A versatile gadget

HUAWEI PURA 80 PRO: ZOOMING HELPS IT PRODUCE SHARP PICTURES

- Arthur Goldstuck

What is the Huawei Pura 80 Pro? It starts with eyelashes. I zoomed in on the face of a colleague strolling outside the office window and snapped a quick 10x close-up of his face. The photo that emerged was startlingly sharp, but I didn't realize how sharp until I zoomed in further on the image. It turned out that every single eyelash could be made out separately, and sharply.

The effect feels less like a phone snapping a scene and more like a camera bending light to your will. Behind that impression lies a system built for versatility: an adjustable aperture that alters depth and brightness, a telephoto lens that holds far-off details steady, and an ultra-wide that pulls in entire scenes without distortion.

Color tuning adds richness without tipping into exaggeration, while high dynamic range ensures skies and shadows can live together in the same frame without losing detail. Huawei's decision to build the Pura 80 Pro around its camera, it turns out, is no gimmick.

The main lens rests on a 1-inch Ultra Lighting sensor, the largest yet in a non-Ultra Huawei device. It is not simply the size that matters but what it allows: a ten-stop variable aperture that runs from f/1.6 to f/4.0.

That degree of control is unusual in smartphones, and it gives the user the same sense—if not the reality—of creative options that professionals expect from larger cameras. The RYYB pixel structure, which replaces the conventional RGGB arrangement, lets in up to substance to the experience of shooting at night or in mixed lighting.