After attending the launch of the Huawei P9 in June, I was itching to get my hands on the phone to test. For obvious reasons the phones major talking point is it's dual lens technology developed with Leica but there's so much more to this device that meets the eye and with Huawei have invested so much into it being their flagship model to take on the iPhone 6S and Samsung S7, it would be great to see what the Chinese giant had up it's sleeve. They've been making big inroads into the market and gained a large share of it over the past 2 years and they're continuing to grow by releasing great products which cost less than the competition.
After getting the device delivered and ripping open the courier plastic, I was surprised to see a rather large package but when I opened it I realised that it was more than one thing inside, the phone yes but Huawei also sent through a pair of Hugo Boss shades! How cool? They ran a competition when the phone launched, the first 1,000 consumers to get the phone could register and receive their own pair of shades as well! That's pretty rad on their part, giving the consumer some freebies for supporting them.
Quality
Now with most of their previous devices, I've noticed a similarity, the phones are pretty solid and have some weight to them but with the P9 it was remarkably lighter than what I was used to, it weighs just 144g! The phone itself is also slimmer at just 7mm thickness and more sleeker than the out going P8 so it seems Huawei have made use of different metals or materiel's of the P9. Even though the device is lighter it doesn't make the build quality feel inferior to previous devices. It's still robust and a solid device, I wouldn't readily go around throwing it about but it should survive small falls and bumps.
Display & Dimensions
I like the size of this phone, it's just the right size of you ask me. The dimensions are 145 x 70.9 x 7mm. It's not too big, not too small and has a pretty decent screen size. The P9 comes with a 5.2inch display which is a IPS-NEO LCD capacitive touchscreen with 16M colours. Resolution wise, it is 1080 x 1920 pizels, thats 423 ppi pixel density. It supports multitouch which is pretty handy as well as knock touch. It a great display to view pretty much anything on.
Camera
The part you've all been waiting for, the camera, primary camera as mentioned before is the Dual 12 megapixel f/2.1, 27mm Leica optics lens. Now from what I understand, the reason there is two lenses to this camera, no it doesn't take two pictures, well it does kinda. You see Huawei and Leica believe that the best way to capture the perfect picture with the correct colouring is with the method of taking one picture in black and white and the other captured in colour, this way the colours stand out more and if you go through some of my sample pics you can see what they mean. It really takes some stunning pictures. Like the new camera features, it has a full manual mode to fiddle with as well takes RAW imagery. Video wise, 1080p@60fps, so pretty great quality HD recording there. The front facing secondary camera is an 8 megapixel with 1080p video capability.
Performance
There really isn't a specific target market for the P9, it's just meant to be their primary phone, something that accommodates everyone, every trend and does so in style. For that it needed a good chipset to make sure performance is running at optimal level. It's got a HiSilicon Kirin 955 chipset with an Octa-core (4x2.5 GHz Cortex- A72 & 4x1.8 GHz Cotex-A53) CPU, yes you read that right, 8 core CPU. Memory wise, it comes with 32gigs storage space and has a micro SD slot that can take up to 256GB card. Depending on area you're in the memory card slot doubles as a second SIM slot. It has 5GB of RAM and runs Android v6.0 Marshmallow.
Battery
The phone has a 3000mAh lithium Ion non removable battery, I could tell you what the given standby hours and talk time hours are but that really isn't usefull to us but from experience it lasted me almost 2 days of full usage without having to charge it.
Verdict
A lot about this phone is going to be about the dual lens tech on the camera and with good reason but like I said at the start, there is so much more to this phone than just that! The build quality, the processing power, the battery life! Even the features are incredible with the finger print sensor being sharper and faster, like the one that comes on the Mate 8. The fast battery charging is a plus with almost 50% of the charge in just 30 minutes. It really is a great device and if the P10 isn't out by the time my contract comes up for renewal, I will most certainly be getting this. The phone is available in six colours, not sure exactly which are available in SA but go check your local service provider.
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