Huawei Pura 70 Ultra – A great camera smartphone with some gaps in its features

The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is the top-of-the-range model within the first Pura series, which consists of a total of four smartphones and is a continuation of the former P series. It has a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display with a high pixel density and a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. During our test, it even exceeded the specified maximum brightness of 2,500 nits.

The Pura 70 Ultra is powered by the Kirin 9010 with 16 GB RAM. Thanks to its 12-core architecture, the CPU shows great performance ensuring smooth system navigation—but in contrast, its graphics unit is comparatively slow and doesn't support the latest graphics features such as ray tracing or Vulkan 1.3. In addition, its AI calculations fall behind compared to modern top-of-the-range chipsets. 

The real highlight of the Huawei smartphone is its triple camera on the back, whose main sensor is 1 inch in size and works with a retractable lens, variable aperture and modern image stabilization. This is complemented by a high-resolution ultra-wide-angle lens and a telephoto macro lens that allows 3.5x optical magnification. Although the cameras aren't without their flaws, they are certainly one of the best setups ever inside a smartphone.

The 5,200 mAh battery also delivers great performance. Not only were its long runtimes impressive during our test, but its fast charging options are just as good. Wired charging at up to 100 watts and wireless charging at 80 watts is possible. The Pura 70 Ultra also allows reverse charging at 20 watts.

Due to the trade restrictions imposed on the Huawei Group by the USA, Google services and associated apps have not been pre-installed on its smartphones for years. This can now be largely circumvented using microG (see instructions), but you'll still have to go without Google Pay and Wallet. This restriction also applies to 5G, which is therefore only available for the Chinese market. We don't know whether this also applies to the missing Wi-Fi 7, as this isn't integrated into the Chinese models—nor is 6 GHz Wi-Fi. And when it comes to its update supply, Huawei has only focussed on the domestic market and has made this period very short, which is also a big minus in terms of sustainability.

Despite all the negatives, Huawei has still succeeded in creating a really good smartphone with its Pura 70 Ultra.