When Huawei launched the Nova 14 just six months ago, no one expected its successor to arrive so quickly—or to be this impressive. The Huawei Nova 15 Ultra represents a significant leap forward, delivering innovations that genuinely surprise even seasoned tech reviewers.
What Makes the Nova 15 Ultra Special?
Huawei’s Nova series has always targeted young, style-conscious users who refuse to compromise on performance. The Nova 15 Ultra takes this philosophy to new heights, blending cutting-edge technology with eye-catching design in ways that feel genuinely fresh.
Design That Turns Heads
The first thing you’ll notice is the distinctive dual-ring camera design. It’s bold, modern, and instantly recognizable, exactly what the Nova series stands for. But Huawei hasn’t just focused on looks. At just 6.8mm thin, this phone feels remarkably premium in hand, achieving that perfect balance between sleek aesthetics and comfortable grip.
Here’s where the Nova 15 Ultra truly shines. Huawei has equipped this device with its acclaimed Red Maple Imaging System, and for the first time in the Nova lineup, both front and rear cameras feature this advanced technology.
What does this mean for you? Consistent, gorgeous photos whether you’re taking selfies or shooting scenery. The color science remains uniform across both camera systems, delivering accurate hues even when lighting conditions get challenging.
Key Camera Features:
- Triple rear camera setup with full RYYB sensor array
- Variable aperture main camera with 50MP resolution
- Intelligent color processing in low-light and mixed lighting
- Perfect for concerts, events, and dramatic lighting scenarios
The variable aperture main camera deserves special mention. With 50 megapixels at your disposal, you’ll capture stunning detail whether you’re photographing a sunset or documenting a live music event.
Our Comprehensive Testing Approach
We’ve put the Nova 15 Ultra through extensive real-world testing across several key areas:
- Design and Build Quality: How it looks and feels in daily use
- Camera Performance: Photo and video quality in various conditions
- Battery Life: All-day endurance testing
- Gaming Performance: How it handles demanding mobile games
- Overall User Experience: The complete package
Is the Nova 15 Ultra Worth Your Attention?
The Nova series has built a strong reputation among younger users who want phones that perform as well as they look. Based on our initial impressions, the Nova 15 Ultra seems poised to continue—and possibly exceed—that legacy.
Can it become the go-to smartphone for style-focused users who also demand flagship-level camera performance? We’re diving deep to find out.
Stay tuned for our complete review covering every aspect of the Huawei Nova 15 Ultra’s performance, features, and real-world usability.
Design 
When you first lay eyes on the Huawei Nova 15 Ultra, one feature immediately stands out: the distinctive dual-ring camera design on the rear panel. This bold aesthetic choice sparked considerable buzz even before the phone’s official launch, and for good reason, it’s a refreshingly original take on smartphone design that breaks away from the ordinary.
Camera Module Design
The camera housing features a modern rounded rectangular shape that stretches elegantly across the phone’s back. Huawei has cleverly organized the camera system into two distinct rings:
Left Ring – Main Camera System:
- Three primary lenses housed together
- Variable aperture main sensor (adjustable from f/1.4 to f/4.0 across ten stops) positioned in the lower left
- 3.7x optical zoom telephoto lens in the lower right corner
Right Ring – Supporting Elements:
- Microphone placement
- Red Maple camera sensor
- Smart black ring design that seamlessly conceals these components while maintaining visual harmony
At just 6.8mm thick, the Nova 15 Ultra claims the title of the slimmest and lightest device in the Nova lineup. The aerospace-grade aluminum alloy frame not only looks premium but feels comfortable during extended use.
Port and Button Layout:
- Top edge: Single microphone opening
- Bottom edge: Speaker grille, microphone, USB Type-C charging port, and SIM card tray
The front features a spacious 6.84-inch OLED flat display with crisp 2856×1320 resolution. Display quality is enhanced by:
- 10-bit color depth for smooth gradients
- P3 wide color gamut support
- Customizable color temperature and calibration settings
Advanced Eye Protection Features
Huawei has prioritized eye comfort with 2160Hz high-frequency PWM dimming technology, which reduces flicker and eye strain during prolonged use. The intelligent eye protection mode automatically adjusts display settings based on your usage patterns and viewing habits.
Front Camera Setup
The pill-shaped front camera cutout houses the Red Maple lens on the left side, engineered to capture colors that closely match natural human vision, ensuring more true-to-life selfies and video calls.
What’s in the Box
Huawei includes everything you need to get started:
- 100W fast charging adapter
- USB-C to USB-C charging cable
The Nova 15 Ultra represents Huawei’s commitment to pushing design boundaries while delivering practical features. The dual-ring camera system isn’t just eye-catching, it’s a thoughtful approach to organizing sophisticated camera hardware. Combined with the ultra-slim profile and advanced display technology, this phone offers a compelling package for users who value both style and substance.
Camera
The imaging capabilities stand out as the Huawei Nova 15 Ultra’s crowning achievement. The device sports a versatile 50MP triple-lens rear camera array, comprising a main sensor, telephoto lens, and wide-angle lens. Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) enhances both the primary and telephoto lenses, while the entire triple-lens configuration utilizes an RYYB color filter array to maximize light absorption in challenging conditions.
What sets the main camera apart is its variable aperture technology, which offers ten distinct aperture settings ranging from F/1.4 to F/4. This flexibility gives photographers greater creative control across different lighting scenarios. The camera also integrates the acclaimed Red Maple Imaging technology, which delivers superior color accuracy and natural-looking tones in your photographs.
The nova 15 Ultra breaks new ground with its front-facing camera system. As the industry’s first smartphone to feature dual Red Maple cameras, including the first front-facing Red Maple lens—this phone redefines selfie photography. The Red Maple technology excels at color management, producing images with hues that mirror how the human eye perceives color, resulting in more pleasing and true-to-life photos. Launch the camera app and you’ll immediately notice the wealth of advanced features at your fingertips.
Personalized Color Palette Feature
Rather than relying on basic filters, the Huawei Nova 15 Ultra introduces an advanced personalized color palette mode. Four preset palettes come standard: cinematic, film, anime, and natural. A simple tap applies the optimal color grading for your current scene. Not satisfied with the defaults? The customization options let you fine-tune color temperature, saturation, lighting effects, and more to match your creative vision.
Real-World Photography Samples
The sample photos demonstrate the camera’s true capabilities.
The main sensor delivers remarkable versatility through its color palette adjustments, effortlessly transitioning from natural everyday photography to vibrant anime-inspired aesthetics. The close-up performance deserves special mention, it’s genuinely impressive.
The variable aperture system enables beautiful background blur effects. We tested both the widest F/1.4 and narrowest F/4 aperture settings to showcase this capability.
The subject separation proves particularly effective, with the background blur appearing organic rather than artificial, while the main subject maintains crisp, clear definition.
Telephoto Performance
Operating at 3.7X optical zoom, the telephoto lens benefits from Huawei’s meticulous optical engineering and image processing algorithms. Even in challenging scenarios, like photographing intricate subjects such as bare winter branches, where many cameras struggle with artifacts or excessive sharpening, this lens maintains exceptional image quality.
Portrait Photography
Portrait mode delivers consistent results across both front and rear cameras. The color science produces natural skin tones that enhance rather than mask your subject’s authentic beauty, whether you’re taking selfies or traditional portraits.
Battery Performance
The Huawei Nova 15 Ultra comes with an impressive 6500mAh battery, the most powerful battery capacity ever featured in the nova lineup, all while maintaining an ultra-slim 6.8mm profile.
This battery has earned CQC 5-star certification with an exceptional 98% capacity release rate, delivering superior efficiency that lets you stream your favorite content from sunrise to sunset without interruption.
When it’s time to recharge, the nova 15 Ultra offers flexible charging solutions: 100W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging capabilities.
We put both the battery endurance and charging performance through rigorous real-world testing.
Battery Endurance Testing
We conducted our battery assessment using BatteryDog, a professional battery testing application developed by Fast Technology.
The testing protocol executes a comprehensive 20% power drain test across multiple scenarios, including CPU high-performance tasks, multi-threaded operations, AI processing, photo gallery browsing, video streaming, and web navigation, all designed to mirror typical daily usage patterns and deliver accurate real-world consumption data.
To maintain testing consistency across different devices and ensure precise results, BatteryDog automatically disables adaptive brightness and volume controls. We manually calibrated the display brightness to 300 nits for standardized conditions.
Our testing utilized the HarmonyOS-optimized version of Battery Dog. Note that performance scores cannot be directly compared between different operating systems.
Test results showed the Huawei Nova 15 Ultra delivered 10 hours and 13 minutes of continuous use from 100% down to 20% battery capacity. This translates to approximately 12 hours of total runtime, more than sufficient for a full day of moderate usage.
Charging Speed Analysis
Our charging evaluation began at 1% battery level with the device in emergency mode, utilizing the included 100W charger with Turbo SuperCharge technology activated.
The Huawei Nova 15 Ultra 100W fast charging system employs a 4x voltage charging architecture, achieving peak charging rates of 85W.
Complete charging took approximately one hour, with the system transitioning to 5V trickle charging at the 47-minute, 30-second mark to protect battery longevity.
The charging progression demonstrates impressive speed: 16% capacity reached in just 5 minutes, 29% at the 10-minute mark, 53% within 20 minutes, and 77% charged after 30 minutes.
Fully replenishing the 6500mAh battery in one hour showcases genuinely fast initial charging speeds. While the final trickle charging phase extends total charging time, the practical benefit shines during quick top-ups, just 5 to 10 minutes of charging delivers substantial battery gains for everyday convenience.
Gaming Performance
The Huawei Nova 15 Ultra delivers exceptional gaming capabilities, powered by the advanced Kirin 9010S processor and enhanced by HarmonyOS 6’s comprehensive cloud collaboration features. Through extensive system-level optimizations, the device achieves an impressive 18% performance boost compared to previous models. Resource-intensive games run seamlessly with consistent stability and zero lag.
Let’s examine real-world gaming performance.
Honor of Kings
The Huawei Nova 15 Ultra handles Honor of Kings effortlessly at maximum settings, supporting 120fps gameplay with ultra-high graphics quality. Frame rate consistency remains outstanding throughout extended sessions, maintaining an average of 119.9 FPS. Even during demanding gameplay moments, the 1% low frame rate holds steady at 115 FPS.
Power efficiency proves equally impressive, averaging just 3.36W total consumption, translating to only 28mW per frame. Temperature management excels during gameplay, with peak temperatures staying comfortably below 34°C.
Genshin Impact
Running Genshin Impact at maximum graphics settings showcases HarmonyOS 6’s intelligent thermal management. The system automatically activates frame interpolation technology at 60 FPS to optimize both heat generation and battery life, making the following metrics representative rather than absolute.
Performance remains solid with an average frame rate of 59.2 FPS, while the 1% low frame rate registers at 32.62 FPS.
Power consumption metrics show an average draw of 3.49W, with per-frame consumption measured at 59mW. During intensive gameplay sessions, average device temperature reaches 35.9°C, demonstrating effective thermal control.
Final Thought
The Huawei nova 15 Ultra successfully carries forward the vibrant, style-focused identity that the nova lineup is known for. What’s impressive is how much meaningful improvement Huawei has packed into this generation in such a relatively short timeframe.
The dual-ring camera design immediately catches your eye and makes the phone instantly recognizable. At just 6.8mm thin with an aluminum alloy frame, it manages to look premium while still feeling comfortable to hold during everyday use.
Where this phone really shines is its imaging setup. The front and rear red maple camera system, combined with the full RYYB triple camera array, delivers accurate colors and impressive clarity whether you’re shooting in bright sunlight or low light. The customizable color card modes are a nice touch for users who enjoy getting creative with their photography.
The 6500mAh battery provides roughly 12 hours of real-world use, which is solid for a phone this thin. And when you do need to charge, the 100W wired charging gets you back up to speed quickly—no more battery anxiety.
Thanks to the optimized pairing of the Kirin 9010S processor with HarmonyOS 6, even demanding games run smoothly. Equally important, the phone manages heat well during extended gaming sessions.
Building on Huawei’s established strength in this area, the nova 15 Ultra supports two-way BeiDou satellite messaging plus TianTong satellite voice capabilities. This means you can stay connected even in remote areas without cell coverage, a genuinely useful feature during emergencies or outdoor adventures.
The Huawei nova 15 Ultra strikes an excellent balance between eye-catching design and genuine performance. It blends advanced technology with contemporary styling in a way that feels approachable rather than overly technical.
Perhaps most noteworthy is the pricing: despite significant upgrades across performance, cameras, battery, connectivity, and build quality, it starts at just 4199 yuan. This makes it one of the best value upgrades in nova series history.
Who Should Buy This Phone?
This Huawei Nova 15 Ultra is ideal if you appreciate distinctive design, take your phone photography seriously, and are invested in (or curious about) the Huawei ecosystem. If that description fits you, the nova 15 Ultra deserves serious consideration as your next smartphone.
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