Huawei’s Pura 90 family is getting a fourth member, and this one breaks from the design of the rest. Pre-orders for the Pura 90 Plus opened in China on Thursday through Huawei’s VMall store, its Experience Stores and authorised retailers, with perks for early buyers. A full launch event is planned for next week, and shipments are expected to begin before November 8.
The first official teaser gives a good sense of where the phone fits. It’s shown in Sunset Purple, a purple-to-orange gradient already offered on the Pura 90 Pro Max, and it keeps the inverted triangular camera housing in the upper-right corner that identifies this generation. The difference is in the body. The Pura 90, Pura 90 Pro and Pura 90 Pro Max that arrived in April all use flat edges, but the Plus returns to a curved frame and rounded back much like last year’s Pura 80 Pro. That’s a deliberate choice at a time when nearly every flagship has gone flat, and it suggests Huawei sees enough demand from buyers who prefer a phone that sits more comfortably in the hand.
Beyond the design, Huawei has confirmed very little, so the rest comes from leaks rather than official specifications. The device, reportedly codenamed Lucia, is expected to sit between the base Pura 90 at 4,699 yuan and the Pura 90 Pro at 5,499 yuan. Its main camera is said to be a 50MP 1-inch RYYB sensor with a physical variable aperture. RYYB sensors swap green subpixels for yellow ones to capture more light, and Huawei has relied on them for years in low-light photography. Rumours also point to a 48MP macro telephoto, a 40MP ultra-wide and a 1.5MP multispectral sensor for colour accuracy, along with an updated version of Huawei’s XMAGE image processing.
The detail most likely to divide buyers is the chip. The Plus is tipped to use the Kirin 9020 with a Maleoon 920 GPU, while the Pro models launched earlier this year moved to the newer Kirin 9030S. If that’s accurate, Huawei is offering a large 1-inch camera in a more affordable model and saving money on processing power, which could be a reasonable trade for photography fans and a weaker one for anyone who games heavily. A 6.8-inch display with 1.5K resolution is also expected.
As with most of Huawei’s recent phones, there’s no word yet on availability outside China. The bigger question for next week is pricing: if the Plus lands closer to the base Pura 90 than to the Pro, a 1-inch camera at that price could make the more expensive models harder to justify.
