HUAWEI Pura 80 Ultra First Shots - Ridiculously good for a phone

You've probably heard the noise surrounding the newest HUAWEI camera phones, particularly its flagship variant, the Pura 80 Ultra.

Pura 80 Ultra in action

AND I'll keep it short. The HYPE is REAL.

The very first moment I've had it in person immediately gave me confidence that this is the BEST camera phone, among the wide array of high-end smartphones, I've had a chance to hold this year, and so far.

Massive camera sensors for a phone

First, take a LOOK at how premium this looks and how BIG those lenses are. It's insane and I've never seen anything like this before.

The first camera of the device is a massive 50MP 1-inch Ultra Lighting HDR Camera with f/1.6 to f/1.4 variable aperture.

Then, you get another big 40MP f/2.2 ultra-wide shots.

The star of the show is its switching telephoto camera system with a BIG 1/1.28-inch sensor designed for capturing incredible details and accurate colors.

This is a first-of-its-kind sensor with two lenses. The first one is a 50MP f/2.4 3.7x Telephoto Camera with Sensor Shift OIS, designed to take great Portrait shots. The second one is a 12.5MP Telephoto Camera with 9.4x Optical Zoom and Sensor Shift OIS.

Then you also get a 1.5M Spectral Channels Ultra Chroma Camera.

The full back design of the device

In short, this phone like has 5 cameras at the back.

HUAWEI Pura 80 Ultra Cameras

• 50MP f/1.6 1-inch Ultra Lighting HDR Camera w/ OIS
• 40MP f/2.2 13mm Ultra-Wide Angle Camera
• 50MP f/2.4 Telephoto Camera w/ 3.7x Optical Zoom, Sensor Shift OIS + 12.5MP Telephoto Camera w/ 9.4x Optical Zoom, Sensor Shift OIS
• 1.5M Spectral Channels Ultra Chroma Camera

HUAWEI Pura 80 Ultra First Shots - Ridiculously good for a phone

5.7x Portrait in daylight

The very first thing I tried with this phone was its zoom cameras, and it is amazing with the Portrait mode. The 5.6x mode has lifelike colors, crisp details, and impressive subject to background separation—probably the cleanest today.

This zoom mode helped me take incredibly high-quality shots with no visible distortion. 

1x, 5.7x Portrait

5.7x zoom

AND take a look at the images above with not so ideal kinda against-the-light lighting. The Portrait mode worked like magic and showed amazing clarity, details, and colors. The colors are very near to what I'm seeing with my own eyes, incredible.

2x, 3.7x

10x

AND yes, even if you don't use the Portrait mode. It has the ability to take close-up zoom images with natural background blur. As you can see, shots look very impressive for a phone.

Yes, like previous HUAWEI flagships, this has an a physical aperture mode that you can adjust from f/1.6, f/2.0, f/2.8, and f/4.0. AND now you can use it from 1x to 10x focal ranges.

5.7x

Moving subjects? The autofocus and shooting speed of this phone is fast. I find it great for taking photos my kid while playing.

On high-speed subjects like sports and car racing, it even has the Snapshot mode. 

B&W

The primary sensor of this device, thanks to its 1-inch large size takes the crispiest-looking shots I've seen on a phone yet. Love using the phone's stock black and white filters.

UW, 10x

20x, 100x

Even the ultra-wide camera takes very high-quality photos in the dark. AND YES, this has the best zoom I've seen in low light. The 10x is crisp with minimal noise, the 20x mode looks almost as good as the 10x mode, and the 100x mode is more than usable.

Majority of the flagship phones we've tried only has good zoom capabilities in well-lit conditions and none has this level of clarity in the dark.

10x zoom

Even in low light the Portrait zoom is amazingly crisp and the colors are still there. The edge detection capabilities of this phone for dreamy background blurs are still on point too.

UW, super zoom

This might be the ultimate concert or fancam phone yet. Just take a look at the range. The quality is more than usable for social media. It seems like HUAWEI really optimized this phone on concert stages with challenging backlighting.

The quality and zoom for videos are on point as well. It can record 4K 60fps videos up to 10x with lossless quality and 20x digitally with more than decent quality.

The zoom is insane as this is not using generative AI for long range shooting compared with its competitors.

Quick thoughts

So far, I'm loving my time with the HUAWEI Pura 80 Ultra. Again, the hype seems to be real.

This is the phone that takes the best photos and some of the best videos that I have personally tried yet. It is ridiculously good for a phone with almost no weak points in its category.