Ultra-flagships, or premium flagships, are a growing category in the tech community. Almost every smartphone brand makes one or has plans to make one. Because of that, it can be hard to stand out in a sea of Ultra and Pro Max smartphones.
That doesn’t seem to be an issue for the Chinese brand, HUAWEI, as the company has long prided itself on releasing smartphones that buck whatever the norm is for smartphones and in some cases, they’ve even been the ones to create those trends.
Take for example the AI processing that’s found on every current smartphone. HUAWEI was the first one to include a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in their Kirin 970 processor, released in 2017. HUAWEI was also the first one to commercially release the world’s first tri-fold foldable with the Mate XT.
So, yes, if we’re only talking about innovation, HUAWEI has got that on lockdown. But how will their new HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max stack up to the current competition? And how does HUAWEI plan to take back the crown as the King of Imaging?
Here are the five biggest reasons why the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max aims to do just that.
A 200 MP Telephoto Camera That Changes How You Zoom
If you look at most of the Ultra-flagship phones in the market, you’ll see that most of them offer an optional imaging kit. These kits include a camera grip, some straps, and telephoto extenders that allow the phone to capture details at great distances.
However, not everyone wants to stick a 3 to 4-inch extender at the back of their phones or carry around additional lenses which kind of defeats the portability of a smartphone. That is why HUAWEI focused on making the smartphone itself achieve those feats without additional accessories.
We’ve already seen a preview of this when we got our hands on the Pura 80 Ultra but the company takes it a step further with the new HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max.
Why? Because behind the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max is a massive 200 MP 1/1.28-inch RYYB sensor with OIS and a dedicated imaging pipeline to preserve image quality even at longer focal lengths. The phone itself can optically zoom up to 4x.
Beyond 4x, the Hybrid lossless zoom handles the 10x and 20x zooms.
As you can see, the difference is clear. It may not be night and day but you can see how the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max preserves details at long distances without needing any additional extenders. Finally, you no longer need to drop thousands to sit at the front row, all you need is the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max and you’re good to go.
The 50 MP Ultra Lighting HDR camera is just as impressive as the telephoto camera. Aside from having a large sensor, the main camera has a trick up its sleeve that we’ve seen in last year’s Pura 80 Series, an adjustable physical aperture.
HUAWEI could have relied heavily on AI to capture portrait shots but then again, you wouldn’t have that creamy bokeh and the details in low-light conditions wouldn’t be as good.
True-to-Life Colors That Stay Faithful to Reality
What you see is what you get, that’s what HUAWEI wants users to see and feel when they look at the photos they take. After all, memories are much more enjoyable to relive when the photos look exactly as they did when they were taken.
With the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max, the shots remain faithful to reality, all thanks to the company’s 2nd Generation True-to-Color camera system. It makes the colors pop but not to the point that it looks overly saturated, just enough to bring out the best in the scenes. And if you take a lot of photos with people, the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max keeps the skin tones as natural as possible.
One issue that most phones, even expensive ones, struggle with is balancing exposure in high-contrast scenes.
Imagine this, you’re sitting on the beach, watching, as the sun sets, and you want to take a photo of your partner, just to immortalize this moment, but your phone keeps making you choose whether to capture the sunset at the cost of your partner fading into the dark or keeping your partner properly exposed but at the expense of the background being all blown-out, what would you choose?
HUAWEI managed to solve this issue with the help of the company’s XMAGE imaging system. Even if you’re a casual photographer at best, the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max gives you all the tools to turn you into an expert one.
AI That Helps Before and After You Press the Shutter
Half of those tools are hardware-based, while the other half are AI features baked into the camera and the photos app. Sure, you could do away with the AI, especially with such a top tier camera system but that means putting more time into tweaking settings and options that could be better spent savoring the moment.
One of those features is the new AI Composition 3.0, a more refined version of the feature we first saw on the HUAWEI Mate 80 Pro. But if this is your first time learning about this feature, the basic principle is this: half of the process of taking a photo is lining up the shot but what if you could bring out your photos to their full potential without being bogged down by photography concepts?
Easy, with the help of AI. Emphasis on the word “help”. Instead of doing the entire work for you, it assists you by offering framing suggestions, camera positioning, and recommended focal lengths to use based on the scene that the AI analyzed. In that way, you’re not only getting a great photo, you’ll also be learning the know-how.
That’s before taking the shot, after the shot also gets some love. Of course, you still get AI Remove and AI Best Expression which are pretty self-explanatory. Plus, some newcomers like AI De-Glare which removes those pesky reflections, making photos taken through windows or display cases easier to work with. Then there’s AI Move which allows you to re-arrange stuff if you’re getting OCD from the objects in your photo.
AI De-Glare:
AI Remove:
Beyond the Camera
We’ve covered everything that we can about the cameras but we haven’t even talked about the parts that make the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max a smartphone.
If you think that HUAWEI reserved all the big surprises for the cameras, well… you’d be wrong, because for the first time since 2020, the company now supports 5G connectivity in the HUAWEI Pura 90s Series.
Not only that, HUAWEI tweaked the 5G modem found in the Kirin 930S to make sure that the signal recovers quickly and that the phone browses smoother even in weak-signal environments.
And speaking of the Kirin 930S, while we haven’t gone over our usual suite of benchmarking tools, we made sure to run the most popular games just to give us an initial idea of how the new chipset performs. What we are sure about is that gaming and watching movies on the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max are quite enjoyable thanks to the 6.9-inch 120Hz LTPO OLED display.
It’s not bad per se but it is lagging a bit behind industry leaders. Of course, to make up for lost territory, HUAWEI is still hard at work improving their AppGallery which now features the entire Google Workspace suite and a lot more.
If you’re coming from the walled gardens of Apple and you’re seriously considering jumping ship, well, HUAWEI now makes it even easier to decide because of the Cross-OS Sharing feature which allows for seamless file transfers between HUAWEI phones and iOS devices. No need to install additional apps, just click share and voila!
Premium Design Meets Everyday Durability
If there’s ever a thing that you can always count on HUAWEI to do, it’s to always produce well built phones made from premium and durable materials. Both the front and back glass panels are protected by HUAWEI’s Kunlun Glass but the front has a new Anti-Reflective Scratch-Resistant coating that reduces glare by up to 70%.
Meanwhile, the back is made with a next-level armor hardness to keep it safe from scratches and accidental drops. Of course, you still have an IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance for the daily elements.
You could say that the battery is also durable because it could endure a whole day easily because of the 6000 mAh battery found underneath that pretty exterior. Charging it is also a breeze with the included 100W HUAWEI SuperCharge brick, plus it also supports 80W of wireless charging.
All that is wrapped in a gorgeous new color called Orange Ocean but you can also get it in other colors like: Blush Gold, Blaze Purple, and Graphite Black. All of which comes from what HUAWEI calls the “Rhythm of Color” concept.
It definitely gives the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max a distinct identity, especially with the dual-tone gradient extending from the back to the mid-frame which is never before seen in a smartphone. Usually, phone brands only limit their unique designs to the rear panel then use a mid-frame made from metal alloys.
Final Thoughts
So… Do you think the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max deserves the crown as the new King of Imaging?
From our vantage point, it does, but of course it still boils down to what you’re looking for in a smartphone. Our reason being the standout 200 MP telephoto camera gives telephoto extenders a run for their money. While the Ultra Lighting HDR Camera and 2nd Gen True-to-Color camera system produces balanced and realistic images.
Even AI helps to improve the experience exponentially. And finally, after the long wait, we finally have 5G connectivity along with some goodies like Cross-OS Sharing that makes the switch even more compelling.
What rounds it off is the unique and beautiful design that’s both stylish and durable thanks to the Kunlun Glass and IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating. With all of that plus a lot more that we have yet to uncover, the HUAWEI Pura 90s Pro Max makes a compelling case for the King of Imaging title.