Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max and Pura 90s Pro go global · A 200 MP telephoto leads the way

• 200 MP Ultra Large Sensor telephoto on the Pro Max – a 1/1.28-inch periscope at f/2.6 with OIS, 4× optical zoom (96 mm equivalent) and 100× digital reach, rated CIPA 7.0
• Variable-aperture 50 MP main camera that steps mechanically from f/1.4 to f/4.0, paired with Huawei's True-to-Colour Camera 2.0 multispectral sensor
• 100 W wired and 80 W wireless HUAWEI SuperCharge on the Pro Max (66 W / 50 W on the Pro), feeding a 6000 mAh battery
• 6.9-inch LTPO OLED on the Pro Max, 1–120 Hz, wrapped in anti-reflection, scratch-resistant Kunlun Glass
• EMUI 16 with the Celia assistant and on-device AI editing – Google apps aren't preloaded, but AppGallery now guides their setup
• IP68 + IP69 water and dust resistance, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 and NearLink E2.0

The Pura line's centre of gravity has stayed in China – European shelves did get last year's Pura 80 series, but this spring's Pura X Max never left home – so a dedicated world-stage unveiling in Kuala Lumpur, with two models going global at once, is news in its own right. Huawei launched the pair together: the Pura 90s Pro Max and the smaller Pura 90s Pro. Both are camera-first flagships built around Huawei's XMAGE imaging system, and both run EMUI 16 rather than the HarmonyOS build sold at home.

The headline splits neatly between them. The Pro Max gets the marquee 200 MP telephoto and a 40 MP ultrawide; the Pro trades those for a 50 MP telephoto and a 12.5 MP ultrawide, drops the screen to 6.6 inches and the charging to 66 W. Everything else – the 50 MP variable-aperture main sensor, the 6000 mAh battery, the IP68/IP69 rating, Wi-Fi 7 and the software – is shared, which makes the choice between them mostly a question of how much telephoto and screen you want.

Both phones keep the Pura family's signature look: the large triangular camera deco badged XMAGE. The Pro Max measures 164 × 77.1 × 8.1 mm and weighs 230.5 g; the Pro is smaller and lighter at 157.8 × 74.5 × 8.2 mm and 213.5 g. Both carry an IP68 and IP69 rating, so they survive dust, submersion and high-pressure jets, not just splashes.

The finishes are the fun part: the Pro Max comes in Blush Gold, Orange Ocean, Blaze Purple and Graphite Black, while the Pro gets Guava Soda, Orange Soda, Coconut White and Mulberry Black. The gradient runs into the mid-frame rather than stopping at the glass edge, and the flat-sided body carries a reassuring heft. The stereo speakers deserve a mention of their own: by early accounts they rank among the strongest fitted to any phone to date, with sound you can feel through the back panel.

The Pro Max uses a 6.9-inch LTPO OLED at 2880 × 1308 (460 ppi); the Pro a 6.6-inch panel at 2760 × 1256, also 460 ppi. Both refresh from 1 Hz to 120 Hz adaptively, both push a 300 Hz touch-sampling rate, and both render 1.07 billion colours with high-frequency PWM dimming for easier viewing at night.

Huawei is quieter than its rivals about a peak-brightness number this time – it leans instead on the glass. The panels are covered in anti-reflection, scratch-resistant Kunlun Glass that, by Huawei's lab figures, cuts reflections by 70 %, resists scratches 16× better and survives drops 25× better than ordinary cover glass. In practice that is a display tuned for legibility in harsh sunlight rather than for a headline nit count – and early side-by-side comparisons back it up, with reflections visibly more subdued than on conventional cover glass.

Here is the one specification you won't find on Huawei's own pages: the processor. Under US export restrictions, Huawei no longer publishes the chipset in its Pura and Mate spec sheets, and the Pura 90s is no exception. Early reviews of retail units nevertheless consistently identify the silicon as the Kirin 9030S, an in-house 5 nm chip – unofficially, since Huawei won't say it itself. On paper that leaves benchmark crowns to Qualcomm's latest; in practice early units run games and daily multitasking without stutter. What Huawei does confirm is 12 GB of RAM on both phones, with 256 GB or 512 GB of storage and no microSD slot – plus full 5G, where first real-world measurements on Malaysian networks comfortably clear 700 Mbps down.

The experience Huawei is selling is EMUI 16 rather than raw benchmarks: fast task-switching, tight hardware-software integration and, in its words, power efficiency good enough to "cruise through extended use on a single charge." That is a familiar Huawei pitch – and early impressions of day-to-day use are indeed smooth and fluid, but proper benchmarks will have to wait for deeper reviews.

Both phones carry a 6000 mAh typical-capacity battery – but read Huawei's fine print and a regional difference appears. The 6000 mAh headline covers non-EU markets, where the rated capacity is 5850 mAh; for the EU, Huawei publishes only a rated 5270 mAh. Compare like with like, rated against rated, and the European cell is roughly 10 % smaller. Early use of the Malaysian units suggests the headline cell comfortably clears a full day with room to spare.

That gap is not unique to Huawei, and the industry explanation is transport law: lithium cells above certain watt-hour limits count as dangerous goods in air freight and need extra per-market certification, so brands ship a more conservative cell in Europe. No manufacturer, Huawei included, has confirmed that on the record.

Charging is where the two models separate again. The Pro Max takes 100 W wired and 80 W wireless HUAWEI SuperCharge; the Pro steps down to a still-quick 66 W wired and 50 W wireless. Neither lists reverse wireless charging on its official sheet. Huawei says the in-box charger depends on the market; European boxes, as is now standard in the EU, ship without one, while Malaysia's box does include the 100 W brick.

The Pro Max's telephoto is the star: a 200 MP Ultra Large Sensor on a 1/1.28-inch chip at f/2.6 with OIS, giving 4× optical zoom (a 96 mm equivalent) and 100× digital, and stabilised to the CIPA 7.0 standard. Huawei quotes 20× telephoto video from it. That puts it in direct company with the 200 MP periscope on the HONOR Magic8 Pro, though Huawei's sensor is physically larger – 1/1.28″ against HONOR's 1/1.4″ – which is the kind of hardware edge that shows up in low light. The first field footage backs the paper: 4× stills come out clean with accurate colours, one-handed 30× video holds steady on that CIPA 7.0 stabilisation, and 10× clips stay sharp enough to cut straight into a social feed – even shooting into the setting sun keeps the sun's disc round instead of blowing it out.

Both phones share the same 50 MP main camera with a mechanically variable aperture that moves from f/1.4 to f/4.0, plus Huawei's True-to-Colour Camera 2.0, a multispectral sensor that reads the scene's colour temperature for more faithful whites. The Pro splits from the Pro Max on the other lenses: a 50 MP macro-capable telephoto (f/2.1, 4× optical) and a 12.5 MP ultrawide, versus the Pro Max's 200 MP telephoto and 40 MP ultrawide. Up front both take a 13 MP autofocus selfie camera. AI composition, AI de-glare and AI object-move round out the editing tools.

This used to be the section that decided the phone for most European readers. The global Pura 90s runs EMUI 16, Huawei's Android-based system – and like every Huawei flagship since 2019, it ships without Google Mobile Services preloaded: no Play Store and no Google apps on first boot. Huawei's own stack covers the basics – AppGallery for apps, Petal Maps for navigation, the Celia assistant for voice, Huawei Wallet for NFC payments – and the once-painful Google gap has shrunk to a setup step.

AppGallery itself now walks you through that setup, step by step – which is why early retail units in Malaysia consistently show Gmail, Maps, YouTube and Drive running alongside TikTok, Netflix and WhatsApp, with an open-source stand-in doing the job of Google's Play Services, and everyday apps installing and updating without workarounds. In daily practice the Google question has shrunk to a few minutes of setup. Two things are still worth checking before you buy: banking apps that insist on Play Integrity, and how deep your Google-account integration runs – those are the spots where the bridge can still creak. Huawei did not publish a fixed number of guaranteed OS or security updates for the global models at launch.

Huawei began the global rollout in Malaysia, where the Pura 90s Pro Max starts at RM 4,899 (about €1,050 / $1,160) for 12 GB + 512 GB, and the Pura 90s Pro at RM 3,699 (about €795 / $875) for 12 GB + 256 GB. More markets follow in the weeks after the keynote.

European list prices were not published on the day, and Huawei's European stores had not yet opened the product pages at launch – expect the euro figures to land above a straight currency conversion once VAT and Huawei's usual premium are applied, as they were for last year's Pura 80 series. Huawei does not sell phones in the United States, so there is no US price to wait for. We'll add the confirmed EU pricing and retailer links here as soon as Huawei's European stores go live.