While the iPhone 14 might be the biggest new phone coming out very soon, it might not be the best; we’ve just heard that the Huawei Mate 50 is set to debut literally the day before Apple’s newest.
This comes from Huawei itself, which has confirmed the news via Chinese social media platform Weibo – this alone suggests that the launch is China-only, but we could see global availability provided in the next few months.
This phone is… late, to say the least. We used to see Huawei’s P-series phones at the beginning of each year and the Mate at the end, but after the 40-series in 2020, the Huawei P50 only went on sale in January 2022, and the Mate 50 was rumored to be canceled.
We don’t now exactly what will show up, beyond the Mate 50, as while we’ll likely see a standard and Pro device, some leaks think budget and super-premium versions could come along too.
Analysis: a contender for best camera phone
Huawei’s phones are known for being great camera phones, with the company often debuting innovative new features to give them the edge over rivals like Samsung, Google and, most relevantly to this article, Apple.
In particular, we’ll likely see the Mate 50 phones come with much a better main camera than the iPhone 14, as Huawei has previously used RYYB sensors which, to cut lots of tech jargon short, are better at capturing more light and color than the RGB that most phones have.
Plus, we’ll likely see better zoom photography too – no iPhone has had optical zoom over 3x, while the Mate 40 Pro had 5x, and other phones from the brand have hit 10x.
Admittedly, we’re speculating about two unreleased phones, so we can’t say for sure whether the Huawei Mate 50 or iPhone 14 will be better for photography (or in general). We’ll test both when we can, but hopefully, both will find their way onto our list of the best phones.