Huawei's new premium smartphone has pop-out camera lens as its party piece

Huawei has revealed its a new range of camera phones - with the new Pura series replacing the P family of handsets which were first launched 12 years ago. The most notable feature of the new flagship Huawei Pura70 Ultra is a distinctive rear camera set-up with a massive-looking main lens which extends from the body of the phone when the camera is engaged. 

The motorized lens system will be very reminscent of traditional digital compact cameras, in sound as well as in its motorized action - and is perhaps designed to appeal to those who have been switching back to these early digicams. Cnet reports that pop-up mechanism was tested for 300,000 retraction cycles - equivalent to about 150 per day for five years. 

The 50-megapixel main camera uses an unusually large 1-inch-type sensor with a maximum aperture of f/1.6 and sensor-shift image stabilization. Also on the rear of the phone you will find two other lenses. Alongside a 40MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens, there is a 50MP f/2.1 3.5x optically-stabilized telephoto lens, that offers an impressive-looking 35x macro focusing facility. The maximum video recording resolution is 4K.

Around the back there is a 13MP f/2.4 selfie camera.

Weighing 226g, the Pura70 Ultra a 6.8in OLED screen with an adaptive refresh rate of between 1-120fps. The phone has 16GB of RAM with 512GB of non-expandable storage, and a 5200mAh rechargeable battery.

The phone will be available in four colors - black, brown, green and white - and will go on sale in Europe later this month for €1,499 - which is equivalent to around $1,600 / £1,300 / AU$2,450.

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Chris George has worked on Digital Camera World since its launch in 2017. He has been writing about photography, mobile phones, video making and technology for over 30 years - and has edited numerous magazines including PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Digital Camera, Video Camera, and Professional Photography. 

His first serious camera was the iconic Olympus OM10, with which he won the title of Young Photographer of the Year - long before the advent of autofocus and memory cards. Today he uses a Nikon D800, a Fujifilm X-T1, a Sony A7, and his iPhone 15 Pro Max.

He has written about technology for countless publications and websites including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, Dorling Kindersley, What Cellphone, T3 and Techradar.