Many believed that the iPhone 14 might be the first smartphone to offer satellite communication, but as it turns out, Huawei did it first with the Huawei Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro.
See also: Huawei Mate 50 flagships released!
These two newly announced smartphones allow you to send texts via China 's BeiDou global satellite network . It's a feature designed for emergency situations, so you can get in touch with emergency services or loved ones when mobile networks are down , such as in war zones or natural disasters.
So it's a niche feature and one we hope we'll never need to use, but it could also prove to be a lifesaver. As Huawei describes it, the feature sounds very limited, offering messaging , so you can't make calls and seemingly only send text messages, not receive them, using this system. However, it's the first company to offer this.
Of course, it will have significant competition, as the iPhone 14 series announced yesterday offers a similar system. Another plus is the fact that the iPhone 14 and its siblings will be available in the US, while the Huawei Mate 50 series will not.
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But with T-Mobile partnering with Starlink for a similar service in the near future, and other companies likely considering satellite communications services now, we may not be too far away from it becoming a mainstream feature, available on a wide range of smartphones.
While its satellite communication capability is perhaps the most impressive of the Huawei Mate 50's specifications, this phone and even more so the Huawei Mate 50 Pro are not lacking in technology.
The Mate 50 Pro features a 6.74-inch 1212 x 2616 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, 8GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, water resistance, and a 4,700mAh battery with 66W charging.
See also: Huawei's revenue fell by 29% in 2021
It also has a triple-lens camera, with a 50MP main sensor, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle, and a 64MP telephoto lens, offering up to 200x digital zoom. Interestingly, the main lens also has an adjustable aperture, which can range from f/1.4 to f/4.0. Adjustable apertures are a very rare feature on phones , and never so variable.
