Huawei Pura 80 Ultra hands-on review

Design and build quality

The Huawei Pura 80 ships in Prestige Gold or Golden Black. Gold is prevalent in the design with a glazed gold texture, a golden XMAGE badge on the back, and golden lens rings.

Though the golden hue isn't as strong as you might think, it's really more of a beige in the shade.

The Pura 80 Ultra is a big phone. It's weighty at above 230 grams. Much of the weight is down to the immense camera island. Sitting slightly off-center at the top, it also means that the Pura 80 Ultra isn't a well-balanced phone. There's a pronounced top-heaviness to it, but that's something photography enthusiasts should be well aware of.

We like both colors, though the black one is more interesting thanks to the contrasting gold accents that otherwise blend in on the gold model.

Whichever color you choose, the Pura 80 Ultra has a mirror-esque, reflective finish on the rear panel. That goes against the everything-matte-all-the-time design trend phones adhere to these days.

We've said it more than once, but some of us here at GSMArena love curvy phones, despite their seemingly inferior ergonomics. They have a special feel to them, similar to jewelry in a way.

The Pura 80 Ultra in Black

The frame has a brushed metal look. Control-wise, it features buttons on the right side, with the USB-C port located at the bottom.

The sides of the Pura 80 Ultra

Like the phone, the camera island doesn't adhere to the industry "rules" of design. It's not a centered, round glass island on the top of the phone's back. It's a triangular design slightly reminiscent of the screaming face emoji or the cat with an open mouth meme.

The topmost lens houses the ultrawide, the switchable dual telephoto module is in the middle, and the wide-angle camera sits at the bottom. There's a dual-tone flash in between with the XMAGE image processing logo next to it.

The display is visually stunning. It's a 120Hz LTPO OLED with up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and spans a 6.8-inch canvas.

The glass on top is a second-generation Crystal Armor Kunlun Glass that Huawei says has an impressive 16 times better scratch resistance and 25 times better drop resistance. The panel tapers off slightly in all four directions, creating a pleasant feel when you're sliding on the edge.

Overall, we'd say the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is a handsome phone. Huawei has managed to surround the space-demanding camera hardware with an elegant exterior. We'd imagine that an all-flat design would've made the phone feel rough and chunky.

But we would've loved a few more color choices, a white one, a blue one. But what do you guys think?