Rumor | Huawei Mate 50 series will debut with HarmonyOS 3.0 and advanced AI for its cameras if nothing else

0Despite all the adversity it has faced, Huawei is still tipped to launch successors to the Mate 40 series of high-end phablets during the summer of 2022 at the earliest. The devices cannot ship with 5G processors, as observed yet again by an apparently knowledgeable Weibo-based leaker; furthermore, the latest post from the same account suggests that they might not even get the best 4G/LTE-only chips theoretically available to them.

The Mate 50 series has been backed to debut the 5G-less version of the recently-debuted Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor; however, according to the latest rumors, Huawei's latest prototypes have the corresponding version of the 8 Gen 1 SoC instead.

Therefore, it is possible the new Huawei flagships might have to make do with this slightly older platforms instead. Accordingly, the company is now said to emphasize its remaining strengths in promoting the devices. One way it could do this, as hinted by the leaker The Factory Manager's Classmate, is to ship them with the latest version of HarmonyOS out of the box.

This might indeed be one of Huawei's strongest cards to play in terms of competing with the Mate 50 series, as it could stand to offer the best level of integration possible with devices such as the new Watch GT 3 Pro and so on. HarmonyOS 3.0 is also already touted as having a "smoother" UX in everyday use compared to its predecessor.

Otherwise, the OEM can reportedly not do much more besides offer upgraded computational photography in this new hardware generation. This might be a particularly essential distraction from the possible loss of Leica branding for the new phablets' cameras.

Buy a Pixel 6 Pro on Amazon