Huawei P9 Smartphone Review: A Phablet Held Back By it’s Ultimate Dual Lens Leica Camera

Huawei P9 is Huawei’s new flagship phone. The 4th model in the P series, that began with the Ascend P6 way back in 2013, has a lot going for it in comparison to its direct predecessor, the Huawei P8 that was released last year in April.

With the latest iteration comes more power, a dual camera and a higher price which still hovers below competing devices. After thorough testing, here’s our review of the Huawei P9.

Design
The Huawei P9 is the same size as its predecessor (P8), at 5.2 inches. It has an aluminum unibody, which gives the device a cool touch. The sandblast finish on the back avoids greasy fingerprints.

With dimensions of 145 x 70.9 x 7mm and a weight of 144g, the P9 is quite compact and light compared to most other Android smartphones.

Display
The 5.2-inch display uses a Full HD LCD panel, providing reasonable contrast and good sharpness. The competition boasts 1080 x 1920 higher resolutions, more contrast and saturation, and with brighter displays.

Camera
The dual-lens Leica camera makes the P9 a pretty fantastic camera to have in your pocket. Under each lens is a 12 megapixel sensor designed to achieve as much detail as possible in low light conditions. Having two lenses also gives the camera better depth perception, giving it a wider focal range.

Battery
Despite the 7mm phone’s thinness, Huawei did manage to shoehorn a 3000 mAh battery inside which isn’t replaceable. However, I will say, the battery life of the P9 lasts for a decent amount of time which is very good and suitable for heavy users even after several hours of playing games, videos, musics, chating and so forth. It’ll last you for a full day before needing to be charged.

Overall, the battery takes about three and half hours to charge till full and is estimated to last for 75 hours after charge.

Storage
In terms of storage, there’s 32GB on board, however, if you’re after more space you can use a microSD card of up to 128GB.

Performance
The LTE performance of the P9 is above average. It’s powered by a Quad-core 2.5 GHz Cortex-A72 HiSilicon Kirin 955 processor, which is largely the same as that of the Huawei Mate 8.

User experience
The Huawei P9 makes a very competitive flagship and definitely worth your consideration.[related-posts]

Huawei P9 Full Specs

What we liked

1. The dual Leica camera.
2. Level 4 fingerprint scanner on its back.
3. Fingerprint sensor is simply brilliant, accurate, fast and responsive.
4. Battery can work up to 75 hours.
5. Its slimmest measuring just 7mm in thickness.

What we didn’t like

1. The non-removable battery.
2. Does not have a dedicated slot for microSD at dual sim card model. You have to share with the secondary sim card slot when you want to use the external microSD card.
3. The price is high.