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HONOR is back with Google services and a reference screen. HONOR 50 overview

November 19, 2021
5:50 PM

It was interesting to follow the evolution of the HONOR brand at any stage of its development. Having grown out of a line of smartphones, it managed to quickly gain popularity in the segment of low-cost devices and moved on to release more top-end devices. In order not to discuss the long-known news that followed later, let’s jump straight into the present. And here we have HONOR 50. The uninitiated reader will say that the new product is somewhat similar to last year’s model HONOR 30 Pro, and will be partly right, but … As always, everything is not so simple. The fact is that the HONOR 50 is the company’s first smartphone with Google services in two years, which, oddly enough, radically changes the state of affairs. However, first things first.

Design

Slim and with a waterfall screen

Wrapped in a thin (7.78mm) glass and metal body, the smartphone gives the pleasant feeling of a well-assembled premium device. I don’t know what it’s connected with, but here is exactly the type of glass that you want to hold in your hand: not too slippery and not too easily soiled. As for the color, my review turned out to be a black version of the smartphone, which looks extremely strict.

The camera block here is made in the form of two protruding disks – the design is recognizable and interesting in comparison with the boring rectangles, although not the most familiar for me personally. In the end, you can see that there is a certain design idea in this. Dust can accumulate between the modules, you should be careful.

As I said, the HONOR 50 boasts a slim body. The feeling that the thickness of the smartphone does not exceed a cookie is enhanced by the beveled edges of the screen. The wow-effect will have to pay for possible false clicks, which I personally practically did not have, and the need to get used to the form factor.

Display

Reference brightness and saturation

One of the strengths of the HONOR 50 is its 6.57-inch OLED screen with 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution. It has an excellent 800 nits brightness and displays colors correctly even at extreme angles across the entire surface of the display, except, perhaps, beveled edges that darken the picture a little. The refresh rate here is 120 Hz – coupled with the gorgeous animations MagicUI 4.2 HONOR 50 compares favorably with competitors with unprecedented smoothness.

Another highlight is HONOR’s attention to detail. In particular, this is one of the few smartphones without PWM among those who have been reviewed in recent times. At any brightness, the ripple coefficient does not exceed the norm and rises to a peak value of 14.6% only at the very minimum. In comparison with 100-120% of competitors, this is good news. Another detail – the sensor response rate here is 300 Hz, which allows the smartphone to handle touches faster and more accurately. There is a fast fingerprint scanner under the display, which is easy to use. At least he recognized me in all cases.

Iron

Not a flagship, but enough for games

The HONOR 50 is powered by an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 5G processor coupled with 6/8 GB of RAM. The user memory is 128 GB or 256 GB, depending on the version. It was the maximum configuration with 8 GB of RAM that came to my review. Having tested the smartphone both in heavy games and in everyday tasks, I can confidently say that the HONOR 50 has no performance problems.

World of Tanks consistently produces 60 FPS at high, and Genshin Impact is comfortable to play at medium. You can, of course, put high ones, but in this case, rare friezes are observed in especially loaded scenes.

HONOR 50 runs on Android 11 with a proprietary MagicUI 4.2 shell, but something else is interesting here – the smartphone has Google Play and all other services preinstalled out of the box. It would seem that this changes? In fact, a lot. The ability to open the YouTube app and then reply to mail in Gmail overrides everything. I am glad that Google has returned to HONOR – it has become much more convenient to use the company’s smartphones.

Camera

Decent sensors, but software requires polishing

The rear panel of the HONOR 50 features 4 cameras:

main 108 megapixel with f / 1.9 aperture;
8-megapixel ultra wide-angle with f / 2.2 aperture;
2 megapixel macro camera;
2 megapixel depth sensor.

As you might guess, the first two modules are of the greatest interest. Well, let’s start with the main camera. In the daytime, it gives a clear and very bright picture that matches the price tag of a smartphone. In short, the quality does not raise questions. The HONOR 50 also copes well with night photography. By standing for a couple of seconds with outstretched arms, you can capture even the darkest moments of life – it pleases.

At the same time, even the contrast in lighting (traffic lights, backlit billboards) does not become a problem for a smartphone. There is also an interesting (primarily for bloggers) multi-video mode, which allows you to simultaneously shoot with both the main and the front camera. In this way, you can capture live emotions and share them with your subscribers.

Ultra-wide produces a slightly less sharp picture, but contains many more objects. The camera shows itself quite well in the dark, producing a fairly light and bright image.

View more sample photos on the Honor website

I would also like to note the decent quality of the 32MP front camera. In both normal and portrait mode, it pleases with detail and pleasant skin tone. In general, it is ideal for selfies in Stories.

Battery

4300 mAh, but I would like more – it is softer

Trashbox.ru battery test results:

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