The bold and the beautiful

BOASTING a dual-lens and dual-sensor camera co-engineered with Leica, a leading manufacturer of lenses and cameras, Huawei’s P9 was launched with great aplomb last week on the Thai market.

The prominent feature of the Chinese phone maker’s newest flagship smartphone is without doubt the two lenses on the back panel – one for monochrome and the other for colour (RGB) photo shooting. The two lenses catch the same view, but with different tasks for colour and light, bringing a more professional feel to the images even in low-light conditions. 

More of a camera with a smartphone attached than vice versa, the P9 has a premium look and feel, with an aerospace-class aluminium body and a superior-grade 2.5D-glass display featuring diamond-cut curved edges.

Design-wise, the P9 appears to have been inspired by the iPhone, even down to the star-shaped security screws on both sides of the charging port. The metal body, though, makes it slippery to hold, so users will almost certainly need to invest in a case. 

It has impressive speed for smooth multi-tasking due to a fast octa-core processor and capitalises efficiently on the high-speed capability of the 4G network.

With a 3,000 mAh battery, P9 has enough power for at least one full day of normal use, including phone calls, social media updates and chats, as well as hours of music listening and video viewing.

The phone has internal storage of 32GB, with a slot for microSD card expansion, and 3GB RAM, which should be sufficient for most users. The Full HD screen is bright enough for outdoor viewing, even on a sunny day.

Like other premium Android phones, P9 has a fingerprint sensor at the back, which allows owners to unlock their phones with their finger and keeps data safer. That unlocking is much more precise than in older phones thanks to a new technology that Huawei describes as “Level 4 finger identification with 3D verification”, which allows fingerprint reading to be more precise.

A useful feature in P9 is the “mini screen view” that allows use of the phone with one hand. Just sliding a finger across the navigation bar at the bottom of screen switches between the standard and mini screen view. Slide to the left for use with the left hand and to the right for the right.

The Phone Manager that has many useful features and even warns you when an app is power intensive by offering you the option to close any or all of the power-hogging applications. This app gets rid of the need to install third-party apps to do the job.

A more annoying feature is that Huawei’s Emotion UI creates icon frames for all apps – again in standard iOS style. But unlike in iOS, the background is not always white but comes in different colours (mostly in a tone that is close to that of the icon). The background colours sometimes do not go well with the icons and the user has no control over this choice of colour.

The P9 is available in Prestige Gold, Titanium Grey and Mystic Silver and is priced at Bt16,990. 

 

KEY SPECS

 

- Dimensions: 145 x 70.9 x 6.95 mm

- Weight: 144 grams

- Display: 5.2” Full HD 2.5D screen, with 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution

- CPU: Huawei Kirin 955 (64-bit) octa-core processor

- Storage (ROM): 32GB

- Memory (RAM): 3GB

- Main camera: Leica lens, 12MP RGB + Monochrome dual sensor, with dual-tone flash

- Front camera: 8MP

- OS: Android 6.0 with Huawei’s Emotion user interface (EMUI) 4.1

- Battery: 3,000 mAh

- Port: Type-C (USB 2.0)