Weekly poll: will you take a chance on one of the Huawei Pura 70 phones?

The Huawei Ascend P1 was introduced way back in 2012 and while the ‘Ascend’ was eventually dropped, the P-series remained a staple of the company’s high-end Android offerings. But now it’s entering a new era and is getting a new name – Pura.

The Huawei Pura 70 series was introduced this week with four models, though the differences between them are fairly small – except for the Ultra, which has a pretty unique design.

Let’s start with it, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. The phone is equipped with a 1” 50MP sensor, but Huawei has found a way to reduce camera bump chonkiness with a retractable lens. A motorized mechanism extends the lens when you want to take a photo and retracts it back when you’re done. Interestingly, this mechanism doesn’t interfere with the phone’s IP68 dust and water resistance – something that was a problem with pop-up camera designs. This camera also has a variable aperture, f/1.6 to f/4.0, and sensor-shift OIS.

Additionally, the ultra wide camera has a 40MP sensor and the battery is slightly larger at 5,200mAh. Like the two Pro models, it supports 100W wired and 80W wireless charging. Even the reverse charging on these phones is impressive, reaching 18W through the USB-C port and 20W wirelessly.

The Huawei Pura 70 Pro and Pura 70 Pro+ are pretty much the same phone. Both support BDS Satellite messaging, except the Pro+ also does voice calling over satellite. We doubt either will be available globally.

As for Pro vs. Ultra, the Pro models also have a 50MP main sensor, but it is smaller – relatively, as it’s still fairly large at 1/1.3”. It also has an f/1.4-4.0 variable aperture. The 50MP 90mm periscope of the Ultra is replaced by a 48MP 83mm unit and we already mentioned the ultra wide (12.5MP instead of 40MP). Finally, the battery has 5,050mAh capacity and supports the same 100W/80W charging and 18W/20W reverse charging.

This only leaves the baby of the family. We say that as the Huawei Pura 70 has a smaller 6.6” display, down from 6.8” on the other two. They are all flat, 120Hz LTPO OLED displays. Anyway, this one only has a 12MP sensor in the tele camera but with a longer 125mm lens. Also, the battery is reduced to 4,900mAh capacity and 66W/50W charging, 5W/7.5W reverse charging.

All Pura 70 phones are powered by the Kirin 9010 chip, a 7nm part with custom CPU cores, and run HarmonyOS 4.2 out of the box – Huawei has been moving away from Android and is looking to drop Android app support, at least domestically (it should stick around for international models).

Finally, let’s talk about the prices. The Huawei Pura 70 series is available only in China for now and ranges from CNY 5,500 (around €710) for the vanilla model to CNY 10,000 (€1,285) for the Ultra (actually, CNY 11,000 if you get the 16GB/1TB model).

Huawei hasn’t revealed plans for a global rollout, but it has been talking about how it wants to roll out HarmonyOS globally. We probably won’t see the full line (the Pro+ is almost certainly staying in China), but we do hope that the Ultra gets a wide release.

If and when the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra does go global, would you get one? It’s unlikely that Huawei will regain access to the Google Play Store, but the company has been working on developers to port over the 5,000 apps that a typical user spends 99% of their time on. And this has a solid claim of being the best camera phone of 2024 – a topic that will have to wait for reviews.

Next up, the Huawei Pura 70 Pro and Pro+. The cameras are not quite as capable as the Ultra, but it should still be one of the best around.

Finally, the Huawei Pura 70 – at almost half the price of the Ultra, this one still packs a punch. You’re not getting a 125mm lens on the vanilla Galaxy S or iPhone, no 66W/50W charging either. And yet it’s an entry into the new world that Huawei is building.