HONOR 50 Mobile Phone 5G SIM Free Unlocked 8 + 256 GB Smartphone with 108 MP Camera, 120 Hz 6.57 Inch OLED Curved Screen, Snapdragon 778, Battery 4300mAh, Android 11 (2 Year Warranty)

Product Information

The Honor 50 has a screen with good contrast and punchy colors, two really useful cameras (the 108MP main and 32MP selfie snappers), and an impressively long-lasting battery.

The 2MP cameras are the real weak links though, and there’s a trend of phone companies including low-res auxiliary cameras like this that don’t add much. Always-on displays can be really useful for quickly gleaning information without turning on your device – if, that is, they work well. At that time, Honor was a Huawei sub-brand, and subject to a company-wide ban that prevented Huawei products from utilizing Google apps. Unfortunately, our review sample was bundled with a two-prong European charger, so I couldn’t verify this information; on a bog standard 3-pin charger, it took me one hour to get from zero to 60%. It’s only really let down by the poorer quality secondary cameras and the lack of some practical touches such as an IP rating, headphone jack, and SD card slot.One hour of watching Netflix at default brightness consumed just 3% of the battery (with it taking approximately 40 minutes to dip down from 100% over that time period).

A key selling point of the device has been the 66W fast-charging, with the manufacturer claiming that it can charge up to 70% in 20 minutes, and the full 100% in 45 minutes. Usually, it involves limiting screen brightness and contrast, disabling location services, restricting connectivity, and turning off nonessential apps. It’s the camera module that’s most likely to catch your eye on the rear, where two large dark circles house camera clusters within the one unit – a little like an enlarged version of the iPhone X.Overall, you’ll find that the main camera sensor is strong and reliable in most contexts, but you may well be disappointed by the quality of the auxiliary sensors. Wild Life is a cross-platform benchmark developed by 3DMark that tests the graphical performance of a device (using the Vulkan API on Android/Windows and the Metal API on iOS).

While it does come pre-installed with apps I’m unlikely to ever use, they don’t make a significant enough dent in the 128GB storage to be of real concern; nor did I find this proprietary software to be all that intrusive. Ultimate Shield Liquid Glass is designed to be the perfect solution for the latest generation of in-screen fingerprint sensor phones and maintains the delicate touch of the screen. Several versions have been developed, the newer ones being more durable and providing better damage resistance.The back panel is glossy, so, on the one hand it looks more premium than a matte finish; but after using it you’ll find it also picks up fingerprints with more ease than a diligent detective.