Huawei’s New Phones For Photographers

credits: Huawei

While Huawei is not the name it once was in Western markets, it remains one of the biggest smartphone brands in China and continues to put a strong emphasis on mobile photography. The company is now expanding its latest photography-focused flagship phones internationally, bringing the Pura 90s Pro Max and Pura 90s Pro to Europe. Interestingly, the phones are sold simply as the Pura 90 Pro Max and Pura 90 Pro in China, with Huawei adding the “s” only to the global versions, although it has not explained what the letter stands for.

The biggest highlight is the Pura 90s Pro Max, which has a 200MP telephoto camera built around a large 1/1.28-inch RYYB sensor. That is roughly the size of the main sensors found in many flagship smartphones, but Huawei has paired it with an approximately 96mm-equivalent f/2.6 lens, offering around 4x optical zoom. The camera also supports 7-stop optical image stabilisation, a telephoto macro mode, and a new 20x ultra-telephoto video mode. Full-resolution 200MP photos can be captured at the native focal length, while normal shooting relies on pixel binning for improved low-light performance. Alongside the telephoto camera is a 50MP main sensor with LOFIC technology for improved dynamic range and a rare 10-step variable aperture that ranges from f/1.4 to f/4.0, plus a 40MP ultra-wide camera. Huawei has also included its second-generation True-to-Colour Camera 2.0, which is designed to improve colour accuracy, particularly under challenging mixed lighting. Another interesting addition is a composition assistant that tells you to move forward, backward, or sideways before taking a photo to improve your framing.

The Pura 90s Pro keeps the same 50MP main camera with its f/1.4-f/4.0 variable aperture, but replaces the 200MP telephoto with a 50MP f/2.1 telephoto macro camera and changes the 40MP ultra-wide for a 12.5MP version. Outside of the camera system, the Pro Max features a 6.9-inch LTPO OLED display with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 2880 × 1308 resolution, and weighs approximately 230.5g. The Pro gets a slightly smaller 6.6-inch LTPO OLED display, a 2760 × 1256 resolution, and weighs around 213.5g. While the Chinese models include 6,000mAh batteries, the European versions will ship with 5,200mAh cells to comply with EU regulations. Huawei has not yet announced pricing or confirmed exactly which European markets will receive the phones.