Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: The Comeback Continues

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is the company’s latest flagship smartphone. It is the most powerful device in the Pura 90s series, and it’s essentially a global counterpart to the Pura 90 Pro Max. Having said that, this device retains Huawei’s design language, and it adds plenty of color. Huawei decided to offer some bold colors of the device, while it also improved a number of things compared to the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra.

We’ll talk about all that and much more in our Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max review below. While this phone does have quite a few positives, there are also some negatives (including the obvious one) you’ll have to consider before pulling the trigger. Let’s kick this off and go through each one step at a time.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max

€1,199

Huawei keeps closing the gap with rivals through excellent hardware, a fantastic camera setup, and a more mature EMUI experience.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Outstanding display
• Very good performance despite limitations
• Great battery life
• Fast wired and wireless charging
• EMUI 16 is a solid Android skin
• Android 16 is finally on Huawei phones
• Comfortable to hold and use
• Cool colors to choose from
• Charger included in the box
• Audio output is great

Cons

• Software is still kind of an issue
• Inferior CPU and GPU (compared to competition)
• Glossy frame

Disclaimer

Huawei supplied us with a review unit of the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max, but didn’t have a say in our opinion, nor did they see this review before you. We’ve been using the device for over two weeks before forming an opinion.

Buy from Huawei

Specs

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Design

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max does have a distinct design, even though it’s mostly similar to other flagship smartphones these days. What sets it apart is the unique camera island on the back, and the colors that Huawei opted to go with this time around. Let’s start from the front, though. The phone includes a flat display, with a centered display camera hole up top. The bezels are thin and uniform here.

Comfortable despite its size

The frame is made out of aluminum, and it’s flat all around. The frame does curve a bit towards the edges, for comfort’s sake. Huawei went with a glossy finish here, while most of you will likely prefer a matte finish. A glossy finish is a bit grippier, but it does attract more fingerprints. So it’s all a matter of preference, really. The power/lock and volume up and down keys are placed on the right-hand side, and those are the only buttons on the phone. Do note that the power/lock key doubles as a fingerprint scanner, which works like a charm. That’s an odd choice by Huawei, but there you go.

The fun begins when you flip the phone around. You’ll notice a triangle-shaped camera island, with rounded edges. One camera sensor is notably larger than the other two, at least on the back; that’s the periscope telephoto camera on the phone. The entire camera island does protrude on the back, and it’s quite large overall. The backplate of the device is made out of glass, and Huawei went with some interesting colors this time around.

The Blaze Purple color is… fun

Blaze Purple is the color that we received, and it’s quite… colorful. It combines shades of purple, orange, and white to create what you see in the provided images. Orange Ocean is also quite colorful, while the other two colors are basically black and white. This phone is easy to tell apart when you’re out and about, that’s for sure.

With that being said, using the phone feels more or less like using any other large-format flagship. The device is comfortable, and the glossy frame does add a bit more grip than the matte one. I’m glad that the edges of the phone are rounded, as the device does not dig into my palm when I’m using it with one hand. I do have above-average hand size, so using it with one hand is not much of a problem. I’m also used to large devices, so… there you go. You may have a different experience. The phone does feel very well built, though I’d suggest using a case here, mainly due to that large and exposed camera island on the back. All in all, it’s a nice and distinctive design, and the phone is not too heavy at 230 grams. The weight distribution is also quite good.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Accessories

So, what will you get in the retail box? Well, everything you need. In addition to the phone itself, Huawei also supplies a Type-C to Type-C USB cable and a 100W charger to go with it. Many companies don’t include a charger, so this is certainly nice to see. In addition to that, you’re also getting a SIM card ejector tool, some paperwork, and a case. That case is very poor, though. It’s a cheap hard plastic case; I’d much prefer a silicone/gel case to be included instead of this one. Something is better than nothing, though, so you can always use it until you get a hold of something better. This one will get scratched up quickly, though, and it’s really not nice to hold and use; it just feels cheap. So I’d suggest ordering a new one as soon as you can.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Display

Huawei opted for a flat 6.9-inch display here. That’s an LTPO OLED panel with an adaptive refresh rate (1-120Hz). It also has a 300Hz touch sampling rate and high-frequency PWM dimming. The resolution here is 2880 x 1308, and the screen-to-body ratio is around 91%. This display can project up to 1 billion colors, and it’s an HDR panel. There’s also a display camera hole centered up top, as you can see.

It has a great display

All in all, this is an excellent display. It’s plenty sharp, not to mention that it’s quite vivid as well. If you’d like to tweak the colors, you can easily do that via the settings. Its high refresh rate is nicely combined with the animations in the software of the phone, and the viewing angles of the display are also great. Furthermore, this display can also get plenty bright when you need it to, and it has an anti-reflective coating applied to it. It’s not as effective as the Gorilla Armor 2, but it does help compared to regular smartphones. The display is protected by Huawei’s highly-praised Kunlun Glass. Huawei trusts this protection so much that the phone doesn’t even include a screen protector.

I’ve had absolutely no issues with this display. To my eyes, it’s just as good as any other flagship display on the market. It’s bright, vivid, and has great viewing angles. The sharpness was not an issue either, and neither has touch response. It’s summer here, so I managed to test out its brightness properly as well. I never felt like I needed the phone to provide more brightness, that’s for sure. Even in direct sunlight, the display was plenty bright. Automatic brightness worked really well too.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Performance

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is fueled by the Kirin 9030S processor. That’s Huawei’s very own chip, and it’s a 5nm processor. We’re seeing 2nm and 3nm flagship chips on the market at the moment, so this is definitely not one of the more modern chips. Huawei is doing its best to provide its users with the best experience despite the US ban, though. That’s the main reason why Huawei can’t use chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek. That chip is backed by 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB or 512GB of non-expandable storage.

The performance prowess is its weakest point, despite the fact it offers good performance

Having said that, we’ve run some benchmarks on the phone, and it did as we expected… not the best. That chip is basically on the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 level, which is a lower-level mid-range chip. Considering that Huawei also used an inferior GPU inside this phone, the HiSilicon Maeleoon 935F, the GPU score has also been cut in half compared to the Mate X7. All in all, the numbers are not exactly impressive. The phone did not exactly shine in 3DMark’s WildLife Extreme Stress Test either, though that was expected too. The phone does throttle when its hardware gets too strained; it throttles down to about 50%. In fact, it crashed three times when I was trying to run GeekBench 7’s GPU benchmark, so I never managed to get that number.

If you’re a gamer, this is not a phone for you

It’s not exactly a secret that performance, on paper, is the weakest point of Huawei’s flagships, mainly due to the US ban. Huawei is working hard to improve its chips, and it has already come a long way, but the company is still not where it wants to be. Having said that, if you’re not planning on playing extremely demanding games on this phone, there’s a good chance you’ll be happy with its performance. I am a real stickler for performance, and the phone didn’t do a half ban in day-to-day use. I repeat, though, if you’re a gamer and plan to play very demanding games, get a different phone.

Huawei’s EMUI 16 OS is well-optimized. The animations are there, but they’re not too long or annoying, and the general fluidity you’ll get here is good. No, it’s not on the same level as top-end flagships on the market, but quite honestly, a general user would not really notice that such an inferior chip is used here. I was able to use this phone like I would any other, including tons of my apps, multitasking, image editing, and so on. It was not a problem on that side. There were some apps that gave me a hard time, but that’s a long story; we’ll leave that for the software section.

Benchmarks:

Geekbench:

3D Mark (Wildlife Extreme Stress Test):

Thermals:

3D Mark (Wildlife Extreme Stress Test) thermals:

Genshin Impact thermals:

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Battery Life

The EU variant of the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max has a smaller battery capacity than the rest of the world. It includes a 5,270mAh rated capacity, while a 5,000mAh typical capacity is noted. Our model is for the EU market; thus, we have a 5,500mAh battery on the inside. Yes, it’s smaller than in other regions, but the difference is not as big as it could be. The battery life itself is really good, actually; that’s for sure. It cannot compete with the best battery life smartphones out there, but in all honesty, it will be more than enough for just about anyone.

The battery life was really, really good

I was able to use it with my standard screen-on time usage, which is usually somewhere between 4 and 7 hours of screen-on time. I didn’t have to charge it during the day, not once. One day I decided to push it as far as it can go, though, and I was able to get to around 8 hours and 20 minutes of screen-on time when the battery was about to give up, it was less than 5% at that point. So unless you’re a true demon of a power user, this phone will last the entire day. I’m a power user and had no such issues. Once again, this is not a gaming phone, so keep that in mind.

Charging was a bit slower than I expected, but still plenty fast

When it comes to charging, the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is well equipped. The phone supports 100W wired and 80W wireless charging. It can also utilize 18W reverse wired and reverse wireless charging too. The phone was fully charged in an hour. In all honesty, I was expecting it to charge up a bit faster considering the charging and battery capacity, in around 40 minutes, like the Pura 80 Ultra. Still, this is plenty fast, I’d say, for pretty much anyone.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Camera

Huawei made some notable changes in the camera department here, compared to the Pura 80 Ultra. Instead of a 1-inch main camera, the Pura 90s Pro Max uses a 1/1.28-inch main camera. Both are 50-megapixel units, and both have variable aperture. The newer model does offer a wider aperture range, though, f/1.4-f/4.0. That camera also supports both PDAF and OIS, not to mention that it offers a RYYB subpixel arrangement and that it’s a LOFIC sensor. The periscope telephoto camera has also been changed. From a 50-megapixel 1/1.28-inch camera with an f/2.4 aperture, this one uses a 200-megapixel 1/1.28-inch camera with an f/2.6 aperture. It supports OIS and PDAF, and we’re getting a 4x optical zoom here. The last camera on the back is a 40-megapixel ultrawide unit with an f/2.2 aperture.

The main camera does an excellent job in both good & low light

My expectations going into the camera review were rather high; I’m not going to lie. That main camera looks so good on paper, even better than the 1-inch type sensor that its predecessor used. The periscope telephoto camera has also been improved. So, is the performance good? Well, yes, it is, and you can see a bunch of camera samples at the end of this section. During the day, the main camera takes outstanding photos with excellent dynamic range. The colors pop, and the white balance is consistent as well. Images captured in a 25MP mode look almost as good. 2x cropped images also look very good. I did notice some odd issues with scenes that have plenty of similar detail, such as foliage, but nothing to be concerned about.

The main camera also does a great job in low light. They’re usually excellent, though it’s not the best low-light camera, I’d say. It’s close, though. There’s plenty of contrast in low-light images, and detail too. Wide dynamic range is also present, and the colors are captured really well too. There’s also no noise here to talk about. What’s also interesting is that a dedicated night mode does provide a bit different results; it offers warmer and brighter images.

The periscope telephoto camera is one of the better ones out there

The periscope telephoto camera Huawei used here is… outstanding. It is one of the best out there in terms of image quality. 4x optical zoom photos are great. The camera can capture plenty of detail, even though they do end up looking a bit more contrasty than images from the main camera. The dynamic range is excellent, as is white balance and general color rendition that the camera provides. It is also quite capable when it comes to shooting macro photos; the level of detail is quite high, and the general color rendition ends up looking great and in line with what the main and periscope telephoto cameras offer.

This camera also does a fine job in low light. 4x shots look great, with plenty of detail and wide dynamic range. The color rendition can be a bit off at times, but it’s generally quite good. Huawei should tone down the saturation here a bit. Things do get a bit mushier the higher you go, as with 10x the photos are fine, but they do get that artificial detail that not many people like.

The ultrawide camera is quite good, but the weakest out of the three

While the ultrawide camera is the least impressive out of the three, it still offers great results. Details are very good considering this is an ultrawide camera; it’s flagship-grade for sure. The camera does great in well-lit scenes, and it offers a wide dynamic range and good colors. In low light, it offers good performance. The dynamic range is great, and the colors remain vibrant. The details are a bit soft if you take a closer look, but they’re not too soft. The overall results are very good.

Camera samples:

The camera UI is excellent, actually. Everything is pretty much at your fingertips, and the menus are well organized. It’s in line with the best camera UIs out there. You can switch between different camera modes by swiping left and right; those options are right above the shutter key. Above that, you have different zoom options, a viewfinder, and then another menu above that. Yes, you can edit those camera options in the bottom portion of the screen without a problem.

4K video recording thermals:

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Software

EMUI 16 is installed on the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max, and it has Android 16 at its core. That’s a major boost for the phone, as previous EMUI versions were based on much older versions of Android. Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) are included here instead of Google Mobile Services (GMS) due to the US ban. That’s why you also get Huawei’s App Gallery here instead of the Google Play Store. HMS is less of a problem than you’d think, though. So let’s talk about that first, as that’s the elephant in the room.

Using Aurora Store & MicroG worked great for me, with some caveats

While it’s true that the AppGallery lacks quite a few apps, searching for them will offer you the option of downloading apps from a third-party repository and install it that way, or doing it via GBox. While those are solid options, I went with a different route. I installed Aurora Store (a third-party store for Android apps), and used MicroG in collaboration with that to run apps natively. Yes, that includes Google apps as well. I’ve installed a dozen of them, and had no issues running any of them. They ran perfectly fine; that includes Gmail, Chrome, Google Keep, and more. While it’s true this requires some additional steps to set up, it worked like a charm for me.

Despite this setup, you could still have problems with some apps. I did have issues with some, including X, for example. While I managed to install it, I never managed to run it. It entered into a continuous loading loop, and that’s it. That’s unfortunate, but it’s something you’ll have to make your peace with if you end up buying this phone. The software, while much better than before, still has its quirks, and that’s not Huawei’s fault. The company had a ton of problems to handle following the US ban, and it did the best it could.

EMUI 16 in general is quite good, and based on Android 16

As far as the rest of EMUI 16 goes, it’s very good. It will be a familiar Android experience for many of you. You can still choose between app drawer and no app drawer setup, while you can also set up a joined or split notification shade and quick toggles setup. There’s also a decent level of customization here. You can double-tap the power/lock key in order to launch different apps, while one-handed mode is also on board. Various other shortcuts and gestures are available, and so is Multi-Window and Huawei’s Smart Hub we talked about a ton of times in the past. It works great.

EMUI 16 allows you to change themes, use the Always-On Display, tweak icons, and much more. It’s not the most customizable Android skin, but it has a solid level of customization. While notification cards look a bit different than on some other phones, the premise is still the same, and all that works just fine. Notifications were also timely and consistent, and so on. It’s a solid software experience in general; just keep in mind that HMS is the core here, not GMS.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Audio

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max has a large speaker at the bottom, and the second one in the earpiece. The loudness of this setup is quite high, higher than most flagship phones out there. The audio output quality is good, while the high-frequency range is well-represented.

The phone also handled calls really well, with ease. Everyone I talked to sounded more than fine, and I had no complaints with the sound from my end. In fact, when I asked, they said I sound nice and clear.

There is no audio jack on the phone, though, so keep that in mind. You can still use its Type-C port if you need a wired audio connection. When it comes to wireless audio connectivity, Bluetooth 6.0 is on board here.

Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: Should you buy it?

This is kind of a complicated question when it comes to this phone. Not having GMS does complicate things, though much less than before. Very few apps have problems with HMS in my experience, and you can even use Google apps without a problem with a combo of Aurora Store and MicroG. If you’re willing to go through this, the software is just fine. Everything else on the phone is great, unless you’re a gamer, in which case this is not a device for you. Higher-end games feel the limitations of the chip used here, its GPU more than anything.

So… you have to think about all this before you get it. It’s a great phone overall, though; I really enjoyed reviewing this one, and I see constant improvements from Huawei from one unit ot the next. It really does feel like Huawei is closing the gap the US ban created. It’s definitely not a phone for everyone, but most of its problems are out of Huawei’s hands, in a way, so they’re easier to forgive. I can recommend this phone if you know what you’re getting into with it. Most people, however, will probably want to look elsewhere.

You should buy the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max if you:

• Don’t mind jumping through some software hoops
• Want a phone that is Google-free
• Need a phone with a really good camera
• Use loudspeaker a lot
• Liked previous Huawei smartphones
• Enjoy fast wired and wireless charging
• Don’t want to buy a charger separately

You shouldn’t buy the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max if you:

• Play a lot of games, especially high-end ones
• Want Google Play Store on your phone
• Are not tech-savvy

The post Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max Review: The Comeback Continues appeared first on Android Headlines.

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