Once the world’s biggest smartphone vendor, Huawei is slowly sinking into oblivion but is determined to reclaim its former glory. According to Statcounter, the Chinese company had a market share of 6 percent in July, a sharp decline from its peak in Q2 2020 when it surpassed Samsung by accounting for 20 percent of sales globally. Huawei is down but not out and is currently gearing up to launch the Mate 50 lineup.
Huawei’s bad days started when the company landed in the crosshairs of the United States. The company was accused of spying for China and its access to US-origin tech was cut off, preventing it from not only using tech from American companies like Google but also blocking it from buying technology with any traces of US-made stuff. That means that even non-US companies which used American tech were not allowed to maintain ties with Huawei.
Unfortunately for the US, this was not just a blow for Huawei, but also for American companies which sold components to Hauwei. Some of those, such as Qualcomm, obtained a license from the US government to resume ties with the company, but with brutal restrictions such as not granting them permission to sell 5G-enabled gear.
The handful of phones Huawei has released in the recent past are powered by Qualcomm chips, but they are not 5G-ready and it looks like this practice will continue with the Mate 50.
According to well-known leaker Digital Chat Station, the phone will be powered by an LTE-only chip known by the model number Snapdragon SM8425. It seems closely related to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which has the model number SM8450, and the 8 Plus Gen 1, which has the identifier SM8475.
That suggests it will be a step behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and it appears that 5G connectivity is what has been stripped away, as pointed out by Phandroid.
5G has been the buzzword for quite some time and has become standard in most new phones and while it is a good idea to future-proof your phone purchase by going for a 5G phone, you wouldn’t really be missing out if you opt for a 4G one instead because there is no killer use case for 5G at the moment.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip will allow the Mate 50 to compete with the best Android phones of 2022 such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 range.
The Mate 50 range was originally expected to arrive in October 2021 but since Huawei did not have ample resources on hand, it only released new P series phones last year. Rumors suggest that the Mate 50 will come with the Beidou satellite system to let users send messages even in the absence of cellular connectivity and will boast new photography technologies, as well as an emergency battery mode.
The series will apparently include the Huawei Mate 50e, Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro, and Mate 50 RS, and per an earlier report, some variants might have the in-house Kirin 9000S under the hood. The phones will be available in black, white, green, orange, and gold colorways.
Huawei has confirmed that the phones will be revealed on September 6, a day before Apple is expected to reveal the iPhone 14 range. The devices will likely run the home-grown Harmony operating system.
