Huawei’s Pura 70 Ultra fills the niche of the ultimate camera phone

Huawei has discreetly debuted its flagship Pura smartphone portfolio, with the Pura 70 Ultra serving as the crown gem. The Pura 70 Ultra’s most notable feature is a 50-megapixel camera with a lens that extends and retracts inside the phone’s back, similar to a high-end small point-and-shoot camera. It is accompanied by three other cameras: a 3.5x telephoto, an ultrawide, and a front-facing ultrawide camera. Huawei’s P-series phones have always been known for producing high-quality photos, and it appears that trend will continue. The most recent model has undergone a rebranding, becoming the Pura series, and has also gone “Ultra” – as is common in 2024.

Huawei has confirmed that the Pura 70 Ultra will be available in Europe on May 22, with pre-orders accessible right now. There is no indication on whether this model will be available in the UK just yet, but we’re crossing our fingers. Huawei has set the price for the Ultra at €1499. But is it worth such a high price?

This year, the flagship model finally gets a 1-inch sensor, and it does it without becoming considerably thicker, due to a unique mechanical telescoping lens in the main camera. The variable aperture is still present, and the ultrawide has received a major spec improvement.

Huawei has a strong reputation for photography performance, so these enhancements are a positive sign. However, this is a Huawei phone, therefore there are some challenges to overcome. It lacks a high-performance CPU, and access to Google services will necessitate certain workarounds. Is it worth the hassle? After a few days with it, here are my first observations.

HUAWEI PURA 70 ULTRA KEY FEATURES

Huawei’s reinvented (P) photography series has the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra as its flagship. Returning to what we do best – smartphone testing – we were thoroughly impressed by our time with the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. And while we’re reviewing it, we thought we’d offer you a sneak peek at what’s in store for you.

The Pura 70 Ultra is one of the only phones on the market that allows you to choose from a hundred phones in a single second. The triangular camera design and unusual rear panel are extremely stunning, even though the housing is, well, massive.

Then there’s a big 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen with 1260p resolution, 1 billion colors, and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The Kirin 9010 chipset with 5G connectivity will most likely spark a fresh round of research, but it does appear promising with enhanced capabilities.

The retractable main camera’s innovative mechanical design is intriguing, but we can’t wait to test its 1″ sensor, which features sensor-shift stabilization, a variable aperture lens, and laser-assisted AF. Next is a 50MP telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and up to 10x hybrid zoom, capable of taking macro images from as near as 5cm away! The 40MP ultrawide camera, with its 13mm aperture lens, promises a very wide field of view and is AF-capable.

The 13MP selfie camera also includes a wide-angle lens and focusing capabilities. Finally, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has a 5,200mAh battery that supports 100W wired, 80W wireless charging, and 20W reverse wireless charging!

HUAWEI PURA 70 ULTRA UNBOXING

The Pura 70 Ultra is shipped in a single huge, thick, luxurious-looking package. Inside, you’ll find the phone, one premium case with a matching color but a different P-styled material, a 100W power adapter, and a USB cord.

Notice that the charger contains USB-C and USB-A ports, but it is not a dual-charger; you can only use one at a time.

CAMERA

As previously stated, the Pura 70 Ultra is dominated by its camera system, both visually and because it is the primary point of differentiation for Huawei this year. We have three cameras to pick from. There’s a 40MP ultra-wide with a f2.1 aperture, a 50MP macro telephoto with a f2.1 aperture, and a massive pop-out lens with a 1-inch sensor and an aperture range of f1.5-f4. A quick note: all of the photographs on this page were taken during my trip to China and are straight out of the camera with no editing.

Let’s discuss the pop-out lens. First, it creates a noise when it stretches and retracts. This is immediately incredibly cool. Huawei describes it as a “symphony of mechanical sound”. It sounds like a little pod bay door opening and closing. I was initially confused; I assumed it was the camera app creating the noise, but it was mechanical. I’m available all day for that. The extended lens appears to be intended to reduce space while also allowing more light to reach the 1-inch sensor.

Huawei has performed over 300,000 retraction test cycles on the mechanism, which is, thankfully, IP68 water-resistant. It remains to be seen how it can withstand water, dust, and nasty stuff like sand, but there does not appear to be much of a gap surrounding the lens, which hopefully bodes well. This large lens can also capture 198% more light than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is proven well during nighttime photography.

It also includes the industry’s first sensor shift optical image stabilization on a 1-inch sensor, which is quite beneficial and improves anti-shake by up to 67% over the P60 Pro. The focal lengths are 1x and 3.5x optical, with the remainder being digital. I found myself using 3.5x the most frequently, and while 5x would have been preferable, Huawei’s zoom options produced excellent results. Even 10x is fairly useful in a variety of cases, with AI assisting during processing time.

Also worth noting is the Pura 70 Ultra’s ability to freeze incredibly rapidly moving subjects, as shown here with a shot of a surfer in Huawei’s Shenzhen store. Impressive. To put it simply, this could be the best camera system I’ve ever used on a smartphone. It produces amazing photos.

They’re contrasty, and the clarity has been tweaked, but that appears to be the norm in 2024, which I’m all for. Crucially, the Pura 70 Ultra does not oversaturate colors, and you can count on it to shoot the right photo when you need it. That’s all we want, right?

The photographs are also really sharp, the shutter speed is lightning-fast, and it works exceptionally well at night. The video quality is excellent (as demonstrated in my video evaluation of the Pura 70 Ultra). This remains the most subjective aspect of any smartphone review, which is why I’d like to hear your thoughts on these test photographs. Please get involved in the comments section. I am blown away by the camera of the Pura 70 Ultra. It doesn’t simply compete with the iPhone 15 Pro Max and S24 Ultra; it outperforms them.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra offers a flamboyant design, including a leather-effect rear panel with an embossed pattern and glossy metallic accents. The appearance reminds me of premium luggage. It sticks out while remaining tasteful.

I have the light green model in for testing, and it is my favorite of the bunch. However, the black, white, and brown variants are all attractive in their own right. Every model has a faux leather backing and comes with a quality color-matched case in the box. The camera array takes on a new triangular shape, which Huawei claims indicates progress. It also resembles the letter “P”, which I’m sure is no coincidence.

One of the phone’s outstanding features is its telescoping lens, which is intended to eliminate camera shake when using a 1-inch sensor. It’s extremely cool, makes a pleasant sound when it comes out and appears to work beautifully, however, I can’t help but notice that the phone isn’t particularly thin. The phone’s main body is thicker than my Vivo X100 Pro, which has a 1-inch sensor, and the camera bump is only slightly smaller.

The display is an OLED screen with a resolution of 1260 x 2844, an adjustable refresh rate that ranges from 1Hz to 120Hz, and a maximum brightness of 2500 nits. The brightness level may not seem very impressive, with phones like the Honor Magic 6 Pro touting a 5000-nit output, but it’s more than adequate. I used it in the blazing heat on Hong Kong’s streets and had no issue seeing what I was doing.

The screen has slightly curved borders on both sides, but the majority of the surface you interact with is entirely flat. I believe this is a good compromise because it provides the majority of the benefits of a flat screen while maintaining smooth gesture controls and a comfortable grip. It is protected with Huawei’s Crystal Armor Kunlun glass, which is reported to be three times more scratch-resistant than prior models.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

Harmony OS 4.2 is the latest version of Huawei’s proprietary operating system, and it will be accessible on more than 100 devices worldwide. The smartphone update offers new interactive and magazine themes, new and improved capabilities for the Celia assistant, increased security, a better Health app, and Ark Engine compatibility. You can also expect new watch faces for the various wearables that will receive this update.

The worldwide Harmony OS 4.2 still contains an Android (12) core, therefore Android apps are still supported. In case you were wondering, GBox works just fine.

The Pura 70 Ultra also includes Huawei’s new Kirin 9010 chipset, which includes an 8-core CPU (1x 2.3 GHz Taishan Big, 3x 2.18 GHz Taishan Mid, and 4x 1.55 GHz Cortex-A510 cores). It is said to be made in China using a 7nm technology, similar to the Kirin 9000s used in the Mate 60 series. It also includes the Malecon 910. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra comes with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of UFS storage.

VERDICT

The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is a stunningly designed phone with an incredibly promising camera system, a gorgeous display, and lightning-fast charging. However, the typical Huawei limitations apply, and the lack of Google services, along with an antiquated chipset, severely limits the mass appeal.

I need to do more testing to see how it feels to live with it, but for the time being, I can say that I like it, particularly the camera. There’s a lot of potential here, which I’m eager to learn about.

FULL SPECIFICATION