Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro

In this article, we will compare the Apple iPhone 14 Plus to the Huawei Mate 50 Pro. We’ve already compared the iPhone 14 Pro Max with Huawei’s best deal yet, and it’s time to see how the ‘Plus’ model compares. Both of these smartphones are quite large, so if you like more compact devices, these two probably won’t appeal to you. Both of these phones are pretty compelling, but they’re uniquely different.

We’ll list their specs first and then we’ll move on to a number of other categories. We’ll be comparing their designs, displays, performance, battery life, cameras, and audio performance as usual. Before we get started, however, note that the Mate 50 Pro doesn’t come with Google services, so you won’t have access to the Google Play Store or apps from Google. Huawei’s AppGallery comes pre-installed though, while there are some very useful third-party stores available to you, such as Aurora Store. That being said, let’s get started.

Specifications

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Design

As mentioned earlier, both of these phones are quite large, mainly due to their large screens. The iPhone 14 Plus is a little shorter and wider, while being thinner. It weighs a few grams less than the Mate 50 Pro, and that’s not something you’ll notice. Both phones have an aluminum frame, while they also come with glass backs. Incidentally, the Mate 50 Pro is also available in a variant with a vegan leather back plate. This is the variant we tested, actually.

Weight distribution is good on both phones, but the Mate 50 Pro was more comfortable to hold and use. It doesn’t have sharp edges like the iPhone 14 Plus because it doesn’t have flat sides. It’s much more curved than the iPhone 14 Plus, partly because of its curved screen. Both phones have extremely thin bezels and display notches. Both also come with advanced facial scanning. The Mate 50 Pro’s notch is wider and shorter.

The iPhone 14 Plus has two cameras on the back, which are part of the camera island in the upper left corner. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro has a much more pronounced camera island, which is centered at the top of the phone’s back. It includes three cameras and it is circular. The Mate 50 Pro vegan leather we used is much easier to use with one hand, as it’s considerably less slippery. Both phones feel like quality products in the hand.

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Display

The iPhone 14 Plus features a 6.7-inch 2778 x 1284 Super Retina XDR OLED display, it’s a 60Hz panel. This panel is flat and supports HDR10 content. It also supports Dolby Vision, while it gets up to 1,200 nits of brightness at its peak. Here we’re looking at a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, while the panel is protected by Ceramic Shield Glass. The iPhone 14 Plus has a screen-to-body ratio of around 87.4%.

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro, meanwhile, features a 6.74-inch 2616 x 1212 OLED display. That panel is curved and it has a 120Hz refresh rate, although it’s not a LTPO panel. The Mate 50 Pro’s display has the same aspect ratio as the iPhone 14 Plus, while protected by Huawei Kunlun Glass. The Mate 50 Pro has a screen-to-body ratio of around 91.3%.

On paper, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro has a more advanced screen. The mere fact that it has a 120Hz refresh rate, compared to 60Hz on the iPhone 14 Plus, is a major plus. In almost every other aspect, the two screens are comparable. They both look really good, they’re snappy and the viewing angles are also good. The blacks are deep and the touch response is also quite good. We basically have no complaints in terms of image reproduction on either display, they’re both fine tuned.

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Performance

The iPhone 14 Plus is powered by the Apple A15 Bionic SoC. It’s the same chip that powered the entire iPhone 13 series, and it’s still one of the best processors around. The phone also uses 6GB of RAM and NVMe storage. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro comes with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, along with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 flash storage. Note that this is a 4G-only version of the chip, however, in the case of the Mate 50 Pro.

Does this translate into good performance? Well, yes, and not just good, but great, either way. They are both well equipped, in terms of hardware, but they are also well tuned. Both of these phones are smooth in every way, pretty much. Ranging from multitasking and browsing to consuming multimedia and games. It doesn’t really matter. They heat up during longer gaming sessions, but we didn’t notice any performance drops or anything like that. Chances are that both phones will continue to work just fine for some time.

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Battery

The iPhone 14 Plus features a 4,323mAh unit, while the Huawei Mate 50 Pro has a 4,700mAh battery. As we always say, iPhones need smaller batteries than Android phones, so this difference really doesn’t mean anything. The iPhone 14 Plus actually offers exceptional battery life, and it outperforms the Mate 50 Pro in this category, despite the fact that the Mate 50 Pro has very good battery life.

Getting 8-9 hours of screen time from the iPhone 14 Plus is a real possibility. If you play you probably won’t go that high, but if you don’t, it’s no problem to go there. The Mate 50 Pro is closer to 7-7.5 hours of screen time, but I managed to push it to 8 hours a few times. Both of these phones offer excellent battery life, so it’s not something you should worry about. However, your results may differ from this, depending on your usage and certain other factors.

When it comes to charging, the Mate 50 Pro blows the iPhone 14 Plus out of the water. The iPhone 14 Plus supports 20W wired charging, 15W MagSafe wireless charging, and 7.5W Qi wireless charging. The Mate 50 Pro supports 66W wired wireless charging, 50W wireless charging. wire and 5 W inverted. Note that the iPhone 14 Plus doesn’t include a charger in the box, unlike the Mate 50 Pro, and that will take full advantage of that charging speed.

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Huawei Mate 50 Pro: Cameras

The iPhone 14 Plus features two rear cameras, while the Mate 50 Pro has three. 12-megapixel wide-angle and 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle shooters are included in the Apple product. The Mate 50 Pro has a 50-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel ultrawide unit, and a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto lens. Now, both of these camera setups work great, but deliver dramatically different results.

The iPhone 14 Plus has essentially the same camera setup as the iPhone 13 Pro series (telephoto-safe, of course). In other words, it’s really good. These cameras are extremely reliable, but not perfect. They sometimes tend to struggle with over-sharpening, with foliage, for example. You can also sometimes end up with exaggerated highlights. However, the vast majority of images look outstanding. The Mate 50 Pro, on the other hand, does a great job across the board. It is very rare that it does not provide the image you are looking for. It’s extremely reliable and delivers warm, detailed images, it also does a great job in HDR and low-light conditions. Its variable aperture obviously does the trick in addition to everything else.

Both ultra-wide cameras are excellent, while the Mate 50 Pro does a better job with telephoto shots, simply because it has a telephoto lens. In fact, it does a great job with magnified shots. Its 3.5x optical zoom is certainly useful, but the Mate 50 Pro can easily zoom into scenes far away. The further you go, the more the image deteriorates, of course, but that’s the case with every periscope telephoto shot, of course.

Video recording is excellent on both phones, but the iPhone 14 Plus has an edge there. It does a great job in almost every scene when it comes to video. Personally, I would choose the Mate 50 Pro for photos and the iPhone 14 Plus for video, if that helps.

audio

Both of these phones include a pair of stereo speakers. Both sets are good, but the Huawei Mate 50 Pro has an edge in this regard. The sound coming from its speakers is a bit clearer and the speakers themselves get a bit louder

You won’t find an audio jack on either phone. If you want to get a wired audio connection, you’ll need to use the Lightning and Type-C ports on the iPhone 14 Plus and Huawei Mate 50 Pro, respectively. Bluetooth 5.3 (iPhone) and 5.2 (Huawei) are also included on both phones, for wireless connections.