Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: The new camera king is here!

After spending a few weeks testing this new camera beast, I’m confident it can, and then some! To create this review, I personally used the phone for several weeks, and had some great opportunities to capture some truly awesome photographs, as you'll see in the camera section below. The source material was strong, but so was the Pura 90s Pro Max's ability to let me effortlessly capture these scenes.

In addition, we put the phone through our extensive PhoneArena Camera Score and Battery Score benchmarks, the ratings of which you'll find in the respective sections. You can also examine the detailed ratings we've given the new Pura right below, based on our holistic rating system, which considers everything, from the design, through the camera performance, to the battery and software support.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Design and Display

The Pura 90s Pro Max looks incredibly fresh and cool, especially in its signature Orange Ocean gradient.

We just have to acknowledge the super-likable color schemes the Pura 90s Pro Max comes in. Just look at them! It’s like, I want to have all of them.

If you have to pick one, though, the signature Orange Ocean model is a great choice because it has a unique ace up its sleeve. Not only does the back glass have that unique color gradient, but if you look at the polished aluminum side frame, you’ll find that it matches that same exact color gradient precisely.

This type of engineering solution is a first in a phone, and it absolutely looks very cool. It’s very refreshing to see a phone maker do something genuinely new and impressive.

I love the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max’s design. Not only because it’s so unique, but because it actually feels great in the hand. The smooth glass and aluminum surfaces are made to be touched, and there aren’t any sharp edges to distract you from the blissful experience of handling this phone.

Display-wise, I have no complaints. The OLED panel of the Pura 90s Pro Max is superb. It can get plenty bright – we measured up to about 1500 nits while displaying all-white, which is pretty good.

Strangely, we were only able to get the phone to activate its sunlight boost in manual brightness mode, and not in auto. It is usually the other way around.

There are a bunch of eye comfort features in here, so you don’t need to worry even if your eyes tend to be more sensitive to screen light. Another great thing is that the phone is pretty good at determining when it should run at the full 120 Hz, and when it can chill with a lower refresh rate. It’s one of the rare occasions where I felt confident leaving the refresh rate on “Dynamic” and not having to crank it up to its highest setting.

Check out the measurements below for more details.

Display Measurements:

There’s a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button. This tech has been refined for years now, so it works perfectly here. I haven’t had any issues unlocking the phone. Personally, I don’t mind a side-mounted fingerprint scanner at all.

Of course, there’s also a basic form of face recognition for further convenience in day-to-day use.

And here we are in the most important section in this review.

So, the 90s Pro Max is equipped with the following cameras:

• Main: 50 MP, 10-step variable aperture F1.4/F4.0, 1/1.28” sensor
• Zoom: 200 MP, 4x, F2.6, 1/1.28” sensor (huge for a zoom camera)
• Ultra-wide: 40 MP, F2.2, 13 mm

This is an imposing roster of cameras, and while the main camera, with its 10-step variable aperture, is already impressive enough, the real star of the show is the 200 MP, large-sensor telephoto.

Let’s just get to the camera sample galleries, shall we?

Main camera

The main camera, like the zoom one, has a large, 1/1.28” sensor, and with Huawei’s capable processing, I have no complaints about this camera. It works great no matter the lighting conditions, and feels very well aligned with the style and profile of the zoom camera. This way, transitioning from the main to the zoom while shooting is as seamless as can be.

Additionally, I’ve noticed that Huawei’s True-to-Colour 2.0 feature is quite good at keeping overall color and illumination realistic. Sure, the phone does sweeten things up a bit at times, but it’s mostly grounded in reality, which, to me, is a great way to go about configuring such a point-and-shoot camera.

Ah, the zoom! Technically, this 200 MP camera gives you 4x optical zoom. In reality, it can confidently go to 10x and even beyond, and still churn out amazing-looking photographs.

It’s very well stabilized, so taking solid shots from a long distance is never an issue. Wildlife photographers will have great fun with this camera.

This telephoto camera is so great; it’s also used for amazing portraits and macro shorts. It’s seriously fun to take super-macro shots of food, flowers, and all kinds of little details.

Thanks to the large, 1/1.28” sensor and heavy processing, taking long-range zoom shots is a perfectly legit scenario even at night. The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max goes for a clean, well-exposed look that means you don’t have to worry about touching things up after taking a picture.

Low-light and night conditions do not introduce noise, as the Pura 90s Pro Max’s sensor and processing take care of that for you, while still retaining satisfying levels of detail.

I have one word to describe what this camera gives you: freedom.

Ultra-wide camera

I’m not much of an ultra-wide camera person. Still, I believe the 40 MP one in the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max will not leave you wanting.

The overall aesthetic profile of the photos coming from the ultra-wide cam also seems in line with what’s coming out of the main and telephoto ones, which is always a good thing.

Video Quality

Video recorded with the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max generally looks amazing. After some testing, I’d suggest that you avoid the stabilizer option, because it seems to introduce some jitteriness in certain conditions. Besides, the footage is already stable when shooting in full 4K resolution, so you don’t really need the extra stabilizer most of the time.

The zoom camera knocks it out of the park in video recording. I’d say you can confidently go beyond 10x or 15x and the footage will still look great. Even in suboptimal lighting conditions.

It seems you really can’t beat a large sensor and smart processing, and that’s precisely what Huawei has delivered here.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Performance & Benchmarks

The new Kirin 9030s is a minor step forward, but 5G is finally here.

As Huawei is blocked from using Qualcomm technology, it’s had to invest in its own chip designing facility, and the latest product of these efforts is the HiSilicon Kirin 9030s chipset.

Looking at benchmarks, there’s still much to ask from the Kirin 9030s. The biggest improvement since the 9020 seems to be found in considerably better thermal stability. CPU-wise, the 9030s seems to be somewhere between the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and 8 Gen 2, which is not bad at all, but GPU-wise, there’s a bigger gap.

While I hope Huawei’s HiSilicon will be able to make bigger strides forward, especially in the GPU department, it’s worth noting that Huawei’s EMUI 16 software is extremely well optimized. The Pura 90s Pro Max runs buttery smooth and has never left me with the impression that performance is insufficient. Quite the opposite.

The bigger story here is that this is the first Huawei phone from the modern era to come with 5G networking. To be completely honest, I’ve used several Huawei phones over the last few years, and it never occurred to me that they lack 5G… Please don’t laugh. But it’s true.

But I guess it’s a big deal that Huawei has 5G now, so there’s that. I’m sure there are many people out there who’ve been waiting for this and will put it to good use.

CPU Performance Benchmarks:

Storage speed

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max comes with 12 GB of RAM, no matter if you go for the 256 GB or 512 GB models. This is fine in all but the most fringe scenarios, so I don’t think RAM can be an issue here.

EMUI 16 | Images by PhoneArena

The new Pura 90s Pro Max comes with the latest version of Huawei’s global software, EMUI 16.

EMUI 16 reminds me a lot of the previous generations of EMUI I’ve tried. It’s actually not changed much, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s clean, works well, and has all the essentials covered.

In this latest version, Huawei’s Celia AI assistant has been improved, and there are some new AI-powered photo editing features. Which ones you get depends on your region.

For example, there’s a useful AI de-glare feature that can remove unwanted reflections from glass or other surfaces, but it’s not available in all regions.

Meanwhile, there are some other new tricks that are very welcome, like AI composition or pose suggestions. How much of that uses actual AI, I don’t know, but the features are useful and can truly help you take better photos.

But these are once again aimed at the camera experience. OS-wise, I don’t think there’s anything that new in EMUI 16, compared to previous versions of the software. It’s a solid experience without many bells and whistles.

In terms of appearance, it’s more or less the same as before, but perhaps there’s some lower-level stuff, like APIs and other technologies, which have been updated.

Aside from that, the usual caveats with Huawei phones still apply. There are no Google services built into the Pura 90s Pro Max. You have to use certain workarounds like microG and Gbox to get your Google accounts up and running, and the processes typically isn’t that complicated.

Google Workspace accounts are a little tougher, because they aren’t supported by microG. For them, you’ll need to use third-party apps that handle their account logins on their own. There are a bunch of options for calendar and email apps that do so, so this isn’t a complete dealbreaker. It’s just important to know that it’s not an “it just works” type of experience.

So, the global edition of the Pura 90s Pro Max comes with the same 6000 mAh battery that’s found in the Chinese version of the phone. However, in the EU, it’s marketed as having a 5270 mAh battery. How come?

The thing is, the EU has certain rules in place, which prevent Huawei from marketing the battery as 6000 mAh. The specific type of battery and charging that Huawei is using cannot be guaranteed to preserve a minimum of 80% of the original battery capacity after 1000 charges, and according to the EU, it has to.

As a 5270 mAh battery, though, it can retain 80% battery health after 1000 charge cycles. So, that’s all there is to it.

A phone user might accumulate anywhere between 200 to 365 cycles a year, so it makes sense that the EU is requiring companies to use battery and charging technologies that would allow for their phones to remain in healthy operating conditions after roughly 3 years of use.

On the other hand, I often find myself accumulating fewer cycles due to newer battery tech like silicon-carbon, which allows for bigger capacities, and that means it might take me somewhere between four or five years before I accumulate 1000 charges.

Does that still sound like a reasonable regulation for manufacturers to be subjected to? I don’t know; I’m just saying that it’s not enough to set rules and regulations. It’s also important to manage and update them when needed, because things change.

Here is an overview of the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max specs:

Recommending a Huawei phone to Western audiences is always a tricky thing, because the user has to be well informed about the software and hardware limitations.

At this point, I believe the hardware limitations are mostly a nonissue. Sure, if you’re a gamer who likes to play the most demanding games out there, you should look into something with a modern Snapdragon chip, like the 8 Elite or Elite Gen 5.

For everyone else, the Kirin 9030s in the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max does a flawless job at delivering a snappy and smooth user experience.

The software limitations are more significant, but for 95% of users out there, the workarounds in place make it possible to use a Huawei phone with Google services without much issue. If you’re willing to take a small tradeoff in terms of convenience or compatibility here and there, the overall experience will not differ that much from other Android phones.

And then there’s the camera. What a camera system this is! And it better be, because the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is not a cheap phone.

It costs €1150 for the 256 GB model, and €1300 for the 512 GB one. This is not outrageously expensive for such a premium product nowadays, though, so if an extremely capable camera with outstanding zoom capabilities is what you’re after, you might as well take the plunge and get the Pura 90s Pro Max.

If the takeaway of this review hasn’t become clear by now, let me put it this way: the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max has a uniquely awesome hardware design, and a spectacular camera that lets you take amazing photos and video wherever, whenever.

And I’ll leave it at that.