The latest flagship phone from Huawei is the Huawei P9. This phone is the fourth model in the P series of the manufacturer with its first being the Ascend P6 in 2013. It has a lot of similar features with its predecessor, the Huawei P8. It features a Leica dual camera and has more power.
The Huawei P9 which will become available from mid-April will cost the sum of £449 in UK and €569 in Europe for the 32 GB variant with 3GB of RAM. There is currently no US pricing but it will cost about $680 when converted. The manufacturer has said there will only be the single SIM variant in Europe in gray and silver while the gold-colored version will be sold exclusively through Vodafone.
If you desire more memory and a bigger 5.5 inch display, you can get the €699 P9 Plus version, which will be around £600.
There was a rumour of another model, the Huawei P9 Lite, strongly rumored to exist prior to the launch event, but it failed to make an appearance.
Huawei P9 design
The Huawei P9 surprisingly has the same size as its predecessor, at 5.2 inches. It takes its place between the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 which is 5.1-inch and 5.3-inch respectively in size. It has an aluminum unibody with a sandblast finish on the back which gives it a cool touch avoids greasy fingerprints.
In contrast to the P8, there are two smoothly integrated Leica cameras sitting in the housing above the fingerprint sensor with the collaboration with camera manufacturer Leica shown as indicated with a large logo on the right-hand side of this housing.
Compared to most other Android smartphones, the P9 is compact and light and has dimensions of 145 x 71 x 7 mm with a weight of 144g.
Despite the phone’s thinness of less than 7 mm, it comes with a non removable/replaceable 3,000 mAh battery. Only the combined SIM and microSD slot housing are movable in the phone.
Huawei P9 display
The phone provides a reasonable contrast, good sharpness, higher resolutions, more saturation and brighter displays, this is thanks to its Full HD LCD panel. In daylight, this IPS panel sometimes can’t shine through bright sunlight.
The 1.7 millimeter-wide edges of the display have a soft feel to them due to the 2.5D design. It doesn’t offer an always-on functionality as seen in the Galaxy S7 or LG G5 which thus doesn’t make it energy-efficient. However, an OLED display is available with the Plus version. It has a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection and is also multi-touch.
Huawei P9 Software/Platform
The Huawei P9 comes with the version 6.0 of the Android OS(Marshmallow). Its platform is supported with the HiSilicon Kirin 955 chipset. Its CPU is the Quad-core 2.5 GHz Cortex-A72 & quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 while the GPU is Mali-T880 MP4.
Huawei P9 Storage/Memory
The device’s RAM is 3 GB with an internal storage space of 32 GB, and this can however be expanded up to 128 GB using a microSD card. There is also a variant(EVA-L29) with internal storage of 64 GB and a 4 GB RAM.
Huawei P9 Camera
The Huawei P9 has a superb double Leica Camera. The camera can be launched by pressing the volume down button twice which takes a picture immediately.
Both main cameras have 12 MP sensors with an aperture of f/2.2 while the front(selfie) camera has a resolution of 8 MP with a slightly smaller aperture to f/2.4.
Huawei P9 battery
The Huawei P9 has a 3000 mAh non-removable battery. Its battery life is great such that even after several hours of play or photographing the battery lasts for a decent amount of time. At full charge, it’ll last you for a full day before needing to be charged.
It is charged via a Type-C connector and it takes about three hours to charge until full. There is however no compatibility with Quick Charge 3.0 or other fast charging methods.
Huawei P9 special features
The Huawei P9 provides gesture control both with the fingerprint sensor and the display. The fingerprint sensor can also be configured as a menu button and you can, for example, knock twice on the display with your knuckles to generate a screenshot.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Huawei
- Type: Smartphone
- Versions: EVA-L09 (Single SIM); EVA-L19, EVA-L29 (Dual SIM)
- Colors: Ceramic White, Haze Gold, Rose Gold, Titanium Grey, Mystic Silver, Prestige Gold
- Sim type: Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
- Compatible networks: GSM / HSPA / LTE
- Dimensions(H * W * D): 145 x 70.9 x 5.95 mm
- Weight: 144 g
- Operating System: Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow)
- System on chip: HiSilicon Kirin 955
- GPU: Mali-T880 MP4
- CPU: Quad-core 2.5 GHz Cortex-A72 & quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53
- User Interface: Huawei EMUI
- Memory: 3 GB
- Storage: 32 GB, 3 GB RAM (EVA-L19/EVA-L09)
64 GB, 4 GB RAM (EVA-L29) - Removable storage: microSD, up to 128 GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
- Battery(Non-Removable): Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery
- Display: IPS-NEO LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
- Size: 5.2 inches
- Resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 4, Emotion UI 4.1
- Rear camera: Dual 12 MP, f/2.2, 27 mm, Leica optics, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash, check quality
- Front camera: 8 MP, f/2.4, 1080p
- Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
- Sound: Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones, loudspeaker, 3.5 mm jack
- Connectivity: HSPA, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC, USB type -C 1.0
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