When it comes to flagship smartphones, expectations are always high, and the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is no exception. This latest model aims to impress with its sleek design, superior camera abilities, and superb fast charging experience. As the successor of the famous P series, the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra wants to be an aspirational device that fuses cutting-edge photography technology with a distinctive aesthetic, appealing to both tech enthusiasts and fashion-conscious users. In this review, I explore its build quality, hardware specifications, camera and software experience, as well as its real-world performance. Let's see how it handles everyday use and whether it justifies its flagship status:

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra: Who is it good for?

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is a good choice for:

• Users who are already invested in the HUAWEI ecosystem
• People who want a stylish smartphone
• Photography enthusiasts
• Those who want a large phone with solid battery life
• Technically inclined users who are OK with installing and updating apps from sources other than Google’s Play Store

Pros and cons

The best things about the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra are:

• Beautiful design and solid build quality
• Superb picture-taking capabilities with versatile zoom functions
• Good battery life and excellent fast charging, both wired and wireless
• Good quality display
• Generous bundle of accessories included in the retail price

As for downsides:

• Mid-range chipset performance at a premium price
• Lacking 5G connectivity
• It’s easier to get access to Google apps, but updating them is a tedious process
• The video recording experience is not as refined as the picture-taking one

Verdict

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is an intriguing blend of innovation, elegant design, and nostalgia. Its superb camera capabilities, particularly in macro photography and versatile zoom functions, make it stand out. Design-wise, it feels premium with its eco-leather back and robust build, though its weight and top-heavy design might be a drawback for users with smaller hands. On the hardware front, the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is somewhat of a blast from the past. The older Kirin 9010 chipset struggles to keep up with contemporary flagship processors, impacting mobile gaming performance and limiting users to 4G mobile connectivity. Despite this shortcoming, the device excels in battery life and boasts impressive charging speeds, including wireless charging. The software experience is another mixed bag. While access to Google’s apps and services has improved significantly, updating apps remains inconvenient, and the EMUI 14.2 platform lacks the polish and new features found in competing platforms. In conclusion, the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra excels in camera innovation, design, and battery life but falls short in raw performance and software convenience. It’s an excellent choice for photography enthusiasts and those who value battery longevity, but power users and gamers will find its performance underwhelming.

Unboxing the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra’s packaging is very stylish, as you would expect from a premium device. On the top cover, you see only the product name printed in an elegant font.

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra comes in a beautiful white cardboard box

When you remove the cover, you see another white box with more branding for the glass used on this smartphone, its app store, and the company manufacturing it. On the sides, you’ll also find some stickers with information about the serial number of the smartphone you’ve bought, where it was manufactured, and a few details about its hardware configuration.

Unboxing the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra

When you unbox everything, you find the usual leaflets (the warranty card and quick start guide) alongside these items: the phone, its fast charger, a USB C cable, the SIM ejection tool, and a monogrammed case.

Here's what you find inside the box, alongside the usual leaflets

Unboxing the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is a delightful experience that makes you feel like you've just purchased a high-end device. Inside the box, you'll find all the necessary information and tools to get your phone up and running immediately. The only thing you need to do before transferring all your data and apps is to charge your smartphone.

Design and build quality

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is a large 6.8-inch smartphone with rounded edges and a huge camera island on the back, which makes it look rather futuristic. Its size is 162.6 x 75.1 x 8.4 mm or 6.4 x 2.95 x 0.33 inches in height x width x depth. The phone is quite heavy, at 226 grams or 7,97 oz. As you can see below, it is available in four colors: green, brown, white, and black. However, some markets don’t get all the color versions.

The color options for HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra

I received the green version for testing, which looks great. The back is made from eco-leather, which offers excellent grip when holding the phone. The HUAWEI logo is printed on the back, as is the XMAGE branding on the large camera island.

Here's how the green version looks

The Pura 70 Ultra's right side features the Volume rocker and the Power button, alongside two antenna stripes.

The buttons are found on the right margin

On the top side of the Pura 70 Ultra, you’ll find two antenna stripes, an infrared blaster, and a microphone.

The top side of the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra has an IR blaster

You can find two more antenna stripes on the left side of the smartphone. The frame is made of polished aluminum and is slightly curved.

The left margin of the phone

The bottom of the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra contains a speaker, another two antenna stripes, a USB-C port, a microphone, and a SIM tray.

The SIM tray is on the bottom margin

Under the display, there’s the fingerprint scanner and the top speaker. On the upper side, there’s also a selfie hole. The screen is protected by Crystal Armor Kunlun Glass with a 2.5D edge, exclusive to the Ultra model. The company brags about being 300% stronger than the Kunlun Glass protecting the HUAWEI Pura 70 Pro and Pura 70 displays. This new type of glass is made of a highly transparent amorphous diamond carbon material, and promises improved scratch and drop resistance compared to its predecessor.

The screen is protected by Crystal Armor Kunlun Glass

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra looks and feels like a durable phone and also has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.

Hardware specifications

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra specs are a unique mix of both older and the latest hardware. Regarding the display, this smartphone spoils its users with a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen featuring a resolution of 1260 x 2844 pixels and a refresh rate that can be dynamically adjusted between 1 and 120 Hz. The maximum brightness is 2500 nits, and the pixel density is 460 ppi.

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra features a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display

Unfortunately, the chipset powering the Pura 70 Ultra is HUAWEI’s own Kirin 9010, an older chipset manufactured using a 7-nanometer process. The chipset is complemented by 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB or 1 TB of storage, depending on which version you buy.

Kirin 9010 is powering the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra

The cameras are an area where the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra stands out due to the inclusion of the following lenses:

• A main wide camera with a 1” Sony IMX989 sensor featuring 50 Megapixels and an f/1.6-4.0 aperture
• A 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and an f/2.1 aperture
• A 40-megapixel ultrawide camera with an f/2.2 aperture.

On the front, we get a 13-megapixel ultrawide selfie camera with an aperture of f/2.4, optical image stabilization, gyro-electronic image stabilization, HDR, and 4K video recording.

The camera system is impressive

This smartphone is very competitive in the battery area: The HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra features a 5200 mAh lithium-polymer battery that can be charged at 100 Watts with the included fast charger or wirelessly at a maximum of 80 Watts using HUAWEI’s proprietary wireless chargers.

Connectivity-wise, this smartphone is generally well equipped: it offers NFC, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, and Wi-Fi 6. Still, it is a flagship product, so getting Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 would have been better.

The connectivity options are pretty good

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is a dual-SIM smartphone with 4G connectivity. 5G is available in China, but it is not enabled in international markets. Another aspect worth considering is that it doesn’t have a microSD card slot.

HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra feature dual-SIM but not a microSD card slot

Hardware-wise, the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra is bound to raise some eyebrows, especially from its target audience: individuals seeking a premium smartphone with outstanding cameras and high-performance hardware. For more technical information, check out its product page: HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra.

It’s time to see how the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra performs in real life. On the next page, you can find details about the experience of using this smartphone, what its cameras can do, and what the benchmarks have to say about the HUAWEI Pura 70 Ultra.