The Huawei P9 smartphone is priced at Rs 39,999. This phone has been designed keeping camera performance in mind. It has two 12-megapixel rear cameras. These have been made in collaboration with German optics company Leica. Due to this camera setup, the P9 claims to have great performance in the photography department. Apart from this, all the other specifications of the handset are similar to those of a flagship device. Let us try to find out whether the Huawei P9 will be able to challenge other popular flagship phones or not.
Look and design
Like other top end smartphones, Huawei P9 comes with a full metal body. It is thinner and lighter than other flagship handsets. Due to its compact design, it is very easy to hold in hands. There is a 5.2 inch display on the front panel and its edges feel slightly curved.
The power and volume buttons are on the right. The SIM and microSD card tray are on the right. The 3.5mm socket, speaker grille and USB Type-C port are at the bottom. The fingerprint sensor is at the back of the phone and the camera strip is at the top. It looks similar to the Nexus 6S made by Huawei itself. Overall, the P9 is a great looking smartphone. It gives a flagship feel in every way. The fingerprint sensor is present at the back of the phone. Its presence at the rear means that you will have to use your index finger for it. You will be able to use it to unlock the handset. It will work even if the phone is in standby mode. It is accurate in recognizing fingerprints and works fast. However, it is not as good as the sensor of OnePlus 3.
There are two camera lenses on the rear. Along with this there is also a dual-tone LED flash and laser autofocus window. There is Leica branding on the right side of the strip.
Huawei P9 has a full-HD IPS LCD screen. It has Gorilla Glass protection on it. The pixel density of the screen is 423 ppi. The company has not used quad-HD resolution in the handset, but it is very sharp. You will not feel any lack of detail or quality. The screen is quite bright and its black level is also decent as per the IPS panel.
Colour reproduction is also good, but not great. You can change the colour temperature through the settings. It is a decent screen. If display quality is very important to you, then you can find better options.
Specifications and software
Like Samsung, Huawei also makes its own chipsets. This is the responsibility of Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon. Most of Huawei and Honor’s phones use HiSilicon Kirin chipsets and no attempt has been made to do anything different in Huawei P9 as well. It uses an octa-core Kirin 955 chipset with 2.5 GHz clock speed. It has a 3000 mAh battery, 3 GB RAM and 32 GB inbuilt storage. You will be able to use a microSD card up to 256 GB.
Its single SIM variant has been made available in India, it is also equipped with NFC chip. Support for Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac is also available. You will get a basic in-ear headset, power adapter, USB-S to USB-C converter cable with the handset.
The Huawei P9 smartphone will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It uses Huawei’s Emotion UI 4.1. This is a layered user interface. There is support for Android Marshmallow’s important features like Now on Tap, Doze Mode and Apps Permission System. The magazine lock screen is interesting as always.
The excellent Phone Manager app is back. You will be allowed to optimize the system, data usage, battery consumption and secure apps via the fingerprint sensor. Sometimes Huawei’s Emotion UI seems a bit slow and simple.
Camera
The camera is the most important feature of Huawei P9. With dual rear cameras and Leica branding, expectations are even higher. Even though the company has heavily marketed the Leica branding, let us tell you that the sensors and lenses are not made by Leica. This German company has given inputs in the development of the camera system, hence the use of ‘Co-engineered with Leica’.
The P9 has two 12-megapixel sensors placed side by side. One of these is an RGB sensor and the other is monochrome. The color sensor collects color information in any scene.
The monochrome sensor is capable of capturing more light and detail. Its job is to focus on light and has nothing to do with color. The software takes the information gathered by both these sensors and creates a single color image for you. Sadly, none of these lenses have optical image stabilization.
The camera has a hybrid autofocus system that uses laser and phase detection autofocus features together. Using both these sensors will give you the opportunity to choose a better depth of field. You will be able to focus on different parts of the picture even after taking it. Apart from this, the sensor has support for RAW format photos, night shots with high exposure and pro shooting mode.
The camera app and software may seem very complicated at first glance. But once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to use. It is responsive, well laid out and has a lot of features and settings. Its settings give you enhanced control over the camera and photos. There is a Pro mode that is easily accessible and has a lot of controls.
Swiping from left to right brings up various modes, including monochrome, HDR, high-exposure night shots, time lapse, slow motion, and more. Swiping from right to left brings up settings. Here you will find GPS tagging, resolution, timer, and more. Interestingly, there is a toggle to allow users to add a Leica watermark to photos taken with the rear camera, but we decided to keep it off.
We found that there was no lack of detail in the photos taken with the camera. The camera takes excellent pictures and they look even better in monochrome mode. However, when you zoom in, the pixels start to blur. But, at normal scale, the pictures look clean and sharp with no lack of detail.
It is also obvious that you will not use the monochrome mode all the time. So it is important to know how the camera performs in normal colour shots. The P9’s camera uses the information provided by both the sensors to present a picture to the user, thus ensuring the presence of details. Although it is not as good as the monochrome pictures, it is commendable. These pictures also get pixelated when you zoom in.
You will get three different color modes – Standard, Vivid and Smooth. In the first mode, you will get the most natural pictures, in the other two modes the pictures are saturated a bit more to make them look more vibrant.
Taking pictures in low light is even more fun with this camera, thanks to its ability to capture details in any light. If you are composed and focused, the P9 can beat any phone camera. This is not to say that there is no grain in the pictures, but it takes pictures with more detail and accurate colours than other smartphone cameras.
Using two cameras gives a great depth of field perception. By keeping this mode switched on, you will be able to take great shallow pictures. Refocused pictures also look good. The Night Shot mode is worth mentioning. In this, you will be able to modify the ISO and the exposure time can be made up to 32 seconds to capture more light. It would not be wrong to say that all these modes work well and you get excellent output. But a little grain shows that the Huawei P9 smartphone is not the best camera phone ever.
The video quality is good, but the inability to shoot 4K quality videos is a let down. Overall, we can confidently say that the Huawei P9 is one of the best camera phones we have used.
Performance
Huawei’s Kirin range of chipsets is not as popular as Qualcomm and MediaTek’s processors. The Kirin 900 series has been the flagship line. This year, the Kirin 955 has been made a part of the Huawei P9. With the help of 3 GB RAM, the phone runs very smoothly. But this year we have come across many such flagship devices which run faster than this handset.
However, its effect will never be seen in the general performance. We did not have any complaints while using the phone. Games with heavy graphics ran well, most apps loaded quickly. We never felt the phone slowing down while using it. Especially the camera performance is faster and snappy. With its help, you can take photos quickly and your time is not wasted. Benchmark scores were good.
The single speaker of the phone produced satisfactory sound. The audio performance of the headphones was good. There is no complaint with 4G and Wi-Fi connectivity either. We also have no complaints with the call quality. In the video loop test, the phone’s battery lasted for 10 hours and 24 minutes. This can be called satisfactory, but not excellent at all. In normal use, the phone’s battery will last for a whole day, not more than that.
Our verdict
The Huawei P9 is a good phone with nice looks and excellent camera performance. But it is not an all-rounder like other flagship phones in the market. The display and software are not very commendable and we feel the price of Rs 39,999 is too high. The cameras are good but lack important features like optical image stabilisation and 4K video.
If you’re looking for a great camera, you can’t go wrong with the Huawei P9. The fun application of the two sensors and the Leica branding make it a great choice for photography enthusiasts. If you want a phone that’s all-round and at a low price, we’d recommend the OnePlus 3.
#huawei #review