Huawei Pura 80 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Camera battles

Phone Arena

5 days ago

Mobile photography is getting more and more popular nowadays, as the camera systems of modern smartphones are able to challenge even dedicated digital cameras. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is one such model, and with its 1-inch main sensor and innovative telephoto camera, it aims to take the "camera phone" crown."Not so fast," we can almost audibly hear the Galaxy S25 Ultra exclaim—Samsung's ultra-premium flagship features one of the most complete camera systems on the market. Today we're going to pit the two against each other, and let's not forget that a smartphone is much more than just a camera.
We're going to explore all the important parts of the smartphone experience equation and give you a definitive answer—which one of these two is better and in which particular areas. Strap in, we're off!
£775 at Amazon
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra differences:
Table of Contents:
Design
Display
Performance
Camera
Battery
Specs
Summary These two look radically different, in the constraints of modern smartphone design, of course. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra utilizes a quad-curved design, a very popular approach a couple of years ago. The front and back of the phone are slightly curved on all sides, giving a premium and edge-to-edge feel. However, the industry has moved toward flatter designs, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a clear example.The shape is much more rectangular, the sides are flatter, and the screen is no longer curved. It's down to personal preference, and to be fair, the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra sits a tad more comfortably in the hand.
The camera housings are also completely different—the Galaxy S25 Ultra uses separate cutouts for each of the cameras, while the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra has an enormous camera bump. One that protrudes quite a lot and almost doubles the thickness of the phone.
Size-wise, the Pura 80 Ultra is a tad taller but also narrower, thanks to the curved display. The big 1-inch sensor and all the optics have contributed to the weight of the phone, however. The Pura is quite heavy at 233.5 grams, while the shorter and wider Galaxy S25 Ultra is also a bit lighter at 218 grams.
When it comes to materials, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has an advantage, it uses titanium and our favorite anti-reflective coating on its screen. Huawei has evolved its Kunlun Glass and it's the second iteration protecting the screen of the Pura 80 Ultra. No anti-reflective coating here, and no titanium for the frame, just good old aluminum. Another key design element of the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the integrated S Pen. Even though rumors suggest that Samsung will abandon the S Pen in the Galaxy S26 Ultra, it's still alive and kicking in this version of the phone. Both phones sport IP68 water and dust resistance, a standard among modern flagships. Let's check out all available colors.
You already saw the Titanium Silverblue of the Galaxy S25 Ultra versus the Golden Black of the Pura 80 Ultra in our hands-on comparison above, but here's some additional visual material covering the other hues.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra available colors | Image by Samsung
The Pura 80 Ultra is much more modest with just two color options, albeit quite stylish ones. Our Golden Black model has ceramic feel to it, and the Prestige gold looks very classy as well.
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra color options | Image by Huawei Display Differences The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra comes equipped with a 6.8-inch AMOLED panel. The resolution is 1276 x 2848 pixels, resulting in around 459 PPI pixel density, and the display also uses LTPO tech, meaning it can dynamically change its refresh rate up to 120 Hz. Huawei cites 3000 nits of peak brightness, but we'll check this one out during our display test.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with a similar panel, albeit a tad larger at 6.9 inches. The resolution is 1440 x 3120 pixels, giving the Samsung flagship a higher pixel density of 498 PPI. This LTPO panel can go from 1 to 120 Hz dynamically, and the cited brightness is 2600 nits peak.
Time for our display test! Let's see some hard numbers!
When it comes to display tech, Samsung excels! It's not surprising that most big smartphone manufacturers use Samsung panels for their smartphones. Compared to the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra, the Galaxy S25 Ultra outputs more nits of brightness, it can go dimmer at night, and the color temperature is also better.
The Pura 80 Ultra is not that far off, and in fact, the phone manages to win in the color accuracy area. Subjectively, both displays look stunning—bright, vivid, and sharp. Even though the Huawei goes only up to around 1000 nits (both at 20% APL and 100% APL), the UI remains visible even in direct sunlight.
Sadly, the US ban has hit Huawei hardest in the hardware department (what a tongue-twister). The Kirin 9020 chipset uses old 7nm technology and it is no match for modern Snapdragon silicon (or even Tensor for that matter).
The Galaxy S25 Ultra utilizes Samsung's partnership with Qualcomm and comes equipped with a slightly overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite. It's a powerhouse and currently one of the fastest (if not the fastest) on the market.
In terms of RAM and storage, the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra kind of has an advantage in sporting more RAM at 16GB. It comes with only two storage configurations - 512GB and 1TB. The Galaxy S25 Ultra has 12GB of RAM and you can get it with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB of onboard storage. Time for some benchmarks!
The numbers speak quite categorically. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is almost three times faster in single-core performance and two times faster in the multi-core test compared to the Kirin. In all fairness, there's no lag or perceivable UI speed problems on the Huawei, but as far as synthetic benchmarks go, the S25 Ultra is the clear winner.
The same effect is observed in the 3DMark test, and here the difference is even more striking. Not only does the Pura 80 Ultra lag behind substantially in the first pass, but it also thermal throttles quite a lot. Which brings us to the software part, another disappointment for Huawei and the Pura 80 Ultra. The Samsung flagship comes with Android 15 and One UI 7, upgradable to Android 16, and there's a bunch of really useful Galaxy AI tools on board as well. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra, on the other hand, runs EMUI 15 outside China. It's based on Android 12 and quite outdated. There are some AI tricks present, but nowhere near as refined and comprehensive as the Galaxy AI system.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra will be supported for seven long years, while the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra will most likely get one or two updates (there's no official information on that), but it doesn't matter all that much because EMUI is a dead-end OS deemed to be abandoned in favor of Harmony OS. And the latter isn't available outside China on Huawei's smartphones.
Let's quickly run through the camera specs of both phones.
You might've noticed that the Pira 80 Ultra features not one but two periscope zoom systems on board. It's an innovative dual camera system that resides over one sensor. There's a prism that switches which camera focuses on that sensor. When using the 3.7x lens, most of the 50MP is utilized, and when the phone switches to the 10x camera, only 12.5MP are in use.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra has something similar but Samsung conventionally slapped two separate sensors for the two telephoto cameras. There's also an advantage in pure resolution for the main camera of the S25 Ultra but, on the other hand, the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra uses a bigger, 1-inch sensor. So, onto the samples!
Photos from the main camera are quite comparable, both phones did a great job at capturing a lot of detail. The colors are quite boosted in the Pura 80 Ultra sample, and the exposure is also on the higher side. The Galaxy S25 Ultra sample looks a tad more realistic with darker shadows and the colors are not as saturated.
There's a difference in the optical zoom here—the Galaxy S25 Ultra telephoto camera has 3X native optical zoom, while the less powerful lens over the 50MP sensor in the Pura can do 3.7X optical. The same observation from above applies here: the colors are quite saturated in the Pura sample, the contrast is higher, and the tonality is warmer. In terms of quality, both are pretty close. Now here we can compare the 10X mode of the dual periscope system inside the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra to the 10X periscope camera of the S25 Ultra. We like the Pura 80 sample a little better. It's smoother and more realistic, while the S25 Ultra image looks a bit oversharpened and kind of grainy.
When it comes to the ultrawide, both phones performed quite similarly, with the Galaxy S25 Ultra doing a tad better job with dynamic range and exposure. Both samples look quite colorful; again, the Huawei is more extreme in that regard.
Selfies look good on both phones, but we feel that the S25 Ultra was able to pull off more details from the scene, especially if you take a look at the fabric of the shirt in the photo. The exposure and dynamic range also seem better in the S25 Ultra sample.
The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra has two battery capacities. The international version comes with a 5,170 mAh cell on board, while the Chinese version sports a substantially larger 5,700 mAh battery. This suggests that the Far East version is equipped with a silicon-carbon battery, while the International sports a regular lithium-ion cell. The Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh battery of the conventional variety, so it will be interesting to see which one performs better and lasts longer. Onto the tests!
Interestingly enough, the composite result is almost identical between these two—around 8 hours. The Galaxy S25 Ultra does a better job at browsing longevity (probably due to better LTPO tech), while the Pura 80 Ultra is a video marathon runner. When it comes to gaming, the Kirin chipset is not the most efficient one with its 7 nm technology.
Moving to charging, the Pura 80 wins with ease. The 100W wired charger fills the battery from zero to full in just 39 minutes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra needs 1 hour and 9 minutes to do so. The wireless charging situation is even more polarized. The Pura manages a full wireless charge in just 55 minutes with Huawei's proprietary charger, while the S25 Ultra needs almost two hours. When it comes to pure mobile photography, these two are pretty close. The Pura 80 Ultra and its quite clever dual periscope system give you a lot of flexibility on the telephoto front. The main 1-inch sensor is quite good, even though processing isn't as good as the software magic on the S25 Ultra.But phones are not only cameras, and the Pura 80 Ultra lags behind in the hardware and software department, and by quite a lot. The Kirin chipset is dated, and the software support is almost nonexistent. Couple this with the lack of Google services and the rather steep price (around 1,220 euros), and you'll arrive at a pretty bleak conclusion regarding the Pura 80 Ultra.
As good as it might be as a camera phone, not many people would buy it, most likely. Which is a shame, because there is some quite clever and innovative tech on board of the Pura, and we can only hope other manufacturers will be motivated and come up with something new and cool of their own.