HUAWEI Pura 70 Pro

Date

15.07.24

If you’re looking for a smartphone with fantastic cameras, HUAWEI is up there on the list, especially their P series. That series has been rebranded and is now represented by the Pura flagship. For this year, we have the Pura 70 Pro, which sits right in the middle of the Pura 70 and Pura 70 Ultra. So what are you getting from this flagship?

The HUAWEI Pura 70 Pro comes in two colors: Black and White. And even though it’s the mid variant of the flagship series, the Pro model looks and feels top-of-the-line. There’s the Kunlun glass that curves toward the edges and meets the metal frame for that smooth unibody feel.

The backside is covered in glass with a matte texture that repels fingerprints well. Also found here is the large camera module that carries the 50MP main camera, 12.5MP ultra-wide camera, and the 48MP telephoto camera. All of that is housed in an IP68 water and dust-resistant body.

It’s a pretty tall device at 162.6mm with a width of 75.1mm and a thickness of 8.44mm. The weight is decent at 220g. It’s comfortable to hold if you’re just navigating the screen but a bit tricky to use with one hand when taking photos mostly because most of its heft is on the top side, which you can attribute to the cameras. The volume buttons are also placed near the top, so if you have smaller hands, you’ll have to reposition your hand just to reach it.

The Pura 70 Pro is equipped with a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen with 2844 x 1260 resolution or 460ppi, and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It’s a bright, smooth, and vibrant screen and we didn’t have any issues using it outdoors under the bright sun. Found here as well is the 13MP selfie camera.

Connectivity-wise, we have dual-SIM, 4G LTE, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, SatNavs, IR blaster, and USB-C. A lot has been said about the lack of 5G in HUAWEI’s flagship phones. It’s a disadvantage if you really want to utilize 5G in your area, but in our experience, it wasn’t an issue as we were able to access the internet and upload content just fine on LTE.

Powering the Pura 70 Pro is a Kirin 9010 chipset with an octa-core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 5050mAh battery with 100W fast wired charging and 80W fast wireless charging. This configuration was more than enough to meet our demands as we used it as our main device for documenting our last vacation. It was able to last us the whole day then we’ll just quickly charge it at night. At 50% in just 15 minutes, we don’t have to wait that much.

Let’s go back to the cameras, which are one of the best features of the Pura 70 Pro. And although the Pura 70 Ultra is the top model, the Pro model is already an impressive one. It’s fast, the zoom is stable, the colors are accurate, and we rarely get blurred shots. Even shooting at night seems almost effortless. Zoom shots are okay. Personally, I’ll keep it below 10X because further than that you’ll get a pixelated quality and will look artificial once post-processing takes effect. Selfies, on the other hand, are underwhelming. You can still take good photos but don’t expect the same quality as the ones you’ve taken using the rear cameras. Take a look at the samples below.

Running the software for the Pura 70 Pro is EMUI 14.2. Yes, Google services are still not available here but can be accessed via browser or GBox. Apps, on the other hand, are very much available in the AppGallery. I agree that the lack of Google services is still one of the glaring flaws of current HUAWEI mobile devices but it also has exclusive features that make it stand out and that is HUAWEI’s ecosystem. If you have a HUAWEI laptop like the MateBook 14 2024, a MatePad, HUAWEI accessories, or even their Vision smart TV, these devices can interact and seamlessly work with each other using HUAWEI Super Device to enhance your productivity. You can learn more about it here: https://consumer.huawei.com/ph/smart-office/

We enjoyed having the HUAWEI Pura 70 Pro around, especially during special moments. The cameras are reliable and capture images with great quality. When people know you’re carrying a Pura 70 series smartphone, it’s not surprising that they assign you as the designated photographer. Fortunately, this smartphone is up to the task. The lack of native support for Google services can still be an issue to some but it is no longer as cumbersome as before due to improvements in the AppGallery and some workarounds. If you already own other HUAWEI products, the experience just gets better. If you know how to play its strengths, the Pura 70 Pro is a worthy purchase.