Satellite texting is available on Huawei's Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro

Huawei has launched the Mate 50 series, a day before Apple's September presentation, with a feature that the iPhone 14 is believed to include: the capacity to send texts via satellite communication. The Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro will be able to send brief texts and use navigation thanks to China's global BeiDou satellite network, which will allow connectivity in locations where there is no cellular coverage.

The flagship Mate 50 series features 4G-only Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipsets with 8GB of RAM. The 50 Pro has a slightly larger 6.74-inch OLED display with a refresh rate of 120Hz, while the Mate 50 has a 6.7-inch, 90Hz OLED panel.

Both have a 50-megapixel main rear camera with a variable aperture lens with stops ranging from f/1.4 to f/4 — most smartphone cameras have fixed apertures, so a moving aperture is cool, but the lens itself is so small that it's unlikely to make a significant difference in depth-of-field in most situations.

Both versions share a 13-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide sensor, and while both have telephoto lenses, the Pro receives an enhanced 64-megapixel camera with 200x digital zoom While the ordinary Mate 50 has 100x digital zoom with a lower-resolution 12-megapixel sensor.

If you think you're hearing a lot about satellite-based communication these days, you're right. T-Mobile and SpaceX just announced a collaboration to deliver this functionality to T-Mobile subscribers via Starlink satellites. Apple's satellite messaging feature has been the subject of rumors since last year.

In all of these circumstances, technology will most likely be limited, at least initially. T-Mobile says its system will support text and even photo messaging, but voice calls and data will be added later. According to Huawei's explanation of the system, the Mate 50 phones will only be able to send texts via satellite and will not be able to receive them.

In all of these circumstances, satellite-based texting attempts to give an emergency connection in areas where there is no signal to send out important messages, rather than a way to keep up with group chats when you are out of cell range. In any event, we'll have to wait a little longer for the functionality in the US Since Huawei's devices aren't sold here.

In all of these cases, satellite-based texting attempts to give an emergency connection in areas where there is no signal to send out important messages, rather than a way to keep up with group chats when you are out of cell range. In any event, we'll have to wait a little longer for the functionality in the US Since Huawei's devices aren't sold here.