Huawei's Pura 90 Plus puts a 1-inch camera sensor with an f/1.6 to f/4.0 adjustable aperture in a CNY 5,499 phone
Huawei launched the Pura 90 Plus in China with a 50MP 1-inch main camera whose aperture moves from f/1.6 to f/4.0, the Kirin 9025 chip and a 5,700mAh battery, on sale October 31.
Huawei’s own page leads with the camera: “一英寸可变光圈主摄,” a 1-inch variable-aperture main camera. The spec sheet fills in the rest: a 50MP 1-inch sensor, an F1.6 to F4.0 aperture and optical stabilization.
That aperture range is the one number in dispute. GSMArena’s launch report describes “a 1-inch type sensor with an f/1.4-4.0 variable aperture.” Huawei’s spec sheet says F1.6. The maker’s sheet is the one used here.
Behind the main camera sit a 48MP telephoto at F2.1 and a 40MP ultrawide at F2.2. GSMArena says the telephoto reaches “up to 4x optical zoom.”
The chip is Huawei’s Kirin 9025, which GSMArena calls “an overhauled version of the Kirin 9020 from the Pura 80 series with a claimed 20% increase in performance.” The battery is 5,700mAh, charged at 100W wired and 80W wireless.
The screen is “a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED with a 2,848 × 1,276 px resolution and a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate,” per GSMArena. Huawei’s sheet rates the phone IP68 for water to two meters and IP69 against hot, high-pressure jets, and lists the weight at about 220 grams. It runs HarmonyOS 7 and supports two-way BeiDou satellite messaging, which Huawei’s footnote limits to mainland China.
Pricing runs from “CNY 5,499 ($825) for the 256GB storage trim” to “CNY 6,999 ($1,050) for the version with 1TB storage,” according to GSMArena.
| Pura 90 Plus | Pura 90 Pro | Pura 80 Ultra | vivo X500 Pro Max | Oppo Find X10 Pro Max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main camera | 50MP, 1-inch, F1.6–F4.0 | 50MP, F1.4–F4.0 | 50MP, 1-inch, F1.6–F4.0 | 50MP, 1/1.28-inch, f/1.57 | 200MP |
| Telephoto | 48MP, F2.1 | 50MP, F2.1, 4x | not compared | 200MP, 85mm | 200MP, 3x |
| Chip | Kirin 9025 | Kirin 9030S | not listed | Dimensity 9600 Pro | Dimensity 9600 Pro |
| Battery | 5,700mAh | 6,000mAh | 5,700mAh | 8,000mAh | 8,000mAh |
| Wired / wireless | 100W / 80W | 66W / 50W | 100W / 80W | 90W / 40W | 80W / 50W |
| Weight | about 220 g | about 213.5 g | about 233.5 g | not compared | not compared |
Sources for the chart: Huawei’s spec pages for the Pura 90 Pro and Pura 80 Ultra, vivo’s X500 Pro Max page and Oppo’s Find X10 Pro Max page.
The chart shows something the launch didn’t stress. The Pura 80 Ultra already carried a 1-inch sensor with the same F1.6 to F4.0 range, on a sheet that reads almost line for line like the Plus’s: same 5,700mAh battery, same 100W and 80W charging. The Plus is about 13 grams lighter.
What Huawei didn’t say. There’s no word on sales outside China, no promise on how many years of HarmonyOS updates the phone gets, and no detail on what workload produced the 20% performance figure. The two-way satellite messaging is limited to mainland China by Huawei’s own footnote.
What it means for anyone buying phones for a team. A phone that only sells in one market, with satellite features that work in one market, is a phone for that market. Outside China, it’s a reference point for what the rest of the industry’s camera hardware will be measured against.
Why now. vivo and Oppo pushed 200MP telephotos and 8,000mAh batteries this season. Huawei’s answer at this price is a bigger main sensor with a mechanical aperture rather than a bigger battery.
A phone camera with a real iris is the kind of hardware that used to need a separate camera. The interesting part is less the 1-inch sensor, which Huawei has shipped before, than the fact that it now shows up below the Ultra tier. If that keeps sliding down the lineup, the main camera stops being the thing that separates a company’s top phone from its middle one.
Huawei hasn’t said whether the Plus, or anything with its camera, leaves China.