The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra will out-camera any phone in existence today, but…
The engineering marvel that’s more digital camera than phone
By Zachary Chan -
I walked the streets of Bangkok to try out Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone, the Pura 80 Ultra, during a glitzy APAC launch event at the end of July. The phone features one of the most ambitious camera system implementations I have seen, on paper. It has a 50 MP 1-inch Ultra Lighting HDR main camera with physical variable aperture of F1.6~F4.0, dual-pixel PDAF and OIS, the world’s first Switchable Dual Telephoto Camera, two physical lenses offering 3.7x and 9.4x optical zoom ranges on a single 50MP 1/1.28-inch sensor, and a 40MP Ultra-wide angle camera. It was time to see if it lived up to the hype.
I have always been impressed with Huawei’s camera innovations since the Mate 20 Pro and P30 Pro days. They’ve managed to continually introduce innovation into mobile sensors that elevated their phones above the rest. And while most brands have leaned heavily on AI and vision computing to enhance image quality today, Huawei is still focused on evolving the smartphone.
Of course, the unfortunate issue with sanctions issue with US sanctions have crippled Huawei’s effort into developing mobile chipsets, limiting 5G, and closing the doors to GMS. Over the years, Huawei has continued to build their own ecosystem, with the culmination of a completely Android-free OS, HarmonyOS Next.
Now, the caveat here is that HarmonyOS only works in China, in all its glory, complete with AI and functionality that international versions do not support. My global version of the Pura 80 Ultra for example, continues to run on the Huawei’s own last-generation Android-powered EMUI OS. Compared to HarmonyOS, EMUI is pretty barebones.
So, is the camera system on the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra enough to justify dropping S$1,898 for it?
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