Huawei's camera or Google's Android ecosystem, what should you opt for?

Huawei had one of its most complicated years in 2019. On the one hand, the brand experienced a surge in smartphone sales in China, but global sales have been on the decline. Until Q1 2019, Huawei was on track to overtake Samsung and become the number smartphone brand with the highest market share.

But that had since changed, when the US President Donald Trump enforced a trade ban on several Chinese companies over allegations of spying, one of them being Huawei. As a supplier of telecommunication equipment, Trump’s trade ban not only decimated Huawei’s 5G push in the US but also effected in crippling the company’s global smartphone business.

As a result of the trade ban, Google revoked Huawei’s Android license. This left Huawei with the only option of using Android on its smartphones through a custom version of Android using AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code, Google Play Store and other Google apps.

Here is the thing though, software woes aside; Huawei has continued unveiling some impressive smartphone cameras. Just look at DxOMark, five of the top ten smartphones on the best overall camera list belong to Huawei and sub-brand Honor. Huawei even dominates the list of best selfie shooters with three phones on the top ten list, including the top two spots. It is worth noting that Huawei ultra-premium P40 Pro+ is not added to these lists.

Having 8 out of 20 phones between the two best camera lists seems impressive. But it is not just DxOMark, premium Huawei and Honor devices have been praised by reviewers as well, primarily for their camera performance. One can make the argument that we are losing out on smartphones with some pretty capable cameras by ignoring Huawei phones due to the lack of Google’s mobile services on them.

So should you forgo Huawei’s excellent camera hardware for Google’s software ecosystem? Well, the answer to that question is simple, “maybe”. But let us get into the “why maybe”.

Firstly, the main factor in opting for a Huawei or Honor phone would depend on your reliance on Google’s ecosystem. Even if you can substitute G Suite apps and YouTube, what about Google Maps? Personally, living without Google’s Mobile Services seems like a nightmare.

But one could argue that G Suite can be substituted with Microsoft Office 365. Additionally, you also have a couple of alternatives for Google Maps. Just look at how many iOS users opt for Apple Maps. Apart from the occasional traffic avoidance, Google Maps does not really help, maybe if you go on a solo adventure.

On the other hand, Huawei is building a pretty strong ecosystem with Huawei Mobile Services with hundreds of millions of users. Last month, Huawei announced several partnerships with software and game developers to bring popular Play Store apps to Huawei’s App Gallery.

Since we are yet to get our hands on a Huawei device, we cannot tell you for sure if life without Google’s services is manageable, complicated, or convenient. But what we can say is that an ecosystem cannot be built overnight. For now, all we can say is “maybe”, maybe forgoing Google’s software for Huawei’s hardware is worth it, perhaps the tradeoff can be justified.

What we can say for sure is that there is a foreseeable future where Huawei’s Mobile Services could be a worthy challenger to Google. Who knows, Huawei’s app ecosystem could even be better than Google. But at the moment, life without Google’s services on Huawei devices is definitely going to be a challenge.

Considering the price of Huawei’s top-tier devices, we would suggest waiting until Huawei can make a stronger case. Just like the cameras on Huawei phones, the company’s app ecosystem is also going to continue improving with time. So the final answer to our question would be, at present “maybe”, but in the future “no”. We do not believe you will have the luxury to write off Huawei’s top-tier camera hardware just because of software in the future.

Before we end, there is still the security question that is left unanswered. No doubt, the US ban on Huawei cannot simply be written off as inconsequential. Huawei was at the forefront of the 5G revolution and well-ahead in the 5G race. But then again, China’s authoritarian government puts the chances of government involvement in Huawei at “zero”.

But when it comes to our data, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. have been hoarding it for years. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal laid bare to the world the state of “data privacy”, but that hasn’t stopped it from being one the most utilized apps in the world. In the case of government officials or private individuals involved in military contracts, it would perhaps be best not to opt for a Huawei phone. Still, for regular citizens, we don’t see any major security risk.