Huawei is finally making its latest flagships available globally. | Image by Huawei
The largest smartphone manufacturer in China, Huawei, announced its latest flagship devices back in mid-May, but the Huawei Pura 90 Pro and Pura 90 Pro Max were both intended for the local market only.
Exactly two months later, Huawei announces the global release of the two phones, which will carry the Huawei Pura 90s Pro and Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max names on the global market.
What's new, and what could make the latest Huawei devices appealing to the international shopper? Here's everything new with these two new flagships.
Price and release date
The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max and Pura 90s Pro launch August 1 and will carry the following prices:
Device version
Price in EUR
Pura 90s Pro Max 12GB/256GB
€1149
Pura 90s Pro Max 12GB/512GB
€1299
Pura 90s Pro 12GB/256GB
€899
Pura 90s Pro 12GB/512GB
€1049
Camera: Impressive!
As usual with any contemporary flagship phone, the camera is the most interesting aspect and it's the one area that has scored the most upgrades and improvements. That's true of the Pura 90s Pro and Pro Max as well.
Both devices carry the same 50MP main camera with a large 1/1.28-inch sensor with LOFIC technology for exceptional dynamic range and an adjustable F1.4-F4.0 aperture. The latter relies on a real physical shutter that automatically adjusts based on the lighting conditions around you, or you can play with it in Pro mode. In low light, the aperture opens fully, but if the lighting is good enough, the aperture would close down to maximize sharpness.
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All cameras of these two flagships rely on Huawei's own RYYB (red-yellow-yellow-blue) camera sensor instead of the RGGB (red-green-green-blue) or RGBW (red-green-blue-white) that phones traditionally rely on. This setup has been used for years on most Huawei flagships since the classic P30 series, with the main cited advantage being improved low-light sensitivity.
Moving onto the differences, the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is decidedly the better-outfitted device. It comes with a 200 MP F2.6 periscope camera with 4.0x optical zoom and a massive 1/1.28-inch sensor. The smaller-sized Pura 90s Pro also has a periscope with a 4x optical zoom but uses a smaller 50 MP sensor, which could limit the maximum digital zoom in comparison with the Pro Max model.
Huawei 90s Pro Max camera specs. | Image by Huawei
The trend continues with the ultrawide: the Pura 90s Pro has a 12.5 MP one, while the Pura 90s Pro Max doubles down with a 40 MP ultrawide camera. Thankfully, neither phone uses the ultrawide for macro shots. These two Huawei flagships use the periscope camera to capture macro photos (as they should!), but the smaller Pura 90s Pro has a significantly shorter focusing distance of just 5 cm.
Huawei 90s Pro camera specs. | Image by Huawei
Both phones also boast CIPA 7.0 image stabilization, meaning they can offset up to 7 stops of handshake and still deliver stable, jitter-free video. This matches the Vivo X300 Ultra in terms of stabilization prowess.
Design: Exemplar from top to bottom
The exterior of the two Huawei devices is also quite intriguing, and that's all due to the unique color combinations that the company has crafted. Instead of relying on a single or even a two-tone color combo, we get gradient-like finishes that truly set themselves apart.
The smaller flagship device is available in Guava Soda, which blends pastel green, yellow, and pink, Orange Soda, which depicts shades of orange and yellow, Coconut White, a white-and-subtle-pink combination, and finally, Mulberry Black, which is a uniform graphite color that steers away from the fun nature of the other color options.
The Huawei 90s Pro Max arrives in the more standard Graphite Black and Blush Gold, but the intriguing color options here are Orange Ocean, which aims to depict the colors of a sunset over the ocean, and Blaze Purple, which is best described as tropical dawn. All look very appealing, but the dual more unique combinations might not be for everyone.
Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max and Pura 90s Pro colors." | Images by Huawei
Both phones rely on the standard aluminum frame sandwiched between glass at the back and front. The displays of the Pura 90s Pro and Pura 90s Pro Max are completely flat and protected by Huawei's own scratch-resistant Kunlun Glass. There's a rather imposing triangular camera island at the rear, but it's understandable considering the amount of impressive hardware those cameras pack up.
Both phones are simultaneously rated IP68 and IP69 for up to two meters in freshwater, which is standard for most flagship devices hailing from China, but the tougher IP69 certification still eludes the average Western flagship phone.
Hardware
The Huawei Pura 90s Pro arrives with a very sensible 6.6-inch screen with a 2760x1256-pixel resolution and a smooth refresh rate that switches between 1 and 120Hz. As its name suggests, the Huawei 90s Pro Max is the larger phone and it comes with a 6.9-inch OLED display at the front with a slightly higher 2880x1308 resolution.
The screen of the Pura 90s Pro Max also features improved anti-reflectivity and scratch-resistance in comparison with the Pura 90s Pro.
Powering both phones is, of course, Huawei's in-house Kirin line of chips, in particular the Kirin 9030s. It combines an octa-core CPU built on a 5 nm manufacturing node with a Maleoon 935F GPU, as well as Huawei's own Da Vinci NPU for on-device AI processing.
Both phones boast 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and are available with either 256 GB or 512 GB of UFS4.1 storage.
Interestingly, both phones are powered by the same 6,000 mAh battery. Do keep in mind that the phone's battery is rated at 5,270 mAh in the EU. As far as we know, EU models have the same exact battery as international ones with a 6,000 mAh one, but due to the EU's battery endurance requirements, Huawei can't officially claim the same rated battery capacity.
Finally, the Pura 90s Pro Max will charge faster at up to 100 W, while the smaller-sized model maxes out at 66 W of wired charging.
Software & AI
Huawei has been treading on a different path from most Android phones in the past few years due to the US banning the company from utilizing American-built technology, which Google's Mobile Services are part of. Initially, Huawei developed its own proprietary HarmonyOS operating system, based on AOSP, but since the fall of 2025, HarmonyOS has been totally detached from Android.
The Huawei Pura 90s Pro and the Huawei 90s Pro Max run HarmonyOS 6.1, which features a compatibility layer that allows users to run standard Android APK files. This is true of both the Chinese and global models of the flagship.
The difference, however, is that users in China can enjoy a massive app ecosystem from Huawei's AppGallery store, whereas global users will still have to heavily rely on sideloading APK files. This functionality will be removed starting with HarmonyOS 7, forcing global Huawei users to solely rely on whatever native software is available in AppGallery in their neck of the woods.
Another key moment is the AI features that will be available on board the phones.
The two Pura flagships will arrive with Huawei's revamped Celia AI assistant, as well as photography-related features like AI De-glare, AI Move, AI Composition 3.0 in the camera, Data transfer between iOS and Huawei devices, and Advanced Translation Toolkit. The official EU version of the phones, aside from the smaller battery, will also only ship with AI Composition 3.0 and Data Transfer between iOS and Huawei devices.
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Peter is a skilled writer with over 13 years of experience at PhoneArena. He has published nearly 300 phone reviews and comparisons. This vast experience helps him navigate the mobile tech landscape with ease. He enjoys everything Android but relies on a MacBook Pro daily.
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