Best Huawei Phones, and How They Work Without Google
Huawei's best cameras are on the Pura 90s Pro Max and its biggest battery on the nova 15 Max. It sells neither in the UK, the US, India or Nigeria.
Google’s apps and services do not come on a Huawei phone, and that decides whether one suits you at all. The phones Huawei sells outside China run its own EMUI system and take their apps from Huawei’s AppGallery. Huawei’s South African store puts it in its terms of sale: Google Mobile Services “are not integrated”.
Accept that and the hardware reads well. Our choices are the Pura 90s Pro Max for its cameras, the Mate 80 Pro where Huawei has it marked down, and the nova 15 Max for the lowest price and the biggest battery.
In the UK, the US, India or Nigeria, Huawei’s own sites sell you no phone, so one bought there is an import. We would not import a phone whose apps and updates already need checking.
Where Huawei sells phones
- South Africa, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Germany: Huawei runs an online store with phone prices.
- Kenya, Ghana and Egypt: the sites list phones. Egypt’s has store prices for the nova range.
- Nigeria: Huawei’s Nigerian site lists wearables and accessories and has no phone section.
- United Kingdom: the site lists two folding phones, the Mate XT Ultimate Design and the Mate X6. Its store returned no price for either, though it priced Huawei’s watches as normal.
- United States: there is no US site. The US address leads to Huawei’s global pages, which have no store.
- India: Huawei’s consumer site has no India section. The address returns a page-not-found error.
Apps without Google: EMUI and AppGallery
Huawei’s global spec pages list EMUI on every current phone: EMUI 16.0 on the two Pura 90s models, and EMUI 15.0 on the Pura 80 series, the Mate 80 Pro and the Mate X7. The South African, UAE, Malaysian, Philippine, German and UK sites list EMUI too. HarmonyOS is what Huawei lists in China, where the same Mate 80 Pro is shown with HarmonyOS 6.0.
Huawei’s support site explains that its own service layer, HMS Core, runs on the open-source version of Android and supports Android apps. It then adds that certain Android apps need Google’s equivalent, GMS Core, and may not be able to run.
Its support pages give these routes to apps, in this order:
- Phone Clone, Huawei’s tool for copying apps across from your old phone.
- AppGallery, which Huawei calls its official app platform.
- Petal Search, a search tool that points to an app in AppGallery, on the developer’s own site or in another store.
- The web version of an app, or a download from another site through Huawei’s browser.
Huawei attaches a warning to the last route: downloading apps from other sources may be risky. When an app is missing from AppGallery, the reasons Huawei gives include that the developer has not put it there and that it is not offered in your region.
We found no list on Huawei’s site of the apps that work without Google’s services. So before you buy, search AppGallery for the apps you cannot do without, your bank’s first.
Huawei’s spec pages name the EMUI version and give no number of years for updates. Sony and HMD both print one for their phones, so this is a gap you should weigh.
If Google’s apps matter to you, a Huawei is the wrong choice whatever the hardware, so go to our phone picks for each budget instead. Sony’s Xperia phones come from a maker that prints a six-year update promise, and the page on phones with in-display fingerprint readers lists current Android phones by price.
Cameras, batteries and prices across the range
Specifications are from Huawei’s global spec pages. Prices are the “from” prices on Huawei’s own stores, rounded, in South African rand, UAE dirhams or euros in Germany, and several were sale prices. Huawei’s global spec pages for the Pura and Mate phones do not name the processor. The nova pages do: the nova 14 Pro has a Kirin 8020.
| Phone | Screen | Rear cameras | Battery and charging | Software | Huawei’s price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pura 90s Pro Max | 6.9-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 40MP ultra-wide, 200MP telephoto | 6,000mAh, 100W | EMUI 16.0 | about R27,000 or AED 4,000 |
| Pura 90s Pro | 6.6-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 12.5MP ultra-wide, 50MP telephoto | 6,000mAh, 66W | EMUI 16.0 | about R20,000 or AED 3,000 |
| Pura 80 Ultra | 6.8-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 40MP ultra-wide, 50MP and 12.5MP telephoto | 5,170mAh, 100W | EMUI 15.0 | about €1,250 or AED 3,700 |
| Pura 80 | 6.6-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 13MP ultra-wide, 12MP telephoto | 5,170mAh, 66W | EMUI 15.0 | about R9,000 |
| Mate 80 Pro | 6.75-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 40MP ultra-wide, 48MP telephoto | 5,750mAh, 100W | EMUI 15.0 | about R13,000 or AED 3,100 |
| Mate X7, folding | 8-inch inside, 6.49-inch outside | 50MP main, 40MP ultra-wide, 50MP telephoto | 5,600mAh, 66W | EMUI 15.0 | about R40,000 or AED 5,000 |
| nova 14 Pro | 6.78-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 12MP telephoto, 8MP ultra-wide | 5,500mAh, 100W | EMUI 15.0 | about €430 or AED 1,200 |
| nova 15 Max | 6.84-inch OLED, 120Hz | 50MP main, 2MP | 8,500mAh, 40W | EMUI 14.2 | about R8,000 or AED 1,300 |
| nova Y74 | 6.67-inch LCD, HD+ | 50MP | 6,620mAh, 40W | EMUI 12 | about R3,600 |
The best Huawei camera: Pura 90s Pro Max or Pura 80 Ultra
The Pura 90s Pro Max is the newest and largest Pura, and our pick for the 200MP telephoto and the newest software. That telephoto gives about 4x optical zoom, and the 50MP main camera has an aperture that opens and closes between f/1.4 and f/4.0. It comes with 12GB of memory and 256GB or 512GB of storage, is rated IP68 and IP69, and charges at up to 100W by cable. Huawei lists wireless charging too, without a wattage.
The battery figure depends on where you buy. Huawei gives 6,000mAh outside the European Union and a rated 5,270mAh for the EU version. The price was about R27,000 in South Africa and about AED 4,000 in the UAE, down from a list price of AED 4,499.
The Pura 90s Pro is the same idea in a 6.6-inch body for about R7,000 less in South Africa. The telephoto drops to 50MP and the ultra-wide to 12.5MP, and cable charging to 66W. The battery is the same size.
Take the older Pura 80 Ultra if a long zoom matters more. It is still the Huawei with the longest zoom, with two telephoto cameras, at about 3.7x and 9.4x, behind a main camera with a 1-inch sensor, and 16GB of memory with 512GB of storage. Huawei’s German store had it at about €1,250, down from €1,499.
Most Huawei for the money: Mate 80 Pro and Pura 80
Both are the ones to buy at their South African sale prices. The Mate 80 Pro has a 6.75-inch screen, 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage and a 5,750mAh battery that charges at up to 100W by cable and 80W wirelessly. It was about R13,000 in South Africa, marked down from R21,999, and about AED 3,100 in the UAE. At the South African price it undercuts the smaller Pura 90s Pro by about R7,000 while giving more memory and storage, on the older EMUI 15.0.
Huawei’s South African store had the plain Pura 80 at about R9,000 against a list price of R19,999. For that you get a 6.6-inch OLED screen, a 50MP main camera with the adjustable aperture, a 12MP periscope telephoto at about 5.5x, 12GB of memory, 256GB of storage and the same IP68 and IP69 rating as the dearer phones.
Low prices: the nova phones
The nova 15 Max has the biggest battery on Huawei’s global phone list, 8,500mAh, with a 6.84-inch OLED screen and 256GB of storage. It was about R8,000 in South Africa and about AED 1,300 in the UAE. The weak points on the spec sheet are the second camera, which is 2MP, the 40W charging for a battery that size, and EMUI 14.2, which is two versions behind the newest Pura.
The nova 14 Pro costs more and is the better-equipped phone: an adjustable-aperture main camera, a 12MP telephoto at about 3x, 100W charging and EMUI 15.0. Huawei’s German store had it at about €430, down from €699.
The nova Y74 is the cheapest at about R3,600. Its screen is an LCD at HD+ resolution and it runs EMUI 12. We would skip it unless the price is the whole point.
Huawei’s global site also shows a newer nova 16s Pro with a Kirin 9010S, a 200MP main camera, a 7,000mAh battery and EMUI 16.0. None of the stores we checked priced it. The Egyptian store sells the plain nova 16s.
Huawei’s folding phones
The Mate X7 is the folding one we would pick. It opens to an 8-inch screen and has a 6.49-inch screen on the outside. Huawei lists it at 236g with a 5,600mAh battery and IP58 and IP59 ratings. It was about R40,000 in South Africa and about AED 5,000 in the UAE.
The Mate XT Ultimate Design folds twice and opens to 10.2 inches. It weighs 298g, runs the older EMUI 14.2 and was about AED 9,700 on the UAE store. That is a phone to buy because you want that screen, at nearly twice the price of the Mate X7.
