First impressions matter amid a sea of similar-looking smartphones, and a distinctive look is important to stand out, especially when hardware differences remain minimal across the board. The Huawei Pura series has built its identity around a triangular camera bump on its rear, and its latest entry is turning the flair up a notch.
It’s impossible to miss the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max in plain sight. Of its three finishes, the Orange Ocean hero shade is the most striking, featuring a dual-toned gradient that bleeds neatly into the aluminium side frame and changes subtly when light hits the rear panel at different angles. At 230.5g and 164mm by 8.1mm, it can be a little big for smaller hands, but the rounded edges and even weight distribution ensure a comfortable grip.
The 6.9-inch AMOLED display is also marginally larger than that of the Pura 80 Ultra, which measures 6.8 inches, armed with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,380 pixels, an adaptive refresh rate of 1 to 120Hz, and an anti-reflective coating – ideal for viewing content in bright, sunny Singapore. Since the screen is no longer curved, misclicks or accidental brushes hardly occur, if at all, and visuals are as crisp and bright as one would expect.
Under the hood, the Pura 90s Pro Max is powered by the Chinese company’s own Kirin 9030S chipset, an upgrade from the Kirin 9020, and boasts 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Day-to-day tasks run smoothly, and there’s little to fault about its gaming performance.
Imaging has always been the crown jewel of Huawei devices, and it’s no different here. Alongside a 50MP (megapixel) main shooter and a 40MP ultrawide camera, the triple rear camera array now includes an all-new 200MP telephoto option with optical image stabilisation and up to 4x optical zoom. While shutterbugs may lament the omission of the dual-lens periscope camera on the Pura 80 Ultra that afforded more versatility, as well as the one-inch sensor on the previous 50MP wide camera, the differences will be negligible for the average user.
As it stands, the point-and-shoot experience continues to impress. The main camera, equipped with a large, 1/1.28-inch sensor, has a strong grasp on colour science and delivers sharp detail and natural colours across different lighting conditions – despite noticeable flare in darker environments, such as the aquarium. Noise, to much delight, is kept to a minimum.
It’s also fast and handles dynamic range well, with the transition to zoom lengths proving seamless. As mentioned earlier, the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max technically tops out at 4x optical zoom, but users can actually go up to around 10x before the artificial intelligence (AI) tech takes over. A snapshot of a colourful wall painting at 1x, 4x, and 10x zoom showed clean lines and great clarity, even when magnified in Gallery afterwards.
Close-up portraits are by far the most capable. Balanced exposure, natural-looking bokeh, and accurate edge detection remained consistent across the board, with quality only taking a hit when capturing motion in low-light conditions.
Check out the remaining sample pictures below, right out of the phone with no edits:
The hardware engineering is complemented by a suite of AI-powered photography and editing tools, starting with Intelligent Composition 3.0 and AI Pose. Serving as a real-time framing assistant, Intelligent Composition 3.0 analyses the viewfinder, auto-adjusts framing, and straightens tilted angles, while the latter gives recommendations on body stances by overlaying interactive silhouettes onto the camera screen. For those with unsteady hands, Huawei’s anti-shake capabilities help minimise jitter when stationary and walking.
At S$1,498, the Pura 90s Pro Max is fairly reasonably priced for a camera phone of its calibre. The slight specs downgrade isn’t ideal for more seasoned photographers, but its imaging prowess, software enhancements, and zoom capabilities make it easy to capture memories while travelling and on a day-to-day basis. Based solely on camera performance, the handset certainly ranks high on the recommendation list, and the pocket-sized convenience only adds to its appeal.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Kevin Low
