Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max review

EMUI 16 with Android 16 core

The global version of the Huawei Pura 90s Pro boots Android 16 with EMUI 16. That's an update over previous versions of EMUI that were based on much older Android cores. EMUI supports APK and Android apps, quite expectedly, and it relies on HMS - Huawei Mobile Services, instead of GMS - Google Mobile Services.

In contrast, the Chinese model runs on Huawei's own HarmonyOS, which is an independent operating system that does not rely on the Android Open Source Project. HarmonyOS has its own microkernel and app format. That shouldn't be confused with HarmonyOS as found on Huawei's globally available tablets, as that OS is more or less like the international EMUI and still based on Android.

The new EMUI 16, which we see here, not only brings a newer underlying Android version, but also Celia AI and Celia one-command ability.

EMUI looks quite familiar as it has not changed drastically over the years. It includes neat little things like large folders and cards - another name for the widgets that you can add for the in-house apps, indicated by a bar under the app icon.

Air gestures and smart sensing are supported on the Pura 90s Pro Max - a familiar capability also found on previous Huawei and Honor models.

EMUI 16

Huawei offers a lot of default apps to get you started. There are Huawei's Gallery, Music, Video, and Health apps. A File Manager app is available, as well. There is also Smart Remote - you can turn your phone into a universal remote thanks to its IR blaster.

You also get Petal Maps, Petal Search and Huawei's own Browser.

Huawei's AppGallery handles the app installations by default, and it seems the advertisements and pop-ups have been drastically lowered since EMUI 14.

You can install other app repositories, and they work just fine.

App Gallery • APK Pure • Gbox

GBox is a virtual environment for running all Google services. You have a list of apps you can install right away, but you can also install other apps from the integrated Google Play Store if you'd like. Updates via the Google Play Store are also possible. GBox also creates app shortcuts on your homescreen too so you don't need to open it every time. Apps installed this way operate as expected.

Play Store via GBox

EMUI 16 supports split-screen multitasking, and you can add one pop-up window on top of these.

Multi-tasking

Huawei was a bit behind the other manufacturers in the AI game. But with EMUI 16, it has powered up its own Celia assistant with a feature called one-command. You can combine all of your commands in one sentence, and the AI would take the appropriate actions (i.e., add events, send email invites, and save notes or a grocery shopping list). You can use it for all sorts of questions, of course.

Gemini does not work on the Pura, but ChatGPT works just fine, in case you are not happy with Celia.

In terms of AI image manipulation features, which some other manufacturers have, Huawei only has a couple of those. The first one is AI object Smart Remove, there are also Best Expression (for group photos), and Building Straightener.

Object Removal • Object Removal

Overall, EMUI 16 is a robust system that can be easily tweaked and tinkered with, but it still has a few limitations compared to regular Android phones. And no, we are not sure how many years of software updates the phone will get.

Performance and benchmarks

The Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max is powered by a new HiSilicon Kirin 9030S chip, a platform that has been based on SMIC's 5nm-class FinFET node known as the N+3 process. The 9030S seems to be both a downgrade and an upgrade compared to the Kirin 9030 Pro inside the Mate X7.

The octa-core processor, for example, has been downclocked compared to the Mate X7. There is a single Taishan V124 Big core, clocked at up to 2.7 GHz, three Taishan V124 Mid cores, working at up to 2.15 GHz and four Taishan V124 Little cores, limited to 1.62 GHz.

The HiSilicon Maleoon 935F GPU though is more baffling. It seems to be rated for around 1433 GFLOPS of performance, compared to 2388 GFLOPS on the regular Kirin 9030's GPU and 2866 GFLOPS on the Pro model. So, we expect notably worse GPU performance here.

The chip is coupled with either 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB or 512GB UFS storage.

The Kirin 9030S supports 5G connectivity and eSIM.

And now, let's run some benchmarks.

Quite expectedly, the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max scores as low as the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 inside the Motorola Edge 70 - a lower-tier mid-range chipset.

And, as expected, the performance of the GPU inside the Pura 90s Pro Max has been halved compared to the Kirin 9030 Pro inside the Mate X7.

We also ran the usual stress tests and the results are not exciting, especially for a CPU at this power level - under load, the phone was able to retain only 48% of its CPU performance and 61% of its GPU performance.

CPU test • GPU test

All things considered, the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max biggest weakness has to be performance - while it's alright, it's nowhere near flagship, more like mediocre mid-range. And that's before it throttles down to 50% when put under heavy sustained loads. To put things in perspective, Google got a lot of flak for the Tensor G5 inside the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the processing performance here is considerably lower.