Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max hands-on review

14 July 2026



  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • 39x
  • 25 Jul 2026

huawei u so silly calling it max

    mobile phone 2, 24 Jul 2026well .... dont expect even a top tier camera give you a sha... moreYes I guess I have to be fair and say that's a pretty high crop and not everyone does that. But I can definitely notice these issues on large screens. Dedicated cameras (DSLRs/mirrorless) are different, with phones the problem is when you have a lens setup like this where there's a gap between 1x and 4x, making you have to utilize digital zoom. And also you can't expect to frame the shot perfectly all the time so you will definitely need to crop. You'd rather have better quality than worse quality right?

    Most phones today can take a good photo for you to post on social media where it will be compressed. But what when you want to get more out of your photos?? When you have a photo you cant crop because people look like vintage video game characters and buildings in the distance are distorted and look like they're melting then that's pretty bad and distracting. I feel like pointing out the issues can only be a beneficial thing for consumers.

    This level of digital sharpening is definitely unnecessary, and combined with noise reduction it's destroying the photo. Some grain would even be fine, it's perfectly natural, but OEMs don't understand that. I guess the normie user brain automatically thinks noise=bad, so they try to avoid that. But if you played around with GCam (or any other 3rd party app where you have different settings) you understand how the photos can look natural and how much quality is simply left on the table when using the stock app. Some phones have made incredible improvements in the past years, but with Huawei I just don't see that...

      adsubzero, 24 Jul 2026Those are not my photos, they are from this preview on gsma... morewell .... dont expect even a top tier camera give you a sharp image from cropping that far away

      i have fujifilm xh1 and i do have that issue .... if you toggle the sharpness in phone to remove what you say a plastic imaging then say goodbay to your photo ..... all your photos will become a gainny like its i am seeing a photo maden by a colored sand grains ....

      if you want to crop that far away there is a feature called .... " telephoto lens " ..... use it if you need it .... everycompany has its own drawback when it come to take a photo ....if you dont like huawei camera app the use open camera app it good one and has a planty of features ... try it

        mobile phone 2, 24 Jul 2026the same pattern that i see is the camera glass is smudged ... moreThose are not my photos, they are from this preview on gsmarena. Available as full uncompressed jpegs with exif, and what I've shown are 1:1 crops. Nothing is dirty there, but thanks for that great analogy. The photos do always look like the sensor is dirty and the software is trying to fight it with oversharpening.

        Great way to tackle the issue though!

        "since when huawei make buildings pixelated like minecraft"

        I don't know, it dates maybe past 4-5 years since they started making everything look like an oil painting. And yes those pixelated object are what I mentioned as a negative point. Good that you noticed.

        "also do us a favor .... when you take a night photo ... hold your hand very good"

        IT'S POSTED BY THE GSMARENA REVIEWER. Basically every night photo exhibits the same issues. I did not want to point out the motion blur there, since of course it can happen shooting in low light, but the distortion that occurs from that processing.

        By the way I'm sure that this phone can also take a great photo, but there is an obvious pattern here, and that's the point I'm trying to make.

        Here's another one. 4x low light (even though they say low light it's only 1000 iso, so its more like medium light). No motion blur, but that distortion and oil painting effect is horrible.

        https://ibb.co/jP0ptRv1

          adsubzero, 23 Jul 20262/2 These results show the same pattern as the past 4-5 ... morethe same pattern that i see is the camera glass is smudged and dirty and you want us to see your images as a proof ....

          and since when huawei make buildings pixelated like minecraft

          a proof must be fully uploaded ...... not a compressed one and after that you referred me to the compressed one as a proof

          also do us a favor .... when you take a night photo ... hold your hand very good .... even pixel and iphone cant take that photo if your hand not steady

            Vals, 23 Jul 2026You are a cheap hater troll who hates Huawei. You have noth... more2/2

            These results show the same pattern as the past 4-5 years of Huawei releases. Every year there's a slight hardware upgrade but software downgrade. Mate 30 Pro was released 7 years ago and honestly I'd take that camera over this one. IMO it's superior especially considering the difference in hardware. Nowadays we have better sensors and optics, higher processing power (you can have more frames and therefore don't have to overcompensate for the lack of raw input quality) and better ISPs, so the potential is huge and you'd think we should be getting night and day results, yet it's not the case. We get these disappointing results, which rely on AI all the time and use too much software processing which destroys image quality. Huawei is not the only one guilty of this, don't get me wrong, but I'm tired of trashing the iPhones and Pixels. We know they're bad and they will never change because they keep selling just the same.

            So is criticizing something = trolling now? We have to praise and glaze these billionaire companies no matter what? I call things how I see them and I will always be like that. I have nothing against Huawei in particular but seeing these results is disappointing and my frustration stems from the fact that Huawei is massively overrated nowadays, for different reasons. Perhaps mostly it's thanks to reviewers like dxomark, which obviously a lot of people consider a holy grail for camera reviews, even though they are shady af. Then we can't forget that people like cheering for the underdog just because they feel it's cool and rebelious. Add to that the absurd number of bots we encounter every day and maybe you can see my point.

            /rant

            Oh and just to add this pre-emptively: Vivo and Oppo being my favorite phones aren't without a fault. They do some things wrong, they use AI, but at least you get different options. They have their respective "pro" modes without the generative AI, you have RAW options and 3rd party app support (like GCam) is generally better. Huawei can and should do better if they want to charge these ridiculous prices.

              Vals, 23 Jul 2026You are a cheap hater troll who hates Huawei. You have noth... moreI have nothing else? What do you mean? Well I have the samples posted here, did you check them out?

              Daytime
              1x
              https://ibb.co/cKcgXFjq
              https://ibb.co/Wwz90Nv
              2x
              https://ibb.co/ZRdY4y6Y
              4x
              https://ibb.co/hR3hGRXp
              UWA
              https://ibb.co/sdwDHYkz
              10x
              https://ibb.co/xtrFWFWh

              Night
              https://ibb.co/tMDX0xVc
              https://ibb.co/TBKDYRDH

              Ok I may be asking for too much from 10x, but it's still funny to see. How did Huawei think that's a good result? It's more abstract art than it is a photo. I have nothing against using AI for sharpening and cleaning up, but generative AI is cancer.

              Inspect any photo 1:1 and it's apparent that a lot of them exhibit 1 or more of these issues.
              There is the oil painting effect (as a result of oversharpening and excessive denoise), distortion, poor color retention, the worst edge aliasing on any phone camera nowadays, occasionally people look like PS1 characters (especially with digital zoom), piss-yellow filter look (which sometimes looks good but sometimes really doesn't) etc...

              If you're happy with these photos then I'm glad for you, but to me this is just wasted potential and incompetence. Dxomark results mean absolutely nothing, especially if you followed all the controversy in the past few years.

                • V
                • Vals
                • dPU
                • 23 Jul 2026

                adsubzero, 16 Jul 2026But but... dxomark said huawei has the bess camera, that�... moreYou are a cheap hater troll who hates Huawei. You have nothing else.

                  • B
                  • Boby
                  • g8y
                  • 22 Jul 2026

                  Striker, 17 Jul 2026This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pu... more Number 1 on China

                    • o
                    • oo Ruly oo
                    • txF
                    • 21 Jul 2026

                    Mikele, 19 Jul 2026This is preview for short characteristics about the device ... moreI just couldn't easily believe this expensive device isn't competitive against existence close rivals.

                      Striker, 17 Jul 2026This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pu... moreDead or expanding their portfolios with their R&D roles. Huawei can't be compared to Nokia! For the smartphone business the company is doing well with more innovative plans to conquer more.

                        oo Ruly oo, 18 Jul 2026This review appeared mainly discussing the camera this mode... moreThis is preview for short characteristics about the device not elaborate review as you observed. Details would be explained when the review is out.

                          Thre, 18 Jul 2026They didn't fix it. Even before the updates, purple sk... moreWeird, I used to use P30 and I had never found the purple sky to be the problem after the first few updates. The ultrawide camera often went pretty overboard with saturation (which made the sky a lot deeper than it looked in many situations), but if anything I remember its main camera to put a slight cyan cast on anything that is strongly blue to make them appear slightly desaturated.

                            Striker, 17 Jul 2026This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pu... moreDepends with where you live. It's still strong elsewhere

                              • T
                              • Thre
                              • JFJ
                              • 18 Jul 2026

                              Nick Tegrataker, 16 Jul 2026They fixed the purple sky issue in its first several camera... moreThey didn't fix it. Even before the updates, purple skies weren't present in every landscape. After the updates, the chances became lower, but the effect became more pronounced in those rare shots. I had one in use P30 Pro

                                Striker, 17 Jul 2026This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pu... moreYou have no idea what is Huwaei today. The biggest smart watches seller worldwide and one of the biggest smartphones seller in China. Have you a idea how big is the Chinese smartphones market?

                                  • o
                                  • oo Ruly oo
                                  • txF
                                  • 18 Jul 2026

                                  This review appeared mainly discussing the camera this model owned. Used my naked eyes which is totally isn't objective to judge the performance from available photos I should honestly say my approval has been surely deployed. It is unfair to judge otherwise. It achieved the goal as flagship camera. To talk about other components is hard for me as the SOC is not the one widely available so no experience available to share. However when I try to look at how they used the components to introduce this model on flagship market, it makes me skeptical to let this unit positioned beneath.

                                    Striker, 17 Jul 2026This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pu... moreYou know nothing Huawei can't be compared to failed Nokia ,Huawei is not dead at all instead it start to return to it's glory days before sanctions try to do research for yourself, it's among the best growing Smartphone companies since 2025 up to date

                                      • S
                                      • Striker
                                      • B0@
                                      • 17 Jul 2026

                                      This company is like Nokia - they’re dead, but they keep pushing smth, just to exist. It is like electrocuting a cadaver - it is moving, but it is not alive, hahah!

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • NxI
                                        • 17 Jul 2026

                                        [deleted post]As I said earlier, ANYONE can watch camera comparison videos and see this is wrong. The Pura 90 Pro Max (China Version) absolutely smokes the Samsung S26 Ultra below in every use case.

                                        https://youtu.be/1hcXdnTp_XU?si=GmlxLQ-KZvdDmSTj

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