Huawei Pura 80 Ultra: One sensor for two cameras

Jan Johannsen

12.6.2025

Translation: machine translated

With the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra, two telephoto lenses share one image sensor. Movable elements ensure that the light falls through both lenses onto the same sensor.

Three circles can be seen on the back of the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra. On closer inspection, two lenses can be seen in the largest of these. What cannot be seen from the outside is that they use the same image sensor. A movable prism ensures that the light from both lenses hits the same sensor surface.

Two lenses share one sensor

Its four lenses cover focal lengths of 13, 22.5, 83 and 212 millimetres in 35 mm format. The 83 and 212 millimetres share the sensor and correspond to a 3.7x and 9.4x optical zoom. The fact that the lenses have different apertures of f/2.4 and f/3.6 is not unusual. What is striking, however, are the different resolutions specified by Huawei.

Huawei shows exactly how the mechanism works in a video:

The smaller telephoto camera has 50 megapixels available, the larger one only 12.5 megapixels. My guess: The longer focal length ensures that the light cannot reach the entire sensor surface. This is why Huawei only uses part of the sensor. The image quality should still be better than if only a digital zoom were used.

But why is Huawei doing this? There could be several reasons. For example, because they want to show that they can do it and have innovations that other manufacturers don't offer. In addition, dispensing with a fourth image sensor saves costs for a component that is not exactly cheap and creates space for other components.

Main camera with large sensor area

The other features of the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra are characterised by the large sensor of the main camera and the high battery capacity. The most important key data at a glance:

• Main camera: 50 megapixels, 1 inch, mechanical aperture from f/1.6 to f/4.0
• Ultra wide-angle camera: 40 megapixels, f/2.2
• Front camera: 13 megapixel, f/2.0
• Display: 6.8 inch OLED, 2848 × 1276 pixels
• Battery 5700 mAh, charging with up to 100 watts
• Memory: 16 gigabytes
• Storage space: 512 gigabytes or 1 terabyte
• Water protection: IP68
• Operating system: Harmony OS 5.1

As usual, Huawei does not provide any information on the chipset used. Most recently, it was mainly Kirin models from the company's own production. These now keep pace with the good chipsets from Qualcomm or Mediatek.

In addition to the Pura 80 Ultra, the manufacturer has also introduced a Pura 80 Pro and a Pura 80 as more affordable models with fewer features. Whether and when all or one of the new smartphones will come to Europe is currently unclear.

Jan Johannsen

Senior Editor

Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.de

As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus. more

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