 50 Pro really shines. A combination of the f/1.4 aperture letting in a lot of light and excellent camera processing results in a well-balanced image that looks true to life. The room I took that photo in was dim, with no outdoor light coming in. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro handled it masterfully, and it's my favorite photo that I've taken with this device.

Another image I was greatly impressed by was this photo of a church with lights on the inside. It shows how the Huawei Mate 50 Pro knows that shadows and dark spots in photos are alright to include. It lets the bright aspects of the image actually be bright while darkening parts that should (and arguably need) be dark. Some phones actually struggle with this, but the Huawei Mate 50 Pro doesn't.

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is really just a fantastic shooter, and the combination of cameras makes it so versatile, too. A powerful 3.5x 64MP telephoto accompanies the 50MP primary camera, and the 13MP ultra-wide also doubles up as a macro sensor, too.

Performance and software: 4G only

• No 5G
• Good battery life
• No Google services

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro packs the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, with one additional caveat: it's a 4G-only chipset. That doesn't matter to me since I don't have a 5G plan anyway, but for someone who may rely on 5G a lot, then this is already not the phone for you. Qualcomm can only sell 4G chipsets to Huawei, not 5G chipsets. It seems a bit nonsensical for this to be the case considering it likely doesn't even make a huge amount of difference for the value of the smartphones that Huawei sells, but it makes the company's phones as unappealing as possible.

Aside from that, there's no other aspect of this particular device that's been nerfed. The chipset works just as well as its 5G counterpart, and it's just as powerful as we've seen on other devices like the Asus Zenfone 9 and the OnePlus 10T. The phone has excellent battery life thanks to the combination of the large battery, the efficient chipset, and, honestly, the lack of Google services.

However, software-wise, that lack of Google services is a killer for some people, and there's not a lot that can change or help that, especially if you rely on Google for everything. However, I sideloaded Aurora Store to download apps from the Play Store, and it handles more or less basically everything. AppGallery is decent for some things, but Aurora Store gets 90% of what I can't get through AppGallery.

Despite these issues, I didn't have any problems using this phone as my daily driver for two weeks. Curve Pay works well as a Google Pay alternative and worked everywhere that I expected it to. Curve is a payment provider where you can link your cards, and it has a number of other cool features that basically mean substituting all of your cards for one card, then using the app to swap which card is currently active.

I was able to get my emails through Huawei's own Email app on the device. You'll never get the full Google experience on a Huawei device currently, but it's pretty close thanks to excellent alternatives.

Sadly, a lot of the software issues aren't really in Huawei's control thanks to sanctions, and it would be unfair to criticize many of the company's software woes based on that. The company's own AI voice translation services come preloaded on the phone, along with an AI lens that works similarly to Google Lens. You can also use it to scan items near you to purchase them online, but it always seems to give preferential treatment to websites such as AliExpress. It's a valiant effort, but I can't see it being used by a lot of people in Europe.

Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Is it worth your money?

You should buy the Huawei Mate 50 Pro if:

• You want a phone with an excellent camera
• You don't mind taking software matters into your own hands
• You want a uniquely-designed phone

You shouldn't buy the Huawei Mate 50 Pro if:

• You rely on 5G
• You need Google apps and all of their support
• You're on a budget

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro has the potential to be one of the best phones of the year, and it packs incredible camera hardware with beautiful software and a powerful chipset into one absolute beast. However, none of that really matters if you can't use this phone every day. I certainly can, but regular consumers may not be able to or may not even be interested in doing so.

I love the Huawei Mate 50 Pro, but that's simply a tall ask. Huawei has made a heavy-hitter here, but just like the P50 Pro before it, the company's best is going to be hard to get across the line for regular consumers when considering the software situation. This is the best phone that Huawei has ever made, and it's a shame that plenty of people will never get to experience it.

HUAWEI Mate 50 Pro

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro is the latest and greatest flagship from Huawei, and its most unique feature is that it has a variable aperture for the primary sensor.

See at Huawei