I recently bought a Huawei Mate 20 Lite and I was EXTREMELY impressed by it for a phone under $300. I had purchased a One Plus 6 and I just didn't like it, and that's all I'm going to say about it. I wasn't expecting much from the Huawei. It has an LCD display instead of an AMOLED. That was a major problem on my OP6 because I couldn't see my OP6 screen in the sunlight even with auto brightness on and turned to the max.
The Huawei Mate 20 Lite is one of the very few Chinese phones that work with USA LTE Bands. But as most of you know, there is a lot of drama right now between the USA and Huawei and honestly both sides are bad. Before the "trade war or blacklist", I still never got updates for Android. My new phone would only run Oreo, yet in China it's ready to get Android Q. Even worse, I couldn't even get basic security updates. But I did love the Huawei phone itself. It didn't seem like a "budget" phone. The Huawei was attractive and felt like a premium phone and even though the display was LCD, it looked so sharp. The Huawei phone was extremely slippery though. I used the clear case and it was fine in the case, but otherwise it was so slippery. The Huawei phone was very thin and it was impressive. But a new phone with no updates, no security updates, and an uncertain future for Huawei gave me the option to send the Huawei back because I had it for 3 1/2 weeks and I had a 30 day return policy.
Now, most all Chinese phones do not support USA LTE Bands and therefore most phones like Xiaomi are just not an option. In America, you are being told that a Pixel 3a or 3aXL is supposed to be a "budget phone". The 3a screen is too small so I would need the 3aXL. They said it is plastic instead of glass, it does have the good camera, but the hardware is less than impressive and the display is absolutely terrible. For some reason, Americans are okay spending $1000 for a phone and $479 for a budget phone. Once again, I paid less than $300 for the Huawei and I'd take the Huawei quality over a new Pixel or iPhone. I paid $265 for a very nice Huawei, so why should I pay $479 for a plastic Pixel phone with a terrible display?
Finally I found out that Samsung was releasing a budget phone, and a real budget phone, not $479, but $280. Now recently the Huawei Mate 20 Lite has slipped down to $230, so the Samsung A50 is about $50 more. Now, this is REALLY IMPORTANT. If you want a Samsung A50 that is going to work in the United States, you need to pay very close attention to what model you get. They make over six variations of the phone and only one model works in the United States with full support for USA LTE Bands.
Ok, if you want to get a Samsung A50 in the United States, you need the model SM-A505G OR SM-A505G/DS. The DS model is "Dual Sim". Now, this phone is advertised as 128GB, but not in America. The American model is 64GB memory but if you watch carefully when buying, I bought one that came with a free 64GB Micro SD card. So, it has 128GB compared to the Huawei with 64GB. The A50 is upgradable to 512GB.
I wanted to write this because I watched ALL the YouTube videos on the A50 and most everything that was said was positive. I got duped because the One Plus 6 had tons of positive reviews and tours of the factory. I was a fool. Now I watch all the One Plus 7 reviews and they make me sick. These reviewers get a free phone and they get it much earlier than release day. Some of them get invited to come and tour the factory and I'm sure they are getting paid as well. If I got early access and a free phone, I'd probably say it was an amazing phone as well. Notice a couple reviewers of the new One Plus 7 Pro said, in the lightest and nicest way, that the battery life was below average. That was a major issue with my OP6.
Ok. There are a lot of questions that did NOT get answered in the YouTube videos. The attractive rainbow effect on the Samsung A50 makes it look like a blue phone. You can get blue or black and I wanted the blue rainbow so I was going to get blue, but then I saw a video of a blue phone and I didn't see it as being attractive or having the rainbow effect at all. None of the Youtubers mentioned what color phone they were using. I wanted the blue rainbow look but I decided to play it safe and get black. The black phone color has the rainbow effect and most of the time it looks BLUE. So, don't order the blue one, get the BLACK phone if you want it to look like the YouTube videos.
Next, the back of the phone is plastic but it seems well built and the rainbow style is attractive. This phone has a triple camera compared to the Huawei Mate 20 Lite which has two cameras on the back. So, if you order the right one you'll get 128GB memory, a larger battery, a better camera, a slightly larger screen, and the Samsung A50 actually has an AMOLED screen VS the LCD on the Huawei.
Now, all the reviewers rave about how great the screen is on the A50 phone. I like my color to have a cold look. The Huawei LCD had a very white white color and most phone's white looks a little yellow. I think the Samsung A50 AMOLED has a better screen than my OP6, but the Huawei screen looked better. However the A50 does well in the sunlight and the display is good enough to keep me happy although it's not amazing because I think the Huawei display was better.
The Samsung A50 has a bigger battery than the Huawei. Samsung A50 is 4000mAh vs 3340mAh in the Huawei. However, the phone's battery lasted a long time in the Huawei and the battery loses it's charge quite fast on the Samsung A50. The Samsung A50 has a new operating system called One UI. I have always stayed away from Samsung phones for two reasons, the battery loses charge really fast in my opinion and I hate the layout UI on the Galaxy. My girlfriend used to have a Galaxy flagship and it was always almost dead and it was so confusing for me to use.
The Samsung One UI that is found on the A50 is almost like a regular Google stock experience except it looks like a poor attempt at trying to copy. The icons are ugly shaped and they look like a Kindergarten student drew them. The icons aren't laid out correctly and they are out of order. Otherwise, the One UI OS is usable.
The sound on the phone is loud enough and it does sound better than the Huawei did. The Huawei had a lot of treble which is common for a budget phone but the Samsung A50 has much more of a midrange sound.
Now, the reviewers were kind of honest by saying the fingerprint scanner wasn't very good. The Samsung A50's fingerprint scanner is built into the glass. You literally put your finger on the screen and then a green circle moves around your finger. It can take 10 seconds or longer and I am not joking. And many times the fingerprint scanner doesn't work. So, I'll do the face unlock. The camera only gets my face right about 30% of the time. Also, the face unlock has a curved bar by the teardrop notch. It starts on the left side and goes all around the notch and then ends at the edge of the phone on the right side. It literally takes that long to recognize your face and most of the time after about 10 seconds, it pops up a message and says "No Match". But nighttime in the dark, it does detect your face in the dark. One Plus 6 and Motorola and Huawei couldn't do that. So, many times I can't unlock the phone with my finger or my face.
I did find a Samsung website page saying they had fixes for about 6 things and one of them was the fingerprint scanner and another was face unlock. I did all the updates and the phone actually did updates unlike the Huawei, but none of my problems were fixed. I erased my face profile and re-scanned my face. And I erased my fingerprint and I scanned my thumb instead of my pointer finger. The fingerprint scanner seems to like the thumb better but it is still painfully slow. The face unlock still has problems and if it lets you in, it takes a long time.
Maybe I need to do some specific updates by plugging the phone into the computer, but I've done all the OTA updates and I'm still having problems. Next issue, the battery drains faster than the Huawei did despite being a larger battery. But even worse, the phone says it has "Fast Charging" but it takes FOREVER to charge the phone.
Tonight I plugged the phone in to charge and I left it for awhile. Then I picked up the phone and it almost burned my hand. Thankfully the phone had the factory clear case on it but it was boiling hot. Now it has only done this once, but it has a lot of nerve to call it fast charging.
My other minor complaints is that the alarm does not have any alarm tones. There are a ton of sounds to pick from, but they are quiet ringtones and are ALL worthless. The Huawei had alarm beeps. So I'll need to download some alarm tones.
I'm also running into performance issues. I do NOT play video games or run any large apps. When I press on the phone ICON, it takes a few seconds to load up the phone app. The Huawei was instantaneous and never lagged once. The camera seems to be pretty good on the A50, BUT there is a long lag at times. I'll push the shutter button to take the picture and nothing happens so I move the camera away and THEN it snaps a picture. It is not a fast phone especially compared to the Huawei.
Now, I'm guessing that some of these problems will soon be fixed. But the phone seems like a $300 phone. I feel it's worth just as much if not more than the Pixel 3aXL. But the Huawei I had looked and felt like a flagship phone and the Samsung does not. It doesn't feel like a cheap phone but it doesn't feel like the Huawei budget phone.
I am going to check with Samsung's site to see if there are any updates to download to the phone that may fix some problems. And also, it usually charges without getting hot. It's only done that once. I wanted to own the phone long enough before giving you all my opinion, but I know that people will be happy with some of the phone features and some people are going to be frustrated with the phone.
If you're looking for a phone that works in the USA and supports the USA LTE Bands, this is a feature packed phone that does indicate "LTE" and it is under $300 for a phone that has an AMOLED screen - 6.4" - and it has good display, a good camera, a decent UI, and decent sound for a budget phone. Just beware, it does have some kinks to it. I believe some of these will be fixed but I think it will always have the battery drain fast and I think it will always take a long time to charge it.
There aren't very many choices in America. You can get a cheap Pixel or regular Pixel. You can get a Galaxy, or you can an iPhone which even the cheap iPhone is still too expensive.
This is a nice phone with a few kinks but I think it is worth it since it costs less than $300. Some things will be fixed, but I'm pretty sure it will always be a slow phone especially compared to the Huawei.
I would say to get the Huawei Mate 20 Lite IF you don't care about updates or even security updates. But the other thing is that Huawei is talking about putting their own OS on phones coming up called ARK OS and if they do that, it will be worthless in America.
I hope this helps all of you.
The Huawei Mate 20 Lite is one of the very few Chinese phones that work with USA LTE Bands. But as most of you know, there is a lot of drama right now between the USA and Huawei and honestly both sides are bad. Before the "trade war or blacklist", I still never got updates for Android. My new phone would only run Oreo, yet in China it's ready to get Android Q. Even worse, I couldn't even get basic security updates. But I did love the Huawei phone itself. It didn't seem like a "budget" phone. The Huawei was attractive and felt like a premium phone and even though the display was LCD, it looked so sharp. The Huawei phone was extremely slippery though. I used the clear case and it was fine in the case, but otherwise it was so slippery. The Huawei phone was very thin and it was impressive. But a new phone with no updates, no security updates, and an uncertain future for Huawei gave me the option to send the Huawei back because I had it for 3 1/2 weeks and I had a 30 day return policy.
Now, most all Chinese phones do not support USA LTE Bands and therefore most phones like Xiaomi are just not an option. In America, you are being told that a Pixel 3a or 3aXL is supposed to be a "budget phone". The 3a screen is too small so I would need the 3aXL. They said it is plastic instead of glass, it does have the good camera, but the hardware is less than impressive and the display is absolutely terrible. For some reason, Americans are okay spending $1000 for a phone and $479 for a budget phone. Once again, I paid less than $300 for the Huawei and I'd take the Huawei quality over a new Pixel or iPhone. I paid $265 for a very nice Huawei, so why should I pay $479 for a plastic Pixel phone with a terrible display?
Finally I found out that Samsung was releasing a budget phone, and a real budget phone, not $479, but $280. Now recently the Huawei Mate 20 Lite has slipped down to $230, so the Samsung A50 is about $50 more. Now, this is REALLY IMPORTANT. If you want a Samsung A50 that is going to work in the United States, you need to pay very close attention to what model you get. They make over six variations of the phone and only one model works in the United States with full support for USA LTE Bands.
Ok, if you want to get a Samsung A50 in the United States, you need the model SM-A505G OR SM-A505G/DS. The DS model is "Dual Sim". Now, this phone is advertised as 128GB, but not in America. The American model is 64GB memory but if you watch carefully when buying, I bought one that came with a free 64GB Micro SD card. So, it has 128GB compared to the Huawei with 64GB. The A50 is upgradable to 512GB.
I wanted to write this because I watched ALL the YouTube videos on the A50 and most everything that was said was positive. I got duped because the One Plus 6 had tons of positive reviews and tours of the factory. I was a fool. Now I watch all the One Plus 7 reviews and they make me sick. These reviewers get a free phone and they get it much earlier than release day. Some of them get invited to come and tour the factory and I'm sure they are getting paid as well. If I got early access and a free phone, I'd probably say it was an amazing phone as well. Notice a couple reviewers of the new One Plus 7 Pro said, in the lightest and nicest way, that the battery life was below average. That was a major issue with my OP6.
Ok. There are a lot of questions that did NOT get answered in the YouTube videos. The attractive rainbow effect on the Samsung A50 makes it look like a blue phone. You can get blue or black and I wanted the blue rainbow so I was going to get blue, but then I saw a video of a blue phone and I didn't see it as being attractive or having the rainbow effect at all. None of the Youtubers mentioned what color phone they were using. I wanted the blue rainbow look but I decided to play it safe and get black. The black phone color has the rainbow effect and most of the time it looks BLUE. So, don't order the blue one, get the BLACK phone if you want it to look like the YouTube videos.
Next, the back of the phone is plastic but it seems well built and the rainbow style is attractive. This phone has a triple camera compared to the Huawei Mate 20 Lite which has two cameras on the back. So, if you order the right one you'll get 128GB memory, a larger battery, a better camera, a slightly larger screen, and the Samsung A50 actually has an AMOLED screen VS the LCD on the Huawei.
Now, all the reviewers rave about how great the screen is on the A50 phone. I like my color to have a cold look. The Huawei LCD had a very white white color and most phone's white looks a little yellow. I think the Samsung A50 AMOLED has a better screen than my OP6, but the Huawei screen looked better. However the A50 does well in the sunlight and the display is good enough to keep me happy although it's not amazing because I think the Huawei display was better.
The Samsung A50 has a bigger battery than the Huawei. Samsung A50 is 4000mAh vs 3340mAh in the Huawei. However, the phone's battery lasted a long time in the Huawei and the battery loses it's charge quite fast on the Samsung A50. The Samsung A50 has a new operating system called One UI. I have always stayed away from Samsung phones for two reasons, the battery loses charge really fast in my opinion and I hate the layout UI on the Galaxy. My girlfriend used to have a Galaxy flagship and it was always almost dead and it was so confusing for me to use.
The Samsung One UI that is found on the A50 is almost like a regular Google stock experience except it looks like a poor attempt at trying to copy. The icons are ugly shaped and they look like a Kindergarten student drew them. The icons aren't laid out correctly and they are out of order. Otherwise, the One UI OS is usable.
The sound on the phone is loud enough and it does sound better than the Huawei did. The Huawei had a lot of treble which is common for a budget phone but the Samsung A50 has much more of a midrange sound.
Now, the reviewers were kind of honest by saying the fingerprint scanner wasn't very good. The Samsung A50's fingerprint scanner is built into the glass. You literally put your finger on the screen and then a green circle moves around your finger. It can take 10 seconds or longer and I am not joking. And many times the fingerprint scanner doesn't work. So, I'll do the face unlock. The camera only gets my face right about 30% of the time. Also, the face unlock has a curved bar by the teardrop notch. It starts on the left side and goes all around the notch and then ends at the edge of the phone on the right side. It literally takes that long to recognize your face and most of the time after about 10 seconds, it pops up a message and says "No Match". But nighttime in the dark, it does detect your face in the dark. One Plus 6 and Motorola and Huawei couldn't do that. So, many times I can't unlock the phone with my finger or my face.
I did find a Samsung website page saying they had fixes for about 6 things and one of them was the fingerprint scanner and another was face unlock. I did all the updates and the phone actually did updates unlike the Huawei, but none of my problems were fixed. I erased my face profile and re-scanned my face. And I erased my fingerprint and I scanned my thumb instead of my pointer finger. The fingerprint scanner seems to like the thumb better but it is still painfully slow. The face unlock still has problems and if it lets you in, it takes a long time.
Maybe I need to do some specific updates by plugging the phone into the computer, but I've done all the OTA updates and I'm still having problems. Next issue, the battery drains faster than the Huawei did despite being a larger battery. But even worse, the phone says it has "Fast Charging" but it takes FOREVER to charge the phone.
Tonight I plugged the phone in to charge and I left it for awhile. Then I picked up the phone and it almost burned my hand. Thankfully the phone had the factory clear case on it but it was boiling hot. Now it has only done this once, but it has a lot of nerve to call it fast charging.
My other minor complaints is that the alarm does not have any alarm tones. There are a ton of sounds to pick from, but they are quiet ringtones and are ALL worthless. The Huawei had alarm beeps. So I'll need to download some alarm tones.
I'm also running into performance issues. I do NOT play video games or run any large apps. When I press on the phone ICON, it takes a few seconds to load up the phone app. The Huawei was instantaneous and never lagged once. The camera seems to be pretty good on the A50, BUT there is a long lag at times. I'll push the shutter button to take the picture and nothing happens so I move the camera away and THEN it snaps a picture. It is not a fast phone especially compared to the Huawei.
Now, I'm guessing that some of these problems will soon be fixed. But the phone seems like a $300 phone. I feel it's worth just as much if not more than the Pixel 3aXL. But the Huawei I had looked and felt like a flagship phone and the Samsung does not. It doesn't feel like a cheap phone but it doesn't feel like the Huawei budget phone.
I am going to check with Samsung's site to see if there are any updates to download to the phone that may fix some problems. And also, it usually charges without getting hot. It's only done that once. I wanted to own the phone long enough before giving you all my opinion, but I know that people will be happy with some of the phone features and some people are going to be frustrated with the phone.
If you're looking for a phone that works in the USA and supports the USA LTE Bands, this is a feature packed phone that does indicate "LTE" and it is under $300 for a phone that has an AMOLED screen - 6.4" - and it has good display, a good camera, a decent UI, and decent sound for a budget phone. Just beware, it does have some kinks to it. I believe some of these will be fixed but I think it will always have the battery drain fast and I think it will always take a long time to charge it.
There aren't very many choices in America. You can get a cheap Pixel or regular Pixel. You can get a Galaxy, or you can an iPhone which even the cheap iPhone is still too expensive.
This is a nice phone with a few kinks but I think it is worth it since it costs less than $300. Some things will be fixed, but I'm pretty sure it will always be a slow phone especially compared to the Huawei.
I would say to get the Huawei Mate 20 Lite IF you don't care about updates or even security updates. But the other thing is that Huawei is talking about putting their own OS on phones coming up called ARK OS and if they do that, it will be worthless in America.
I hope this helps all of you.
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