Huawei Pura 80 Ultra Announced With Switchable Telephoto Camera

Huawei has announced its new flagship Pura 80 smartphone range, complete with camera upgrades and some all-too-familiar caveats.

This year’s range is comprised of the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra and the Huawei Pura 80 Pro. The design of both builds on last year’s Huawei Pura 70 series, with a cleaner take on the distinctive triangular camera module around the back.

Or, to use Huawei’s terminology, a “dazzling Forward Symbol design”. The Ultra model risks gilding the lily by surrounding the camera lenses with a gold ring.

The use of second-generation ‘Crystal Armor Kunlun Glass’, meanwhile, promises a 16x improvement to scratch resistance and a 25x boost in drop protection.

Another big camera upgrade

The Pura series has always put its best photography foot forward, and the Pura 80 series continues that trend.

The Pro model features a large 1-inch ‘Ultra Lighting Camera’ designed for excellent low light performance, while the Pura 80 Ultra is said to boast an ‘Ultra Chroma Camera’ for precise colour reproduction and accurate night shots.

Perhaps most interesting of all, the Pura 80 Ultra introduces an innovative new ‘Switchable Dual Telephoto Camera’, which pairs a large sensor (apparently the industry’s largest) with both 3.7x and 10x focal lengths, which you can freely switch between. This is some of the most optical zoom we’ve seen on any smartphone, at least on paper.

What else does the Pura 80 series bring to the table?

Away from the camera, both Pura 80 phones add a new hardware control, which Huawei is labelling the ‘AI Smart Controls Button’. It’s another customisable button, used for speedy access to the camera, flashlight, or AI lens, though this one appears to implement a fingerprint sensor for added security instead of building it into the display.

Both phones pack a 5170mAh battery, which isn’t the biggest we’ve seen of late, but still counts as above average. 100W SuperCharge wired charging support is definitely one of the speedier provisions out there, as is 80W wireless charging.

However, that’s it for firm details on the Huawei Pura 80 series at present. The company has been pretty selective with its shared specs, failing to mention the processor used and not going into any detail on the software provision.

Based on previous models, it’ll continue to use Huawei’s own HarmonyOS software instead of Android. Some of the most popular apps in Europe and the US are available, but not all of them, while the software experience can be confusing, especially if some text is directly translated from Chinese to English.

The incomplete software experience remains the main reason not to buy a Huawei phone in the West – it’s quite different to Android 16.

Huawei didn’t even share price and availability information ahead of the launch. If you want a guide price, the Huawei Pura 70 Pro sold for €1,199 last year, while the Pura 70 Ultra sold for €1,499.

We’re hoping at least one of the phones makes it to the UK, but Huawei is banned from selling its devices in the US.

Will the Pura 80 Ultra be one of the best camera phones you can buy? Possibly, but the software issues will almost certainly prevent it from being one of the best phones overall.

Huawei

The persistent problem with Huawei phones

This lack of clarity speaks to some of the lingering and glaring issues with all Huawei phones. Thanks to ongoing Western sanctions, they don’t have access to the latest ARM-based processors, and they’re not allowed access to the Google Play Store.

As such, no matter how good the Pura 80 hardware turns out to be – and we suspect it’s going to be top tier – we can already state with some confidence that you shouldn’t buy one.

It remains to be seen how well the Pura 80 Pro and Pura 80 Ultra perform compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite flagship crowd, but we know for a fact that you won’t be able to run your favourite apps on it without jumping through a number of unsavoury hoops.

We’ll reserve final judgement until we’ve gone hands-on with the hardware, of course, but it’s hard to see how our conclusion will be any different: nice hardware, badly hamstrung software – do not buy. We’d be delighted if we were to be proved wrong.