Let’s get this straight up front: The Vive Focus Vision isn’t a competitor to the Meta Quest 3, or the recently released Quest 3S. At $999, how could it be? Instead, it’s another stab at the high-end VR market for HTC Vive, an audience it’s cultivated since the launch of the first Vive headset in 2016. While Meta has leaned more towards cheaper and more mainstream VR headsets over the last decade, HTC Vive has done practically the opposite, aiming for VR gearheads and enterprise customers with PC headsets like the Vive Pro 2 and feature-rich standalone models like the Focus 3.
You can think of the Vive Focus Vision as a cross between the Focus 3 and last year’s goggle-like XR Elite. It’s a standalone headset with two 16MP color cameras for mixed reality, built-in eye tracking and automatic interpupillary distance (IPD) adjustment. It could also be appealing to PC gamers with its $149 DisplayPort wired streaming kit, which gives you an uncompressed view of high-end VR experiences like Half-Life: Alyx.
HTC Vive
The Vive Focus Vision is a sleek premium standalone VR headset that can also deliver solid PC VR. But it’s also running aging hardware, it’s riddled with software issues and it’s expensive compared to the Meta Quest 3.
As intriguing as its new features are, though, the more I tested the Focus Vision, the more it felt like a missed opportunity for HTC’s Vive VR platform. For one, it’s running the same Snapdragon XR2 chip as the Focus 3 and Quest 2. That chip originally debuted in 2020, and it simply seems inexcusable in a high-end headset today. Both the $300 Quest 3S and $500 Quest 3 sport the XR2 Gen 2 processor, which is 2.5 times faster than the original chip and also has up to eight times faster AI processing. For a high-end headset at the tail-end of 2024, I would have expected HTC to at least match the power of far cheaper competitors, or – even better – to include Qualcomm’s newer XR2+ Gen 2 chip.
The Focus Vision is also still using older Fresnel lens optics, which are prone to artifacts and light bleeding, instead of the sharper pancake lenses in the Quest 3. At least HTC shoved in 12GB of RAM this time around, compared to the 8GB found on the Focus 3 and Quest 3. And the company still has a resolution advantage over the Quest 3: The Focus Vision delivers 2,448 by 2,448 pixels per eye, compared to Meta’s 2,064 by 2,208 pixels per eye. HTC Vive’s 120-degree field of view also delivers a greater sense of immersion than the 110-degree FOV in the Quest 3.
The Focus Vision shines best when it comes to overall build quality and comfort. Even though it’s made of plastic like the Quest 3, it’s a sturdy device that clearly looks more high-end than Meta’s offerings. Ample cushioning helps the Focus Vision rest comfortably on your forehead and behind your noggin. And its halo-like head strap, together with the ability to flip up the visor, makes it easy to slip on over large glasses.
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Best of all, the Focus Vision features a removable battery at the back of its headstrap. That provides a helpful counterweight to the bulky front-end, and it could conceivably let you stay in wireless VR all day if you’ve got enough spare batteries. The headset also has a small built-in battery, which allows you to stay in your VR session even when you’re swapping out the larger rear power cell. This is the sort of thing we’ll probably never see in a consumer Quest headset, as it’s simply too expensive to implement, and Meta isn’t building for enterprise customers who demand continuous wireless. (And to be fair, it’s also easy to just plug the Quest 3 into a USB battery pack.)
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
In use
Using the Focus Vision doesn’t feel much different than the Focus — a headset I liked when I reviewed in 2021, but as a business-focused device I warned that no consumer should actually buy it. That’s not too surprising, I suppose, since both headsets share the same basic design, displays and CPU. In standalone VR mode, playing the Maestro demo genuinely made me feel like I was conducting an orchestra (an experience I also had on the Quest 3S), and I enjoyed hopping around a few virtual worlds in VR Chat.
Other experiences, like the classic underwater VR short theBlu, felt just as immersive as they did on clunkier tethered headsets. While I could tell the Focus Vision didn’t have the best lenses around, and I wished it had more graphical horsepower, it still delivered a thrill as I stood in the middle of a sunken shipwreck, waiting for an enormous blue whale to pass by. It was also nice to see the Vive app storefront a bit more populated than it was in 2021. Still, it pales in comparison to Meta’s Quest library, which has far more titles and plenty of compelling exclusives (including Star Wars titles like the Vader Immortal series and Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge).
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
We already knew that HTC Vive could build a decent headset – the Focus Vision’s controllers and speakers are just as capable as they were on the previous model – but what about the Focus Vision’s new features, like mixed reality and eye tracking? Unfortunately, there’s not much to say just yet. There are a handful of mixed reality experiences available, like the creation app Figmin XR and the shooter Yuki, but they’re not exactly mind blowing. The Focus Vision’s 16MP mixed reality cameras deliver a fuzzy view of the real world (similar to the Quest 3 and 3S), so it’s not nearly as immersive as something like the far pricier Apple Vision Pro.
The Focus Vision’s eye tracking feature also refused to work for me entirely, even after I tried to calibrate it without glasses multiple times. That didn’t seem like a huge loss though, as there are only a handful of games in the Vive store that support it (like Capsule Critters and Mare). It’s a feature that seems more useful for developers who want to build their own eye tracking experiences, than it is for people who just want to play games with eye tracking.
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Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
Solid stand-alone VR
A better selling point for the Focus Vision is its ability to stream uncompressed desktop VR experiences — but only when you invest in the $149 DisplayPort streaming kit. While Meta’s Quest’s headsets have been able to connect to PCs for years, first via USB-C cables then wirelessly, they also deliver a heavily compressed view of desktop VR. By going straight to the DisplayPort connection on your video card, HTC Vive aims to deliver something closer to what we saw with the Vive Pro 2 and other dedicated PC headsets.
After playing half an hour of Half-Life: Alyx, I can confirm that the Focus Vision delivers a solid desktop VR experience, especially for a standalone headset. But given that it already costs $999 and requires an additional $149 accessory to get there, it’s hard to tell who will find this compelling. True VR heads have likely already invested in serious desktop setups like the Valve Index, or the recent Bigscreen Beyond (which uses absurdly clear microLED screens like the Vision Pro).
The beauty of connecting standalone headsets to PCs has always been about value. It was a huge bonus when the $300 Quest 2 could deliver adequate desktop VR. But that just isn’t the case for the Focus Vision. I suppose if you’re a developer who wants a single device for testing both standalone VR and complex desktop experiences, or working for a business that needs multi-use VR headsets, the Focus Vision could fill some sort of need. But either way, that seems like a fairly niche use case.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
The Focus Vision’s auto-IPD adjustment, which scans your eyes and physically moves the lenses to be in the ideal position, was also hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes it worked just fine and landed near my prescribed IPD of 66. But sometimes the automatic process would land on an IPD of around 72, which made everything look a bit blurry. And occasionally the feature just wouldn’t work at all. Auto adjustment is helpful if you’re sharing a headset with other people, but otherwise manually choosing your preferred IPD is far more useful.
During my typical standalone usage, the Focus Vision lasted for around one hour and 45 minutes, close to the two-hour estimate from HTC Vive. That’s less than what I typically see on the Quest 3 and 3S, but at least you can purchase additional batteries and easily swap them. The built-in battery, which enables hot swapping, lasts for about twenty minutes, but it’s also not something you’ll typically be stressing.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
Should you buy the Vive Focus Vision?
Despite my issues, the Focus Vision still sits in an interesting position in the world of VR – especially since Meta gave up on the Quest Pro, which would have been a close competitor. It still delivers decent standalone VR, despite using an aging CPU and lenses. And if you don’t want the clutter of SteamVR sensors in your office, it’s a smart way to tap into powerful PCs for more immersive VR experiences (so long as you buy the $149 DisplayPort kit). But for a $999 headset, it’s a shame HTC Vive didn’t try harder to make the Focus Vision stand out.
Modern Times Group has agreed to buy Plarium, the maker of RPG Raid: Shadow Legends, from Aristocrat Leisure for $620 million. MTG is acquiring 100% of Plarium Global, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based game studio with a long history of success in mid-core mobile games. MTG said the acquisition will substantially improve its already strong cash flow generat…Read More
Knowing how your cloud application will behave in production usually requires significant development and testing in the environment in which it will be deployed, be that AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or wherever. But this can be a resource-intensive endeavor, particularly with issues relating to latency (the time it takes to constantly send data) and the costs associated with this.
Swiss startup LocalStack has set out to address this by shifting the development process off the cloud and onto a developer’s local machine (i.e. their laptop), emulating the environment where it will go live. For now, its focus lies on AWS cloud apps, but the company is looking to ramp things up and go multi-cloud.
To back that strategy, the company on Tuesday said it has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Notable Capital, one of the two entities that branched out of GGV Capital earlier this year.
For context, LocalStack started as an open source project while founder and co-CEO Waldemar Hummer (pictured above right, with co-founder Gerta Sheganaku, and Notable Capital managing partner Glenn Solomon) was at Atlassian in 2017. Initially, they were trying to help one of their Atlassian colleagues work while traveling into the office.
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“We had a team member who was commuting on the train to work, and we wanted to get her productive even while being offline on the train,” Hummer told TechCrunch.
The idea germinated as a side project in the intervening years, with Hummer teaming up with Gerta Sheganaku, whom he’d known since his time at the University of Technology in Vienna in 2013, to drive early community adoption for the open source project. They launched as a full-time business in 2021, and after raising a small seed round, were later joined by a third co-founder, Thomas Rausch, who’s now head of engineering at the startup.
“What first got me excited about LocalStack was the increased adoption in the community, especially after LocalStack was publicly endorsed by Jeff Barr (AWS chief evangelist) — the GitHub Stars on the project saw a dramatic jump overnight and has been increasing ever since,” Sheganaku said. “By interacting with the community, we learned that some of the users were working in some of the largest companies of the world, trying to deploy LocalStack not only on their local machines, but also in their CI [continuous integration] pipelines.”
Today, the company counts some 900 paying users, including an impressive roster of self-serve customers including the likes of Apple, Comcast, IBM and Workday. LocalStack also works directly with some customers through an official procurement and onboarding process.
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LocalStack. Image Credits:LocalStack
Going local
LocalStack’s offering consists of two core components: One is an emulator, which is basically a Docker image that the user downloads to their local machine with all the necessary AWS APIs. And the second part is a cloud platform, which serves access to additional features such as team collaboration, telemetry data, insights, and more.
The company has also retained some of its open source roots with a community version, making around one-third of its AWS services available through a public repository on GitHub. The additional two-thirds are held behind a private repository for paying customers. This community version serves as a useful tool for onboarding paying customers in the future, though that isn’t always the case.
“In many cases, community users sign up to LocalStack but do not become paying customers,” Sheganaku said. “We see many thousands of community users who have signed up for our web app, but not purchase any of the paid services.”
It’s worth noting that developers are already able to “mock out” certain parts of their infrastructure locally to run tests. There’s also popular frameworks like Testcontainers that can be used to simulate certain cloud services and infrastructure components on a local machine, though that usually has a different look, feel and “experience” to the actual cloud environment.
AWS itself also offers some tools to enable developers to emulate some of its services locally, such as AWS SAM, which supports the likes of AWS Lambda, DynamoDB and a few others. But LocalStack’s selling point is that it supports more than 100 core AWS services, including identity and access management (IAM) via Amazon Cognito, Amazon Kinesis data streams, and Amazon’s interactive query service Athena.
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“LocalStack is almost like a drop-in replacement for AWS cloud,” Hummer said. “AWS SAM is really more specific to a certain set of services; LocalStack is much more comprehensive.”
The LocalStack team.Image Credits:LocalStack
LocalStack had hitherto raised an undisclosed $3 million in seed funding from CRV and Heavybit. Although it has operated largely under the radar, Hummer says it already has “substantial revenue numbers” and a global team of more than 50 operating mostly out of Europe. However, its customer base is substantively in the U.S., where it will now be looking to ramp things up in terms of product and go-to-market strategy — the fresh Series A round will help fund that effort.
For now, LocalStack’s core focus is AWS, though the company is also working on adding support for Snowflake, which is a different domain from that of AWS, but has similar challenges as it relates to cloud software development. Snowflake support remains in early-stage “preview” for now, but with the new $25 million in the bank, LocalStack is also gearing up to go multi-cloud, expanding support to Microsoft’s Azure, which Hummer said he hoped would be available some time in 2025.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for Azure,” Hummer said.
In addition to lead backer Notable Capital, LocalStack’s Series A round included participation from existing investors CRV and Heavybit.
The Monster Hunter franchise is bringing, well, monster hunting to your smartphone. Capcom has announced that it’s teaming up with TiMi — the studio behind games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Pokémon Unite — for a spinoff called Monster Hunter Outlanders. It’s described as an “open-world survival game” that’s playable either solo or co-op with up to four players. It sounds like Outlanders will feature the core aspects of a MonHun experience (namely, the exploring, hunting, and crafting) but with live service and social elements typical of a mobile game.
That recent success, combined with TiMi’s history and MonHun’s pedigree as a portable experience, are positive signs this could be more than a mobile cash grab. It might be some time before we get to check out the game for ourselves, however, as it doesn’t currently have a release date. Capcom says there will be “several play tests in advance” of the eventual launch.
Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Your Connections expert
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Your Connections expert
Marc McLaren
NYT Connections today (game #521) – today’s words
(Image credit: New York Times)
Today’s NYT Connections words are…
MUSTARD
WING
WEDNESDAY
WORCESTERSHIRE
COLONEL
TARTAR
LEMON
MINION
CALCULUS
CANARY
ADDITION
PLAQUE
EXTENSION
PHARAOH
CAVITY
ANNEX
NYT Connections today (game #521) – hint #1 – group hints
What are some clues for today’s NYT Connections groups?
Yellow: Coward!
Green: Extra bit of a house/office etc
Blue: Infection could be another
Purple: Missing syllables?
Need more clues?
We’re firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today’s NYT Connections puzzles…
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NYT Connections today (game #521) – hint #2 – group answers
What are the answers for today’s NYT Connections groups?
YELLOW: THINGS THAT ARE YELLOW
GREEN: BUILDING ADD-ONS
BLUE: CONCERNS FOR A DENTIST
PURPLE: WORDS THAT SEEM LONGER WRITTEN THAN SPOKEN
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Connections today (game #521) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Connections, game #521, are…
YELLOW: THINGS THAT ARE YELLOW CANARY, LEMON, MINION, MUSTARD
GREEN: BUILDING ADD-ONS ADDITION, ANNEX, EXTENSION, WING
BLUE: CONCERNS FOR A DENTIST CALCULUS, CAVITY, PLAQUE, TARTAR
PURPLE: WORDS THAT SEEM LONGER WRITTEN THAN SPOKEN COLONEL, PHARAOH, WEDNESDAY, WORCESTERSHIRE
My rating: Moderate
My score: Perfect
Well done if you solved today’s purple group through anything other than luck, because it’s a bit of an odd one. I definitely needed some good fortune with it, because the connection – WORDS THAT SEEM LONGER WRITTEN THAN SPOKEN – is really quite an odd one. For a start, isn’t some of this dependent on understanding how language works? Sure, if you didn’t know that PHARAOH had a silent second A, you might think it was pronounced PHAR-A-OH. But that’s also true of KNOW (K-NO) or TRUE (T-RUE). It’s just English! I’m not sure that PHARAOH actually seems longer written than spoken at all. You could maybe put WORCESTERSHIRE in that bracket, but only if you’ve never been to the UK. It all just seems a bit arbitrary.
The way I stumbled upon it was related, admittedly. I instead focused on missing syllables, although I guessed more with hope than expectation, and by that stage in the game had very little idea what else it could be. I wasn’t helped by my other problem group, blue, including a word I’d never heard used in the context of CONCERNS FOR A DENTIST, namely CALCULUS. Apparently that’s another term for TARTAR, so I don’t see why both words are in there. All in all, a little unsatisfying.
PURPLE: FEATURES OF JUSTICE PERSONIFIED BLINDFOLD, ROBE, SCALES, SWORD
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don’t technically need to solve the final one, as you’ll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What’s more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It’s a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It’s playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
Update 11/12/24: Black Friday isn’t launching any time soon, but we’ve already found some HP laptop deals if you’re interested in buying a device by the popular brand. There’s a chance that these prices will go even lower during the shopping event, but these offers are pretty good if you need a new laptop right now.
With Black Friday deals officially set to start on November 29, you’ve still got some time to prepare for the discounts that the shopping event will bring. However, if you can’t wait until then to buy a new laptop, we highly recommend checking out the early Black Friday HP laptop deals that we’ve gathered here. No matter your budget or the type of laptop that you need, there’s surely something from these offers that will catch your attention.
We’ve also rounded up Black Friday gaming laptop deals if you want a machine primarily for playing video games, Black Friday Dell laptop deals for devices made by another trusted name, and Best Buy Black Friday laptop deals for offers from one of the largest retailers. In any case, you’re going to have to be quick with your purchase if you want to make sure that you’re able to take advantage of the savings, as there’s no guarantee on how long these prices will last.
The HP Stream 14 is an affordable laptop that’s even cheaper right now following a 20% discount, for savings of $50. It’s perfect for basic functions with its Intel Celeron N4120 processor, Intel UHD Graphics 600, and 4GB of RAM. The device features a 14-inch screen with HD resolution, and while its 64GB eMMC provides limited storage, you can always save your files on cloud storage services or external hard drives.
The HP Chromebook Plus x360 14 elevates the Chromebook experience with its Intel Core i3 N305 processor, Intel UHD Graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB UFS for storage. The Chrome OS-powered device is also a 2-in-1 laptop, allowing you to transform it from laptop mode to tablet mode by folding its 14-inch touchscreen all the way back. It’s on sale at 35% off, for a $230 discount.
The HP 255 G10 is pretty powerful for its price, which is even lower following a 25% discount for savings of $150. You’ll get the AMD Ryzen 3 7330U processor, integrated AMD graphics, and 16GB of RAM, alongside a 15.6-inch display and 1 TB SSD. The laptop also comes with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed, so you can access the operating system’s more advanced features.
The HP Spectre x360 14 is a 2-in-1 laptop that features a 14-inch OLED touchscreen with 2.8K resolution, for impressive visuals whether you’re using it in laptop mode or tablet mode. In terms of performance, it’s pretty fast with the Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, Intel Arc Graphics, and 32GB of RAM. It’s also got a massive 2TB for storage. The laptop will be yours with a 26% discount, or savings of $500.
For a gaming laptop that will be ready for upcoming PC games, go for the HP Omen Transcend 16. It’s equipped with the 14th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, and 32GB of RAM, and you’ve got plenty of storage space to install games on its 1TB SSD. The gaming laptop also features a 16-inch WQXGA screen, and it’s on sale with a 23% discount that’s equivalent to $500 in savings.
HP is one of the best laptop brands, earning a reputation for reliability over recent years. That means you’ll be fine with any HP laptop, but to narrow down your choices on what to buy, you’re going to have to start by determining how much you’re willing to spend. Set a maximum budget and select among the Black Friday HP laptop deals that match — it’s important not to go overboard if you want to have enough cash to take advantage of other offers during the shopping event.
Our laptop buying guide highlights the specifications that you should be looking for, starting with the processor — it’s AMD versus Intel, and you’re fine with either as long as you get the most powerful one that you can afford. Our guide on how much RAM do you need provides an in-depth explanation, but we highly recommend getting at least 8GB of RAM to breeze through basic tasks and at least 16GB of RAM if you’re planning to use more demanding apps or play PC games. Screen size is also important — it goes as small as 13 inches for portability, and as big as 18 inches for a better look at your projects and streaming shows.
We’re not worried about the quality of the devices that are featured in our recommended Black Friday HP laptop deals, as they’re made by a trustworthy manufacturer. Our focus in creating our list is giving you the best value for money — we looked for affordable prices, but we also considered the largest discounts in terms of percentage, as these offers will pull laptops that were previously too expensive within your budget. It may be a while before you get another chance at getting a top-of-the-line HP laptop for much cheaper than usual.
Black Friday HP laptop deals are coming from all directions, as they’re not just from the popular retailers but also from HP itself. It’s going to be hard to keep track of where you can get a specific HP laptop for its cheapest price during the shopping event, so we’re going to do that for you. It would be wise to leave a bookmark on this page so you can stay tuned to our updates whenever we find better bargains.
We’re here to compare two flagship smartphones once again, this time around from Apple and Huawei. We’ll be comparing the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. Both of these devices are big and powerful, but they’re considerably different in pretty much every way. That’s something you’ll notice the moment you lay your eyes on them, as even their designs are vastly different.
As we usually do, we’ll first list their specifications, and take it from there. Following that, we’ll compare their designs, displays, performance, battery life, camera performance, and audio output. Both of these phones are available across the globe, in various different regions. One thing to note is that the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra does not support Google services. So you won’t have access to Google apps, or the Google Play Store. Huawei’s very own services and app store come pre-installed.
Specs
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, respectively
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: Design
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is made out of titanium, aluminum, and glass. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, on the other hand, combines aluminum and vegan leather. Both smartphones have rounded corners, but that’s where the similarities end. Apple’s handset has a flat frame all around, while it also has a flat display and a flat backplate. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra’s frame is rounded, while its display is flat, but it’s micro-curved on all sides. The same goes for its backplate, actually.
There is a pill-shaped cutout on the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s display, while the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has a pill-shaped cutout. They both have very thin and uniform bezels, by the way. Apple’s handset includes more buttons, though. It has the power/lock button on the right, along with the Camera Control button. On the left, it has the volume up and down buttons, along with the Action Button. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has only the standard power/lock and volume up and down buttons, and they’re all on the right side.
They both have their camera islands in the same place, in the top-left corner on the back. The thing is, those camera islands do look fairly different. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has its recognizable setup, a squarish camera island. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has one of the oddest-looking camera setups out there, though it surely is recognizable as well. There’s no specific shape to it.
The two smartphones have alsmost identical height, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a bit wider. They’re also almost identical in terms of thickness. Apple’s phone does have a slightly larger display, so the difference in dimensions is not surprising. The difference in weight, on the other hand is only 1 gram. Both devices are also water and dust-resistant. They’re IP68 certified.
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Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: Display
The Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max features a 6.9-inch 2868 x 1320 LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display. That panel is flat, and it supports an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate (1-120Hz). Dolby Vision is supported, as is HDR10 content. The peak brightness here is 2,000 nits, and the screen-to-body ratio is at around 91%. The display aspect ratio is 19.5:9, while the Ceramic Shield glass protects this panel.
Huawei Pura 70 Ultra
The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, on the other hand, has a 6.8-inch 2844 x 1260 LTPO OLED display. That panel is flat, and it can project up to 1 billion colors. HDR content is supported, while the refresh rate goes from 1 to 120Hz, it’s adaptive. The peak brightness this display can offer is 2,000 nits. The screen-to-body ratio is at around 89%, while we’re looking at a 460 ppi, which is in line with what the other phone offers.
Both of these displays are great, actually. They’re not only very vivid, but they’re sharp and big. The viewing angles are also great. The touch response from both display is on point, and they also get bright enough in pretty much any situation. The color tuning is a bit different, though. The protection these two displays offer is also on point. The panel on Huawei’s phone has the advantage of offering high-frequency PWM dimming, though.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: Performance
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is fueled by the Apple A18 Pro processor, a 3nm chip. That chip is paired with 8GB of RAM and NVMe flash storage. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra ships with the Kirin 9010 chip, a 7nm processor from Huawei. Huawei also included 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM here, along with up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 flash storage. Neither of these two smartphones offers expandable storage, by the way.
Apple’s smartphone does have a much more powerful and more advanced chip. It’s several generations ahead, and that’s because of the US ban. Huawei had to get creative. Despite that, however, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra does offer really good performance. We did not have any issues with its performance during our testing, it did a great job. Both phones are very fluid during regular, everyday use, even when you really push them.
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Where you will start noticing a difference is in gaming, and some other intensive stuff, such as video processing speed, if you’re handling huge files. The iPhone 16 Pro Max can handle pretty much every mobile game out there with ease. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is okay for gaming, but the most demanding games can make the phone struggle a bit. Also, the availability of high-profile games on AppGallery is not exactly on par with the Google Play Store, so that may not be the best choice for gaming for several reasons.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: Battery
Apple’s handset includes a 4,685mAh battery on the inside. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, on the flip side, has a 5,200mAh battery. Apple’s iPhones usually have smaller battery packs than their Android counterparts, so don’t pay too much attention to that difference. In fact, the iPhone 16 Pro Max does seem to offer better battery life, even though the battery life on the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is truly great.
Both of these smartphones are road warriors. They can last for a long time on a single charge. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is perfectly capable of getting over the 7-hour screen-on-time mark, as long as you’re not gaming or doing many other demanding tasks. It’s entirely possible to get to that point. The iPhone 16 Pro Max can push things even further, though, it really does offer outstanding battery life. There are a lot of factors to consider, however, so your mileage may vary, of course.
In terms of charging, the iPhone 16 Pro Max cannot match the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. Huawei’s flagship supports 100W wired, 80W wireless, 20W reverse wireless, and 18W reverse wired charging. The iPhone 16 Pro Max supports 38W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, and 4.5W reverse wired charging. Huawei’s handset will charge much faster both via a wire and wirelessly. It also comes with a charger in the box, unlike the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
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Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Huawei Pura 70 Ultra: Cameras
Both phones have three cameras on the back, but the setups are different. The iPhone 16 Pro Max includes a 48-megapixel main camera (1/1.28-inch sensor), a 48-megapixel ultrawide unit, and a 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera (5x optical zoom). The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has a 50-megapixel main camera (f/1.6-4.0 variable aperture, 1-inch type sensor), a 40-megapixel ultrawide unit, and a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto camera (3.5x optical zoom, macro).
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max
The thing is, both of these smartphones actually do a fantastic job with photos. Both of them lean towards warmer color tones, and both can provide very balanced images. They also handle HDR situations without a problem. The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra’s main camera does a better job in low light, though, especially if you pixel peep. The images do turn out sharper, which is not surprising considering the benefit in the sensor size and variable aperture. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is not far behind.
The images are comparable in good lighting, however, in terms of quality, despite the fact they’re different. Huawei also has the edge when it comes to telephoto shots, at least up to 5x. 5x and 6x shots are better on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, while everything above that is a tossup. Both ultrawide cameras do a good job, they’re comparable in terms of quality. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is still better when it comes to video quality.
Audio
Both smartphones do include stereo speakers, but the difference between them is considerable. The ones on the iPhone 16 Pro Max are notably louder, especially when played side-by-side with what the Pura 70 Ultra has to offer. The quality seems a bit better too, but both sound outputs are good.
Neither phone includes an audio jack, however. You’ll need to use their Type-C ports if you’d like to connect your wired headphones. If you opt to do things wirelessly, however, you’ll be glad to know that the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Huawei Pura 70 Ultra offers Bluetooth 5.3 and 5.2 respectively.
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