Huawei Pura 80 Launches Late with Kirin 9010S, HarmonyOS 5.1 & Student-Friendly Design

Huawei is finally gearing up to launch the vanilla Huawei Pura 80, well after the rest of the Pura 80 series debuted in China back in early June and even rolled out internationally. The base model is now set for a release in China on Wednesday, July 23—but there's a catch.

According to Huawei’s official Weibo posts, this might just be a pre-sale event, meaning actual availability could come later. The posts reference the back-to-school season, indicating the Pura 80 may be targeted at students, especially with China’s academic calendar kicking off in early September.

As of now, Huawei’s official China site still doesn’t list a purchase option for the Pura 80, and online retailers have no stock listed. All eyes are on July 23 for more concrete details.

In the meantime, leakster Digital Chat Station has revealed a few key specs. The Huawei Pura 80 is expected to run on the Kirin 9010S chipset, rather than the more advanced Kirin 9020 found in the Pura 80 Pro+ and Ultra variants. While specific performance details of the 9010S remain unclear, it’s likely an optimized version of the original Kirin 9010, which features an octa-core Taishan CPU (1+3+4 layout) with hyper-threading and a Maleoon 910 GPU.

Huawei has also kept pricing under wraps, but leaks suggest a price close to CNY 5,500 (~$765)—comparable to the earlier Pura 70 (12GB+256GB). For reference, the Pura 80 Pro starts at CNY 6,500 for the same memory configuration.

The Pura 80 will ship with the latest HarmonyOS 5.1 and come in four “Velvet” color options:

Velvet Gold

Velvet Green

Velvet White

Velvet Black

This device is shaping up to be a sleek, student-focused flagship with premium software and an accessible price tag—assuming it does actually go on sale soon.