The Huawei Pura 70 series has launched in China and this is their new successor to the long-3-running P-series. Their latest top-of-the-line flagship is the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra which succeeds last year’s Huawei P60 Pro. As you would expect from a photography-centric flagship smartphone, the main camera is its main focus and this time the Pura 70 Ultra comes with a rather interesting retractable lens which pops up when you need to take a shot.
Unlike the previous Huawei P60 Pro, the Pura 70 Ultra gets a vegan leather back design across the board which comes in four different colours. What stands out immediately is its camera bump design which gets a triangular island to house a triple-camera setup and an additional protruding layer to house its LED flash and Huawei’s XMAGE label.
When the camera is not used, the main lens will retract and lay flush with the rest of the main camera bump. It only pops up when you launch the camera app. Similar to the previous pop-up cameras about 5 years ago, the lens will also auto3matically retract itself if it a fall is detected to reduce possible damage to the lens. This whole edgy triangle camera bump design on the Pura 70 series looks more fitting for a gaming smartphone rather than a mainstream flagship smartphone.
Over at the front, it still gets a rather curved display with a 6.8″ OLED LTPO panel that pushes a Full HD+ resolution of 2844×1260 pixels. It has an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120Hz, a 1440Hz PWN dimming for greater eye comfort and up to 2500 nits of brightness.
The Pura 70 Ultra features a newer Kunlun tempered glass which better protects the front display from accidental drops and scratches. Huawei claims the new Kunlun glass boasts up to 100% improved drop resistance and up to 300% improved scratch resistance.
Similar to the Mate 60 Pro, Huawei is tight-lipped about the processor powering the Ultra 70 Pro. You won’t find any mention of the processor and supported mobile bands on its product pages.
However, indications have revealed that it runs on the same Kirin 9000s CPU and it also has 5G capability in China. The processor is mated to 16GB of RAM and the device comes with either 512GB or 1TB of internal storage.
After refraining from adopting a 1-inch sensor on last year’s flagship, the Chinese smartphone maker has finally made the leap this year with a 50MP 1-inch sensor for the main camera mated to a variable aperture that can switch from f/1.6 to f/4.0. It also gets a 40MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera and a 50MP f/2.1 super-macro telephoto camera.
The main sensor gets a sensor-shift anti-shake stabilisation while the telephoto camera has optical image stabilisation. The telephoto provides up to 3.5x optical zoom and it can pushed to 100x digital zoom. For video, the device supports 4K video and 960fps slow-mo recording at 1080p. For selfies, the front gets a 13MP f/2.4 ultra-wide-angle auto-focus camera that can also record 4K videos.
The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra's main camera lens will pop up when in use. The main camera uses a 1-inch sensor with variable aperture. Huawei claims that it can capture ultra-high-speed moving objects with minimal blur. #huawei #huaweipura70 #huawepura70ultra https://t.co/VvP97uHFyj pic.twitter.com/63z3JSBCK1
— SoyaCincau (@Soya_Cincau) April 18, 2024
With the new improvements, Huawei claims that the Pura 70 Ultra is now capable of capturing ultra-fast-moving objects with minimal motion blur. To put it to the test, it showcased the phone’s ability to capture sharp images of a McLaren 750s speeding down a track at 300km/h.
In addition, the Pura 70 Ultra also features a “microscope” macro camera which lets you get up close up to 35x. Unlike Oppo’s microlens on the Find X3 Pro, you must hold the Pura 70 Ultra 5cm away from the subject to view fine details of anything from currency, cloth fibres, minerals, rare stores or even charcoal.
Powering the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is a 5,200mAh battery which supports 100W fast wired charging and 80W fast wireless charging. If you need to charge other devices without cables, it also supports 20W fast reverse wireless charging which is probably the fastest in the industry at the moment.
Similar to previous Huawei flagships, it also supports satellite communication via China’s Beidou satellites. The feature enables users in China to send images and text messages outside of 4G and 5G coverage areas.
Huawei Pura 70 Ultra Pricing and Availability
At the moment, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is only sold in China and here’s the official pricing:
- 16GB+512GB – CNY9,999 (about RM6,602)
- 16GB+1TB – CNY10,999 (about RM7,262)
So far no details yet on international availability. Since Malaysia is a key international market for Huawei, we reckon that we should be among the first, if not the first country outside of China to get it.