The price of Huawei P9 smartphone is Rs 39,999. This phone has been designed keeping camera performance in mind. It has two rear cameras of 12 megapixels. These have been made in collaboration with German optics company Laika. Due to this camera setup, P9 claims excellent performance in the photography department. Apart from this, all other specifications of the handset are same as the flagship device. Let us try to know whether Huawei P9 will be successful in challenging other popular flagship phones or not.
Look and Design
Like other top end smartphones, Huawei P9 comes with full metal body. It is thinner and lighter than other flagship handsets. Due to its compact design, it is very easy to hold in the 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 side. SIM and microSD card tray on the right side. The 3.5mm socket, speaker grill and USB Type-C port are at the bottom. There is a fingerprint sensor 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 feels like a flagship in every way. The fingerprint sensor is present in the back of the phone. Its presence in the rear means that you will have to use the index finger for this. You will be able to use it to unlock the handset. This will work even if the phone is in standby mode. It is accurate in identifying fingers and works fast. However, it is so much better than the OnePlus 3’s sensor.
There are two camera lenses present on the rear part. It also has a dual-tone LED flash and laser autofocus window. The right side of the strip has the LEICA branding.
The Huawei P9 sports a full-HD IPS LCD screen. There is Gorilla Glass protection on top of it. The pixel density of the screen is 423 ppi. The company has not used quad-HD resolution in the handset, but it is extremely sharp. You won’t notice things like lack of detail or quality. The screen is quite bright and its black level is also good as per the IPS panel.
Color reproduction is also good, but not great. You can change the color temperature through settings. It’s a decent screen. If display quality is very important for you then you can get better options.
Specifications and Software
Like Samsung, Huawei makes its own chipsets. Its responsibility rests with Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon. HiSilicon Kirin chipsets are used in most of the phones of Huawei and Honor and no attempt has been made to do anything different in Huawei P9. It uses an octa-core Kirin 955 chipset with 2.5 GHz clock speed. It has 3000 mAh battery, 3 GB RAM and 32 GB inbuilt storage. You will be able to use microSD card up to 256 GB.
Its single SIM variant has been made available in India, it is also equipped with NFC chip. There is also support for Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac. You will get a basic in-ear headset, power adapter, USB-S to USB-C converter cable with the handset.
Huawei P9 smartphone will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Huawei’s Emotion UI 4.1 has been used in it. It is a one-layer user interface. Important features of Android Marshmallow are Now on Tap, Doze Mode and support for apps permission system. The Magazine Lock Screen is as interesting as ever.
The best phone manager app is back. You will be allowed to secure apps through system optimization, data usage, battery consumption and fingerprint sensor. Sometimes Huawei’s Emotion UI looks a bit slow and simple.
camera
The camera is the most important feature of Huawei P9. After the dual rear camera and the branding of Laika, the expectations from it increase further. Even though the company has heavily marketed the Laika branding, let us tell you that the sensor and lens are not made by Laika. This German company has given inputs in the development of the camera system, that is why ‘Co-Engineered with Laika’ has been used.
The P9 has two 12-megapixel sensors which are next to each other. 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 function is only to focus on light and has nothing to do with color. The software takes the information collected 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 combines laser and phase detection autofocus features. Using both these sensors will give you a chance to choose better depth of field. You will be able to focus on different parts of the photo even after taking it. Apart from this, the sensor has support for RAW format photos, high exposure night shots and pro shooting mode.
The camera app and software may seem very complex at first glance. But once you get familiar with it, it is very easy to use. It’s responsive, well laid-out, and packed with tons of features and settings. With the help of its settings, you get enhanced control over the camera and photos. There is a Pro-Mode with easily accessible and multiple controls.
Swiping from left to right brings up multiple modes, including monochrome, HDR, high exposure night shot, time lapse, slow motion, and more. Swiping from right to left brings up the settings. GPS tagging, resolution, timer, and many other features will be available here. What’s interesting is that there is a toggle for the user to add the Like watermark to the photos taken with the rear camera, but we decided to keep it off.
We found that there was no lack of detail in the pictures taken with the camera. The camera takes great pictures and they look even better in monochrome mode. However, when you zoom in, the pixels start scattering. But, in normal scale the photos look clean and sharp with no lack of detail.
It is also certain that you will not use monochrome mode all the time. In such a situation, it is also important to know how the camera performs in normal color shots. The P9’s camera uses the information provided by both sensors to present an image to the user, confirming the presence of detail. Although it is not as good as monochrome photos, it is commendable. These pictures also become pixelated when zoomed in.
You will get three different color modes – Standard, Vivid and Smooth. In the first mode you will get the most natural photos, in the other two modes the photos are slightly more saturated to make them appear more vibrant.
Photography with this camera is even more fun in low light. The credit for this goes to its ability to capture detail in any lighting. If you remain composed and focused and take pictures, then P9 has the ability to beat any phone camera. It is not that there is no grain in the pictures, but it takes pictures with more detail and accurate colors compared to other smartphone cameras.
The use of two cameras provides excellent depth of field perception. By keeping this mode switched on, you will be able to take great shallow photos. Refocused photos also look good. Night shot mode deserves mention. In this you will be able to modify the ISO and to capture more light the exposure time can be increased to 32 seconds. It would not be wrong to say that all these modes work well and you get the best output. But a little grain of salt reveals that the Huawei P9 smartphone is not the best camera phone ever.
Video quality is good, but not being able to shoot 4K quality videos hurts. 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, Kirin 955 has been made a part of 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 visible in general performance. We did not face any complaints while using the phone. Games with heavy graphics ran well, most apps loaded quickly. We never felt it being slow while using the phone. Especially the camera performance is much faster and snappy. With its help, you are able to take photos faster and do not waste much of your time. Benchmark scores were good.
Satisfactory sound came from the single speaker of the phone. The audio performance of the headphones was good. There are no complaints with 4G and Wi-Fi connectivity. We also have no complaints about call quality. In the video loop test, the phone’s battery lasted for 10 hours 24 minutes. It would be considered satisfactory, certainly not excellent. In normal use the phone’s battery will last for the whole day, not more than that.
our decision
The Huawei P9 is a great phone that looks great and has great camera performance. But it is not an all-rounder like other flagship phones in the market. The display and software can’t be praised too much, the price of Rs 39,999 is too high in our opinion. The cameras are great, but important features like optical image stabilization and 4K video are missing.
If you are looking for a great camera then it would not be wrong to consider the Huawei P9. The fun application of the two sensors and the Huawei branding makes it a great choice for photography enthusiasts. If you want a phone that is all-rounder and also has a low price, then we would suggest considering buying the OnePlus 3.
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