In this camera review we take a look at the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: the Chinese manufacturer’s absolute masterpiece. What kind of shots do you take with this device?
Read more after the announcement.
Huawei Bora 70 camera review
In the battle for the best smartphone camera, there are a number of major players. Google has the Pixel 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Huawei is also making its contribution through the Pura 70 Ultra, its latest flagship phone. This will soon be available in Dutch stores.
Given Huawei’s known limitations, it’s difficult to recommend a phone from the Chinese manufacturer. For example, you will not find any Google services on it, which is annoying, of course. Especially if this phone, like this Bora, costs 1,499 euros. Yet we were there Planet robot I’m very curious about the shots you take with this device. This is the camera review of the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra!
Devices
There are three lenses on the beautifully shaped camera island. The 50-megapixel main camera has a large 1-inch sensor. You can take wider shots with the 40MP wide-angle lens. What’s special is that with these cameras you can take relatively large photos with a resolution of about 25 megapixels as standard. The 50MP telephoto lens broadcasts 12MP images. This zooms the image up to 3.5x without losing quality, but you can also zoom it in a lot.
The Kirin 9010 chip that Huawei uses is much slower than the Snapdragons we find in many other smartphones. We noticed that the Pura 70 Ultra sometimes needed about five seconds after taking photos to give the image the correct post-processing. Removing objects using AI also takes a lot of time. However, this function works better than the Samsung S24 Ultra and Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Can you see the three differences between the shots below?
Main camera
The main camera on the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is almost identical in terms of specifications to that of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. This means that in addition to the 1-inch sensor, you’ll get a variable aperture lens. You can choose from a number of steps between f/1.6 and f/4.0. The lower this number, the more light the lens lets in and the blurrier the background becomes. You can also let the smartphone choose automatically, of course.
It’s an advanced piece of technology and at Xiaomi this creates a huge camera island. Huawei uses a clever trick to keep the island a little smaller: a foldable lens. When you’re not using it, it stays in the housing. If you open the camera app, it will slide out a little and you can take a photo. This happens very quickly and almost silently.
We already wrote it in our review of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra: this is a great camera. The photos you take during the day look like a “real” camera instead of a smartphone. It is very sharp and provides excellent contrast and beautiful colours. The camera also holds its own in the evening, although Huawei seems to make shadows a little lighter than Xiaomi.
Wide angle lens
On the other hand, Huawei’s wide-angle lens is clearly better. Although the corners are not as sharp as the center of the images, the difference is smaller than on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. In terms of appearance, it is barely inferior to the main camera shots.
During the day then. In the evening, the difference is much greater. You’ll also notice this during the shooting itself, because this lens takes much longer to capture a night photo than the main camera. Moreover, the results are modest at best.
Telephoto lens
Perhaps the most interesting camera is the telephoto lens. This zooms the image by 3.5x without losing quality, but in the app you’ll also find the option to zoom in 10x (partially digital). This is no trick, because these photos still look excellent.
After that, the quality drops very quickly. When you zoom in 30 times, you see that all sorts of digital tricks are being used to create a fairly sharp image on your screen.
This effect is stronger in the evening. If you choose 10x zoom after sunset, you will actually see watercolor drawings. It’s really cool that you can use the telephoto lens as a macro camera. Focuses from just five centimeters away, allowing you to get very close to flowers or insects. This works much better than a separate lower resolution macro camera.
Huawei Pura 70 Ultra camera review conclusion
The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is playing in the Champions League of camera smartphones. The main camera is among the best you can get. Furthermore, the difference in quality between a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens, at least during the day, is fairly limited. With a single telephoto lens, you can zoom in a little before you start losing detail. It is also a good macro camera.
In the evening, the main camera stands upside down above the other two cameras. The ability to scan objects using AI works better than many competitors, but thanks to the relatively slow processor, you sometimes need to be patient while taking photos.
