Huawei continues to innovate when it comes to photography. The Chinese manufacturer’s latest smartphone, the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra, features a highly original telephoto lens, with two lenses… for a single sensor. A real optical revolution or just a gadget? Let’s find out.
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Periscope zoom: an innovation at the heart of telephoto lenses for smartphones
Photography is a key criterion when choosing a smartphone. To stand out from the crowd, manufacturers rely on innovation. And some brands, such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei, are doing just that. Huawei was one of the first to offer a smartphone with a x5 “periscopic” zoom, with the P30 Pro in 2019.
Here, Huawei intends to perfect this technology with its premium smartphone, the Pura 80 Ultra. The basic principle remains the same: light strikes a prism, which sends it back to the lenses and sensor, which are mounted perpendicular to the back of the device.
What’s in it for you? To offer a greater focal length (x3 or x5 zoom) without increasing the thickness of the photo module. This process is used on the iPhone 15 and 16 Pro (Max), the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (and its predecessors) and the Sony Xperia 1 IV, V, VI and VII.
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra: a single sensor for two lenses!
The back of the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra features 3 lenses offering… 4 focal lengths. In detail, we discover :
- a 1-inch, 50 MP main sensor, topped by a stabilized 23 mm equivalent lens with f/1.6-4.0 aperture and Dual Pixel AF
- a 40 MP sensor (size not communicated), coupled with a 13 mm equivalent ultra-wide-angle lens opening to f/2.2, with autofocus
- a 1/1.28-inch stabilized 50 MP sensor, with 83 / 212 mm telephoto lenses, f/2.4 / f/3.6 aperture, autofocus.
A closer look reveals that the telephoto lens has 2 separate lenses. The principle: both lenses reflect light onto the same sensor. A motor operates a mechanism that moves the prism in front of the chosen lens, while obstructing the unused lens.
Beyond the technical prowess, the interest is twofold:
- offering 2 focal lengths with the same sensor reduces the space and cost of the optical unit
- the 1/1.28-inch sensor is much larger than that used on competing models equipped with a periscopic telephoto lens (1/2.52-inch on the Galaxy S25 Ultra).
Thus equipped, the Pura 80 Ultra’s telephoto lens offers a double focal length of 83 and 212 mm. Unlike Sony models, this is not a sliding focal range. However, the distance between the two focal lengths is much greater than that ever offered by an Xperia.
On the sensor side, however, some details remain rather unclear. In its specification sheet, Huawei indicates that the 83 mm focal length is based on a 50 MP sensor, with an aperture of f/2.4. The 212 mm focal length, on the other hand, opens at f/3.6 and delivers images of 12.5 MP… even though it uses the same sensor!
So it’s not impossible that the 212 mm focal length doesn’t exploit the entire sensor surface – or that pixel binning is applied. Finally, note that the sensor is stabilized.
The Pura 80 Ultra is also equipped with a large 1-inch 50 MP “main” sensor (probably a Sony IMX989). The 23mm equivalent lens offers a variable f/1.6-4 aperture. A point already observed with its predecessor.
On the ultra-wide-angle side, we find a 40 MP sensor – the precise characteristics of which have not been communicated. All we know is that the 13 mm equivalent lens offers an f/2.2 aperture – as on the Pura 70 Ultra, by the way.
As for the rest, the smartphone takes up certain elements of its predecessor. We find a very rounded design, with a 6.8-inch OLED screen (1276 x 2848 px), with a small punch for the front camera. It is equipped with an in-house Kiri 9020 chip. Due to U.S. sanctions, this chip is etched in 7 nm – compared with 3 nm for the latest ARM chips. Similarly, the smartphone is not compatible with 5G outside China.
It also features a large 5700 mAh battery with 100W wired charge, 80W wireless charge, 20W wireless reverse charge and 18W wired reverse charge. All powered by HarmonyOS 5.1.
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra price and availability
The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is available exclusively in China at 9999 yuan (approx. €1215). Two finishes are offered: gold and black.
No word yet on whether it will be launched in France, but if Huawei follows the same strategy as for the Pura 70 Ultra, a European release could follow in the coming weeks.
Our first opinion
With this new model, Huawei once again delivers a very stunning smartphone – despite the difficulties associated with the 2019 US embargo. While its dual-focal-length telephoto lens may remind us of Sony‘s models, it differs from them in that its mechanism is a priori more complex – and in that it uses a much larger sensor (type 1/1.28 inch vs. 1/3.5 inch for the Xperia 1 VII’s telephoto lens). The result is much better image quality, day and night. But we’ll have to check this out in the field. This smartphone proves to be highly innovative in many respects, and manages to surprise us all.
