More Than Apple, Huawei Launchs New Products, Smartphones That Can Send SMS Via Satellite

Huawei Mate 50 can send SMS via satellite connection. (photo: doc. huawei)

JAKARTA - Huawei has announced the latest smartphone product for the Mate 50 series, the day before Apple's event, on September 7. This smartphone comes up with the same feature offered by the iPhone 14, which is the ability to send text via satellite communications.

The Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro will be able to send short text and take advantage of navigation thanks to China's BeiDou global satellite network, which enables communication in cellular signalless areas.

The flagship Mate 50 series includes only the 4G version of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset with 8GB RAM. The Mate 50 Pro comes with a slightly larger 6.74-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the Mate 50 offers a 6.7-inch OLED panel.

Both also include a 50 megapixel main rear camera with variable aperture lenses with stops from f/1.4 to f/4 while most smartphone cameras are currently still using fixed apertures, so neat-moving apertures, but the lenses themselves are so small that it is impossible to create all kinds of significant differences in the depth of most areas. situations.

According to The Verge, both models are also supported by a 13-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and although each has a telephoto lens, the Mate 50 Pro gets an upgraded 64-megapixel camera capable of digital zoom 200x. While the Mate 50 standard offers 100x digital zoom with a lower resolution of 12-meter megapixel sensors. The Huawei Mate 50 Pro comes in a beautiful orange color, in addition to black and silver.

Currently, the public has heard a lot about satellite-based communications lately. Because T-Mobile and SpaceX have just announced a partnership aimed at bringing this feature to T-Mobile customers via Starlink satellites. Rumors of the message feature via Apple satellite have also been popping up since last year.

In all of these cases, the technology is likely to be limited, at least at first. T-Mobile said its system would allow text messaging and even images, but voice and data calls could not yet be done.

Based on the description of Huawei's system, it looks like the Mate 50 phone will only be able to send text via satellite, but will not be able to receive SMS messages via the same system. In all of these cases, satellite-based SMS aims to provide emergency connections in places without signal to get urgent messages, rather than a way to follow your group chat while you are out of the reach of the mobile.

The public will have to wait at least a little longer for this feature to be available in the US because Huawei devices are banned and will not be sold in the US.