With tonight’s global product launch of Huawei‘s new Pura 80 series in Dubai, the devices are one step closer to reaching South African shores following their debut in China last month.
As with last year’s Pura 70 series and the P Series before it, the Pura 80 series serves as Huawei’s vehicle for bringing its latest imaging developments to consumers. The Pura 80 Ultra, with its large 1in ‘ultra lighting’ sensor and switchable dual telephoto lens system, was the centre of attention.
Joining the Pura 80 Ultra are the 80 Pro and Pura 80 base models. We’ve confirmed with Huawei SA that South Africa will get all three devices. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait weeks before that happens, with Huawei confirming a local launch for 7 August.
Shedding light on Pura 80
Zooming into device specifications starting with the base Pura 80, it features a familiar flat-edge design and a similarly flat 6.6in LTPO OLED display with a crisp 1,256 x 2,760 resolution. It is protected by Huawei’s 2nd-gen Kunlun Glass and is capable of reaching up to 120 refreshes per second. It also produces up to 2,800 nits at peak brightness.
It might not have Ultra in the name, but it still benefits from Huawei’s ‘ultra lighting’ camera system. There’s a 50MP main camera with a variable aperture and OIS, joined by a 12MP periscope telephoto shooter which also uses OIS, and a 13MP ultrawide camera. There’s a ‘1.5 M spectral channel ultra chroma camera’ thrown in for good measure.
Huawei has smoothed and curved the sides and screen edges of the Pura 80 Pro and Ultra, which share a 6.8in LTPO OLED display with a slightly higher 1,276 x 2,848px resolution and brighter 3,000 nits peak brightness.
The Pura 80 Pro’s 50MP main camera features most of the same specs as the main camera in the base Pura 80, but it also receives a physically larger sensor. Its telephoto and ultrawide sensors have been upgraded to 48MP and 40MP shooters, respectively.
The Pura 80 Ultra retains all the good stuff from the 80 Pro and adds a switchable dual telephoto lens system and sensor-shift OIS.
As usual, Huawei is reluctant to say which chipset its Pura 80 series is running. Some rumours suggest it’s the new Kirin 9020 chip, but we haven’t been able to confirm that.
Other internal specs, like memory and storage options coming to SA, will be confirmed at the local 7 August launch, but the base Pura 80 and 80 Pro are likely to have 12GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage. The 80 Ultra only comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB or 1TB of storage.
All three devices house a 5,170mAh battery with the 80 and 80 Pro supporting 66W wired and 50W wireless charging, while the Ultra will go up to 100W over a cable and 80W wirelessly.
If you were hoping for a taste of HarmonyOS, keep hoping. Huawei is sticking with EMUI 15 (based on the open-source version of Android 15) for international models.
Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on South African pricing. We’ll have to wait until 7 August for that, as well as when South Africans can get their hands on the new devices.
