Huawei Pura 70 Ultra Review
One of the most interesting camera phones on the market right now
Verdict
The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is a beautifully designed phone with some of the best cameras on the market today. Unfortunately, an underpowered processor, a lack of Google app support and a sky-high price tag mean that this phone is unlikely to appeal to the masses.
Pros
- Incredible camera system
- Gorgeous design
- Excellent display
Cons
- No Google services
- Weaker processor than the competition
- Very expensive
Key Features
- Telescoping camera lensThe Huawei Pura 70 Ultra features a telescoping lens barrel, just like you’d see on a compact camera. This allows the phone to remain slim while also using a large sensor with a variable aperture.
- High-speed action photographyHuawei’s snapshot mode uses exposure bracketing and computational magic to provide crystal-clear action shots free from motion blur.
- Ultra-fast chargingThe Pura 70 Ultra benefits from some of the fastest charging speeds around. It supports up to 100W with a wire and 80W with a compatible wireless charger.
Introduction
Huawei’s P-series turns 12 this year, and to mark the occasion, Huawei is rebranding it to Pura. The company says the rebrand represents the line’s fashion-forward approach, and the top-of-the-line Pura 70 Ultra is probably the best example of this, with its faux leather backing and shiny accents.
Arguably, it’s the camera tech that Huawei’s P-series is best known for, though. The series has been among the first to feature several camera innovations that have become modern staples, like night mode and telephoto cameras. With the Ultra, Huawei finally adopts a 1-inch type sensor, and it pairs it with a pop-out lens for the first time.
It’s no secret that Huawei is at a disadvantage, though. US sanctions mean that its devices don’t offer Google apps and services, and it’s very limited with its chip selection, too.
With an MSRP of €1499 in Europe, the Pura 70 Ultra carries a seriously premium price tag, can it possibly be worthwhile? I wanted to know, and after living with it as my main device for over a week, here’s what I found out.
Design
- 162.6 x 75.1 x 8.4 mm, 226g
- Crystal Armor Kunlun glass, faux leather back
- Black, White, Brown and Green options
The Pura 70 Ultra reminds me of a designer handbag. It has a faux leather rear with an embossed pattern across it and a shiny metallic frame. It’s eye-catching, but it manages to remain tasteful, too.
The cameras are arranged in a triangular shape, that also happens to look like the letter P. The main camera retracts when it’s not in use, and mechanically pops out by a few millimetres every time you open the camera app, accompanied by a satisfying whirr sound.
Huawei says this design is mainly to keep the size of the camera bump in check, while still offering a large sensor with a variable aperture. I’m sure it helps a little, but this is quite a chunky phone to begin with, and I’m not sure it makes a significant difference. It’s undeniably cool, at least.
Overall, it’s a pretty large and heavy phone, but it’s very comfortable to hold, with smooth curves on all sides and the soft feeling of the leather-effect rear panel. It’s also IP68 rated, despite having moving parts, so it should be well-equipped to handle the elements.
I was sent the green model for testing, which has golden accents throughout, and I think it looks lovely. The brown, black and white models all look excellent in their own right, too. Each model comes with a matching case in the box, also finished in vegan leather. These cases have a repeating pattern on them, with a bit of a Louis Vuitton vibe. Again adding to that designer aesthetic.
Around the front, the display is protected by Huawei’s Crystal Armor Kunlun glass. Supposedly, it’s 300% more scratch-resistant than the first generation of Kunlun glass. All I know for sure is that my display still looks pristine, despite over a week of heavy use with no screen protector.
Screen
- 6.8-inch 120Hz LTPO OLED
- 1260 x 2844 pixels
- 2500 nits peak brightness
The display measures 6.8 inches diagonally and it’s exceptionally bright. Huawei is only claiming 2500 nits at peak, but it boosts to compete with direct sunlight just as well as the Honor Magic 6 Pro, which claims 5000 nits. Confusing numbers aside, you’re never going to have trouble seeing it, it always looks excellent.
It’s an LTPO panel, which means it can dynamically adjust from as low as 1Hz, up to 120Hz depending on what you’re doing. Swiping around the OS and playing games looks super smooth, and the battery shouldn’t suffer too much in the process.
The screen is essentially flat, but the glass curves at the edges on all sides. This means it’s free from distracting reflections and you’re unlikely to accidentally tap anything, but you still get a nice smooth feeling as you swipe from the edges for gesture control. It’s a great middle-ground and it’s a pleasure to use.
The Pura 70 Ultra supports HDR playback, and it looks excellent on YouTube, but my sample lacked the correct DRM certification to playback HDR content on Netflix. Hopefully, this is just a pre-release software issue that will soon be resolved, but it’s something to watch out for.
There’s some customisation available if you like to tweak the colour rendition of your display, but it’s a little less comprehensive than I’ve experienced with competing brands. There are two main profiles, Standard and Vivid, and you can adjust the temperature of each. There’s also a colour wheel if the preset options aren’t doing it for you.
Cameras
- 50MP f/1.6-f/4 main camera (1-inch sensor)
- 40MP f/2.2 ultrawide
- 50MP f/2.1 3.5x telephoto
- 13MP ultrawide selfie camera
The cameras are the most attractive feature of the Pura 70 Ultra, the hardware is top-notch and Huawei’s excellent image processing brings out the best in your photos.
The most exciting camera, as usual, is the primary shooter. This has a 1-inch type sensor, a mechanical aperture that can switch from f/1.6-f/4.0 and, of course, that fancy retractable lens. Huawei hasn’t mentioned exactly which sensor it is using, but the specs are very similar to the Sony LYT-900 on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, albeit with sensor-shift stabilisation, rather than lens-based OIS. A customised version, perhaps?
This is joined by a 3.5x telephoto and 13mm-equivalent ultrawide lens. Every camera captures lots of detail, and the colours match across the board, always looking natural and realistic. The dynamic range is among the best in the business, and the artificial bokeh effect in portrait mode is one of the most impressive I have come across, too.
The main lens captures the best quality images, but the telephoto is not far behind. In either case, you can get some authentic bokeh when capturing close-ups, thanks to the large sensor sizes, and they’re great at low-light capture, too.
The ultrawide is the weakest camera, but it’s still very good. It just can’t quite capture the same amount of detail, and if you zoom in and examine the images, you’re sure to notice some mushiness and soft areas. Still, that’s the case with almost every ultrawide camera, and this one is just as useful to have as the rest.
The telephoto tends to deliver images with a slight haziness to them. They look a bit like photos taken with a Black Pro-Mist filter, with bloomy highlights and softened skin. Personally, I quite like it, it looks a lot more natural than the oversharpened images that you get from the S24 Ultra’s telephoto. That’s all a matter of personal preference, though.
The selfie camera is only 13MP, but it looks excellent. It has an exceptionally wide FOV, but you can choose to crop into more standard focal lengths, too. This means it’s great for group selfies or showing off your surroundings, and the fact that it has autofocus makes it even better.
The most unique thing about this camera system is the way it can capture fast-moving subjects, at least on the main and telephoto cameras. Using snapshot mode, the phone will simultaneously capture a long exposure and a quick exposure, then combine them together using some AI magic. What you end up with is a crystal clear shot with frozen motion and a perfect exposure.
For video shooting, you can capture at up to 4K 60fps on every camera, and up to 1080p 960fps for slow motion on the main camera. Stabilisation looks great in all lighting conditions and it transitions smoothly between cameras while recording.
Performance
- Kirin 9010
- 16GB RAM, 512GB storage
- Dual stereo speakers
You might have gathered that I’m quite fond of the Pura 70 Ultra so far, but unfortunately, the performance complicates things a little. Huawei is using its own Kirin 9010 processor, a 7nm chip fabricated by China’s SMIC. US sanctions mean that the brand can’t just slap a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in there as you’ll find in most 2024 flagship phones.
Our benchmark scores show that the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is indeed quite a few steps behind the competition. However, in daily use, you’d have a hard time telling. Huawei’s software is so well optimised that navigating the OS feels lightning-quick, apps open quickly, and scrolling is super smooth.
The main difference I noticed is that image processing takes significantly longer than it does on other devices. When you open up the gallery to see the photo you just took, it usually looks quite poor, then after a second or two, the processing catches up and you have an impressive image. It’s kind of nice, being able to see the before and after, but I suspect it’s mostly due to the processor struggling to keep up.
I also noticed that the phone gets pretty hot when you’re taking lots of photos and videos, again, this might be because you’re asking a lot of this slightly underpowered chip.
When it comes to gaming, things aren’t too impressive. I installed my usual yardstick, the notoriously demanding Genshin Impact, and found that I had to stick to the low preset to enjoy a smooth 60fps experience. After 15 minutes or so of playing, the phone got uncomfortably warm, too.
Of course, if you want to play less graphically intense games, like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans or Hearthstone, then the Pura 70 Ultra will do just fine, but the same could be said of even the most affordable budget handsets.
The phone has dual stereo speakers and they sound decent, with a bit of weight to the low-end, but if you’re looking for earth-shattering volumes they might not quite satisfy. I’d say they’re above average, but you’ll want to use earbuds or a speaker for the optimum listening experience.
Software
- EMUI 14.2 based on Android 14
- iOS-inspired features
- Eye-tacking themes and AI gesture control
The Pura 70 Ultra runs EMUI 14.2, a heavily skinned version of Android 14 with lots of iOS influence. If you’ve used a recent Huawei or Honor device, you’ll know what to expect. The notifications and quick settings shade are separated and accessed with swipes from different sides of the screen, just like an iPhone, and the app drawer is disabled by default, too.
You can customise most things to your liking, but there will always be a few things to adapt to. There’s a lot that I like about EMUI; it’s fast, looks good, is highly customisable and works like a dream with Huawei’s other products.
However, there’s one absolutely gigantic downside, and that’s the fact that Google apps and services are not supported. My online life is highly intertwined with Google’s products, so there’s no way I could switch to this as my main phone without getting them working.
Thankfully, the MicroG Project can get them all running nearly as well as on any other device (I followed this tutorial, if you’re curious). After getting it set up, there were many times that I could completely forget that Google’s apps weren’t native, but a few oddities made it less than seamless. For example, Chromecasting just didn’t seem to work, and I never got notifications when my favourite channels uploaded on YouTube.
Google-related annoyances aside, there are some cool features here that I haven’t seen on other phones. My personal favourite is the eye-tracking animated lock screen. If you choose a supported theme, and look at the lock screen, the animation will react when you look at the top or bottom of the display. One theme has some characters playing tennis, while others just bounce characters around the display as your eyes move. It’s completely pointless but really fun.
The OS comes with an unfortunate amount of bloat, especially when you consider the premium price of this handset. A lot of the apps are Huawei’s own alternative to popular Google apps, which is perfectly understandable, but there’s also a bunch of random junk, like a folder full of games, Snapchat, Trip, Alibaba, Booking.com and more. You can clean it up easily enough, but it’s far from ideal.
Battery life
- 5200mAh battery
- 100W wired charging
- 80W wireless charging
The battery has a 5200mAh capacity and it’s a standard LiPo pack, there’s none of that fancy silicon-carbon stuff that we saw with the Honor Magic 6 Pro. Still, it’s a larger capacity than most of its rivals, and this results in an impressive runtime.
The battery easily saw me through the day, and I often went to bed with 40% remaining, even during heavy use. If used sparingly, you might be able to squeeze two days out of a charge.
Not that battery life is a huge concern on this device, with such fast charging speeds, topping it up is no hassle at all. You can charge at 100W speeds with the included wall adapter, and that’s enough to go from flat to full in less than an hour. Meanwhile, a 50% charge takes under 25 minutes.
With a compatible wireless charger, you can charge almost as fast without needing to plug in. Most wireless chargers don’t support such speeds, but I was pleased to learn that Honor’s 100W SuperCharge stand will deliver the full 80W. It’s super convenient to just drop the phone onto it and it’ll be fully charged in a flash.
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Should you buy it?
You want one of the best camera systems around
The Pura 70 Ultra is in hot contention for the best camera system of 2024, and given that the competition is so fierce, that’s really saying something.
You’re a keen gamer
The Kirin 9010 SoC is perfectly capable for day-to-day use, but you’ll really feel the lack of power when you boot up a graphically intensive title.
Final Thoughts
The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is a very interesting phone. For the most part, I’ve loved using it. The cameras are exceptional, the display is gorgeous and the design is second to none.
However, the older processor architecture, and the sheer amount of hassle required to get Google service working make this phone a tough sell for Western customers. Especially when you consider the price. At €1499, it’s one of the priciest flagships around.
If you genuinely only care about camera performance, then it’s still worth considering. The cameras really are that good. However, most people would be better off opting for a phone like the Honor Magic 6 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, both of which combine excellent camera systems with speedy performance and full Google support.
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as a main phone for over a week
Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
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FAQs
Yes, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is IP68 rated, which means it can withstand being dunked in fresh water at depths of up to 1.5 metres for 30 minutes without damage.
Huawei promises two years of EMUI updates and a third year of security patches.
Google’s apps are not officially supported and you won’t find them in Huawei’s app store, but you can get them running using workarounds like GBox and MicroG.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
