There's a Heck of a Camera Inside This Colorfully Designed Phone

4 hours ago 1

While the Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max's name is far from unique, the way the phone is designed and its 200-megapixel camera provide one of the most distinctive looks I've seen on a slab phone.

The Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max has a two-tone gradient back. I used it for a day and it reminded me of the Huawei P30 Pro -- the last phone I tried with a similar gradient back. That was back in 2019, when the Chinese company was still collaborating with Leica and shipping phones with pre-installed Google services. Six years later, Huawei continues to deliver premium hardware, out-of-the-box ideas and innovative camera features -- but alas, no Google services.

A big phone with character and pop

Prakhar Khanna looking at the Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max screen.

Huawei's new phone doesn't mirror the Huawei P30 Pro's aurora or breathing srystal finishes. Instead, the so-called orange ocean variant features a bolder purple-to-orange gradient that stands out more dramatically. Alongside orange ocean, the phone also comes in two other gradient finishes -- sunset purple and emerald lake -- as well as two solid colors: dawn gold and obsidian slack.

However, I'm not fond of Huawei's choice of going for a flat frame. I liked the curvy sides of the Pura 90 Ultra more. It was easier to hold and use in day-to-day life. Fortunately, the new Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max doesn't feel like a brick in the hand. It weighs 230.5 grams (vs. 233g for the iPhone 17 Pro Max and 232g for the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL) and remains comfortable enough to use with a single hand. Like other flagship phones, it also carries IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance.

On the front, you get a 6.9-inch OLED display with support for a 1Hz-to-120Hz refresh rate and an anti-reflective coating on top. I took it around the sunny streets of Bangkok and had no issues with legibility. Whether I was framing shots in the viewfinder or navigating with Huawei's Petal Maps, everything remained clearly visible outdoors. I couldn't install my go-to media apps during my limited hands-on time -- again, there's no access to Google's Play Store here -- but the display's minimal bezels should still make it feel immersive for watching videos.

Feature-packed camera hardware and software

Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max camera module with variable aperture in action.

Aside from the colorful design, this phone's stacked with the latest camera technologies. A 200-megapixel camera? Check. Variable aperture? Check. New AI features? Also, check! And yet, it sits below the Pura 90 Ultra in the lineup.

The China-exclusive Huawei phone has a 50-megapixel main camera with Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor technology, which allows image sensors to handle a wider dynamic range between light and shadow. It also supports a 10-stop variable f/1.4-4.0 aperture to give you more physical control over how much light hits the sensor, similar to an eye squinting. For instance, you can use f/4.0 in extremely bright conditions, switch to f/2.4 or f/2.8 for sharper shots in good lighting, or open it up to a wider f/1.5 aperture to capture more light in dark environments. That level of light control is still rare on a phone camera, where adjustable apertures typically aren't this versatile.

This is paired with a massive 1/1.28-inch periscope telephoto sensor with a 200-megapixel resolution and an f/2.6 aperture. It's a 96mm-equivalent module with 4x optical zoom. Huawei says it can deliver sustained detail preservation even in challenging light conditions. There's a third, 40-megapixel camera with an f/2.2 aperture that handles ultrawide duties. I couldn't put all the camera capabilities to the test but there are noticeable things to talk about after my 1-hour photowalk with it.

The 200–megapixel resolution is useful when you need detailed shots, such as when capturing skyscrapers or landscapes.
Variable aperture is interesting to play around with, letting you see how different settings can change the look of a shot. It's available in Pro mode, giving you more flexibility without needing external tools or editing tricks to brighten or darken your photos.
There's also a new control -- one I didn't notice it on my Pura 90 Ultra -- that's similar to Photographic Styles on the iPhone, where you can adjust the color and tone of a photo with a slider within the viewfinder.
I forgot to turn off Beauty mode, so all my portrait shots ended up with smoothed-out skin. It looks decent, but I prefer keeping some natural texture in my skin.

Screenshots of Pose Ideas feature in action on the Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max.

Huawei has also introduced a new Camera app feature called Pose Ideas, which suggests poses based on your surroundings. It works with both the rear and front cameras. The process of getting it to work when you're not the subject is impressive in theory, but also somewhat impractical in execution.

For example, during lunch, I pointed the camera at a friend sitting across from me, and Pose Ideas recognized her and suggested a few seated poses. I then had to turn the screen toward her, cover the camera with my palm so she could see the pose suggestion and ask her to recreate it. After that, I flipped the phone back around and aligned her pose with the on-screen outline.

This process of pointing my camera towards a subject, tapping on Pose Ideas, selecting a pose, showing it to them and then aligning them to the outline is tedious, and I don't think I'd use it. But the same is really helpful when shooting selfies: I can simply trigger it and align myself to the outline.

I love these pose ideas because I never know what to do with my hands when I'm posing but it seems like the feature that would be better on a foldable phone. That's because these phones often let your subject see how they look using the external display, making it easier to demonstrate the pose suggestion.

Huawei also needs better execution of its Pose Ideas feature. There were times when it randomly switched to the ultrawide lens for no apparent reason. It worked better indoors, though, when my friend was sitting across the table and the camera automatically defaulted to 2x zoom.

What else?

Prakhar Khanna holding the Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max.

The Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max is powered by Huawei's in-house Kirin 9030S chipset, which the company claims delivers a 200% improvement in image NPU performance compared with the previous generation. I couldn't verify those claims during my limited time with the phone, but overall it felt smooth and responsive to use.

It is paired with a 6,000-mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 80W wireless charging. The phone runs Huawei's latest HarmonyOS 6.1 build, which has a native agentic AI assistant. I think it'd be useful once it understands your usage patterns, but again, I didn't have enough time with it to form an opinion.

The Huawei Pura 90 Pro Max is now available to purchase in China starting at CNY 6,499 (~$955) for the 12GB RAM, 256GB storage variant.

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