Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

Huawei P50 Pro: Living without Google Services is … different

Prakhar Khanna
By

When the Huawei P50 Pro showed up in my mailbox, my excitement had no boundaries. I was really looking forward to the device. The last Huawei phone I used was the P30 Pro, and it gave me the best battery life and camera experience of any smartphone at that time. But things have changed after the sanctions, and these changes have forced Huawei to adapt to the limitations.

I knew I’d struggle to use the P50 Pro as I rely heavily on Google apps and services, but I didn’t expect it to be challenging. Setting up the device was as easy as it gets, but what came afterward was a struggle I didn’t want. The result? I didn’t insert my SIM in the smartphone and put it in the drawer within two days of unboxing. I didn’t expect to, but I ended up giving it another chance. Here’s how my experience has been with the latest Huawei flagship.

Recommended Videos

AppGallery just doesn’t cut it for me

Huawei P50 Pro connected to MateBook E.
Andy Boxall/DigitalTrends

Huawei has faced a lot of challenges since it got sanctioned. While I thought it’d be a battle of survival, the company has done well with AppGallery by talking developers into building apps for the Huawei ecosystem. The app distribution service has been improving day by day, but AppGallery isn’t enough for me.

Related

First, I live in a region (India) that isn’t on the priority list for Huawei. The company’s market share is almost nil in the Indian smartphone segment. The last flagship it launched here was the aforementioned Huawei P30 Pro. As a result, the apps Indians use in day-to-day life aren’t present on AppGallery, especially the banking apps. It might be a different scenario for European users with the Curve payment provider, which lets you link your existing cards. But I mostly use UPI for transactions, which isn’t possible on the P50 Pro.

I’d have given a pass if this were a regional thing, but many mainstream apps are yet to be made available via AppGallery. For instance, Twitter and Instagram are two of the most-used social media apps in the world, and both aren’t available on AppGallery, Sure, you can search for the apps on Petal Search and it’ll find Instagram for you, but the app won’t run because it requires Google Play Services.

Held together with duct tape

AppGallery has a long way to go to make Huawei flagships great again. It is on the right track, and I hope the company can find a way to get the most popular app developers on board. As of now, you are likely to miss out on your favorite apps if you don’t find a way to sideload them. And once you install them, updating the apps is a tedious task.

While Huawei is progressing at a steady rate to mitigate the app problem, it has a long way to go. The lack of Google Mobile Services (GMS) remains a big issue. Because of the lack of GMS, some apps’ notification systems are broken. It is likely because these apps — Slack is a good example — use Google’s Firebase system, so the notifications don’t show up on the Huawei P50 Pro.

Quick apps are a smart solution

Quick apps are basically web-based formats of apps that are installation-free and can be added to the home screen. A quick app can be distributed to all mobile phones that support industry standards without adaptation, so Huawei is able to make use of it without the availability of GMS. These can also act as a space saver if you don’t have a lot of storage left on your smartphone.

Quick apps aren’t as smooth as the actual APKs.

I’m running Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, and Uber with Quick apps. It’s a smart way to add these apps to your home screen as a variant of the actual Android apps you’d use on your Google or Samsung smartphones.

However, quick apps aren’t as smooth as the actual APKs. Instagram views stories horizontally for some reason. Gmail looks like I have opened it on Chrome on an Android phone. That is what it is supposed to look like, but I’m giving you context as to what you can expect from a quick app — limited functionality.

Huawei’s situation is untenable

Huawei P50 Pro back panel in hands.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Huawei P50 Pro doesn’t have 5G support, and it runs on a year-old system on a chip. While it’s powered by the older Snapdragon 888 4G chipset, it is a snappy device to use in day-to-day life. However, the absence of 5G is likely to be a deal-breaker for you if you want your phone to last for the next two to three years.

The cameras are the best part of the Huawei P50 Pro. It has one of the best portrait modes available on a smartphone right now. Plus, the telephoto lens competes head-to-head with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. However, the night mode can brighten images to a level that they don’t look like they were captured under lowlight. I’d definitely keep the P50 Pro as my secondary device just for the cameras. But it simply cannot be a primary device, and it definitely can’t be my only device!

It’s not Huawei, it’s the situation Huawei is in that’s not working for consumers like me.

I’d have said if you can look past Google Services, you’ll get top-notch cameras and a powerful smartphone. But you simply can’t look past that since it’s not just the Google apps that use its services. As I mentioned above, notifications misbehave from several apps. Even if you are able to install apps like Google Maps or Instagram, they won’t work as they require Google Play Services to function.

There are just too many compromises on the P50 Pro for a flagship. Unless it gets a price cut or you can get it for a cheaper price tag, it is hard to recommend the P50 Pro. Put simply, Huawei needs a better solution, and it needs it fast.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Prakhar Khanna
Prakhar Khanna
Mobile Writer
Prakhar writes news, reviews and features for Digital Trends. He is an independent tech journalist who has been a part of the…
Huawei’s $1,800 folding P50 Pocket isn’t expensive enough
Huawei P50 Pocket open and seen from the back.

Huawei should charge more for the P50 Pocket, its Galaxy Z Flip 3-like folding smartphone. This may sound like a strange statement, especially since $1,800 isn't exactly cheap -- quite the opposite actually. But I’m suggesting Huawei should have used even better materials to make it, gone overboard with luxury accouterments, and even got the designer of the Premium Edition to sign the device personally -- then jacked up the price accordingly.

Why would anyone ask to pay more for a phone? Huawei continues to face immense technical challenges, and the P50 Pocket was the perfect device for Huawei to reinvent itself as a modern-day Vertu by making a super-luxurious smartphone that's so desirable, people will want to use it alongside another phone.
Vertu knew luxury
If you aren’t familiar with Vertu, in its heyday, it made hyper-luxurious, mega-expensive, handbuilt smartphones for the wealthy. Each phone had the signature of the person who built it behind the SIM card door, the leather was the finest you could get, the build quality and methods used owed more to Swiss watches than to mobile tech, and owners had their own special Vertu personal assistant on speed dial to help organize their lives. Unfortunately, the company ceased to be in 2017.

Read more
Huawei P50 Pocket rivals Z Flip 3 in design, but not price
The Huawei P50 Pocket Premium Edition in the golden color option showing its camera setup and the cover display.

The Huawei P50 Pocket, the company’s fourth folding smartphone, will be released globally, and will be joined by the P50 Pro. We're going to talk about both, but let's start with the P50 Pocket. You may have already read about it, and that’s because it was announced in China at the end of December 2021, at which time it wasn’t clear whether the phone would make it any further globally.

Huawei now says the Pocket will get a phased release internationally in two versions. The standard phone will cost 1,299 euros, which is about $1,465, while the Premium Edition with a special design costs 1,599 euros, or about $1,800. A U.S. release almost certainly won’t happen, but you’d be able to import one, though it won't support all LTE bands and doesn't have 5G at all. Its main rival, the similarly shaped Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, starts at $999, and comes with Google Play plus a local warranty. For comparison, it costs 1,049 euros in Europe.
No 5G, but robust hardware
The global launch of the P50 Pocket doesn’t bring with it any change in specification, meaning it still uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor. It remains very capable, but inside the Pocket, it is joined only by a 4G modem and not a 5G modem. This aside, the P50 Pocket has plenty of things going for it.

Read more
Huawei’s clamshell foldable looks more like a high-fashion gizmo
HUAWEI P50 pocket breaks cover

Huawei recently started dropping teasers for its first clamshell-style foldable phone. The company then went a step ahead and revealed a practical yet rather cliched name for it — Huawei P50 Pocket. The phone is going official later this month, but Harper’s Bazaar China got a first-look with a glamorous photoshoot and shared the results on social media. In one word, the phone looks extravagant. Folks with a conservative taste will classify it as luxuriously garish.

The Huawei foldable retains the DNA of its P50 flagship sibling, thanks to two huge circular cutouts at the back. The one at the top appears to house three camera lenses and the LED flash. Below it sits a circular secondary display that will likely show notifications and also serve as a viewfinder for clicking selfies using the high-resolution rear snappers. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Motorola’s RAZR 5G also come armed with the same trick.

Read more