Huawei is a big company, always has been. Especially in its native China. To say Huawei is just a phone company is like saying Google just does advertising. The company has huge resources at its disposal and is not limited to the consumer mobile space; it develops wireless networks, LTE technologies, infrastructure and it builds its own chips. Nevertheless, it has taken awhile for the company’s phone brand to capture the attention of users in the West.
For the last few years, Huawei phones have been an afterthought for many consumers, playing second fiddle to Samsung, Apple, HTC, LG and the like. But all that started to change about 18 months ago when the company began to grab headlines for its innovative phones. For me, this kind of began with the Huawei Mate 8, which was one of the best all-round performers I tested last year. I still have issues with Huawei’s software that ships aboard its phones, but the hardware and performance cannot be doubted.
So when the rumours about the company’s next big thing — the Huawei P9 — began to surface I was excited. Huawei built, perhaps, the best Nexus phone to date in the form of the Nexus 6P. Building on from this, the P9 seemed to take everything that made that handset tick and turn it up to eleven. The resulting handset that was launched earlier this year was a huge hit with consumers and reviewers alike. It had the looks, performance and imaging capabilities to match all of its peers in the space and, in some instances, surpass them.
Huawei is now here to stay in the mobile space. It feels as if Huawei is a natural successor to Sony and HTC. But if I’m 100% honest, I can see the company, based on current global market share, causing even larger players like LG trouble in 2016/17. Huawei has the budget, capabilities and desire to compete with the best of them and the P9 and P9 Plus demonstrate this perfectly.
Here’s everything you need to know about two of the hottest handsets in the business right now.
Huawei P9 New Colour Variants Outed: Red & Blue
Huawei has now revealed two new colour variants for the Huawei P9 at IFA 2016, Berlin; a dark red and a light metallic blue. Both new colour editions come in 32GB flavours at a price of 545 euros (£456), while naturally all the other specs remain the same as the existing Huawei P9 models.
What do you think of the new colour choices? Blue seems to be very much on trend with phone makers, so no surprise there, but the red is interesting. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Huawei P9: Design & Display
Of major emphasis during the presentation, Huawei was very keen to push how much effort has gone into the Huawei P9's design and build. The firm seems very aware that it is competing in a modern premium market of predominantly metal and glass flagships such as the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6s. The Huawei P9 is made from "one piece of sleek and solid metal," so a unibody design, but also features glass components too. In terms of shape, well, the leaks showed it all, and we reckon there's no denying the Huawei P9 is an attractive phone to look at - there is a hint of Samsung, HTC, and Apple in there, amongst others, but to be fair there is only so much that can be done with smartphone slab design and the cohesive whole doesn't really look like anything else. We have been impressed by Huawei's design and build quality before, and this device appears to continue the firm's aptitude for good-looks and solid build with a deft hand.
Speaking of hands, Huawei talked up the curved elements of the bodywork which are apparently designed with ergonomics in mind - it's supposed to be super comfy to hold and operate. What's more, Huawei has made the camera sensor fit completely flush with the rear panel, so there is no bulge whatsoever. The firm also talked up the "craftsmanship" and "precision engineering" of the build quality and design. The handset is 6.95mm thin, thinner than both the Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6s, and it has an incredibly narrow bezel around the display at only 1.7mm - again thinner than both mentioned rivals with what Huawei describes as an "invisible edge".
Another big design boast (an "industry first", according to Huawei) is "high polished brushed hairline finishing," with a "jewel-like appearance," essentially a strip that goes around the device's outer edge, but an attractive one to be sure. Huawei calls it a "360-degree, edge-to-edge, elegant metal pillar," - no, we're not too sure either. There's also the "ceramic white" finish, which Huawei also describes as "pure white," "super high glossy," and "a work of art," but there are quite a few different colour options including Haze Gold, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Mystic Silver, and Titanium Grey (which is the closest thing to black, it would seem).
The display itself is a 5.2in IPS setup on the regular Huawei P9, with a Full HD 1080p resolution at 423 pixels-per-inch. Huawei also claims 96% colour saturation and 500nits of brightness. Meanwhile, the Huawei P9 Plus has a 5.5in Super AMOLED display, again at 1080p and 401ppi, with 108% colour saturation. The Huawei P9 Plus is slightly thicker than the regular model at 6.98mm.
Another hyped element during the pre-launch rumours was the camera tech, initially off the back of images showing a dual-lens and then, more recently, because of Leica branding. Of course this all turned out to be right on the money - the Huawei P9 features a dual-lens Leica 12MP Summarit H 1:2.2/27 ASPH sensor array. The two wide-aperture, f/1.1 sensors fulfill different purposes, both feature a large pixel size for more light, but one handles RGB colour while the other is a monochromatic black-and-white sensor. There's also hybrid laser and depth auto-focus capabilities which can switch to the best solution for short and long-range photography - the handset has the world's first dedicated depth image-signal processor (as well as a dedicated Digital Signal Processor) for this purpose. As expected, you're also able to re-select a focal point post-capture, but that's not the main point of the dual-camera setup as it has been with past implementations. Nope, here it's all about the overall image quality.
There's a Professional Mode to give you full manual control of ISO, focus, shutter speed, exposure, white balance, and it allows RAW output.
On paper this all sounds great and the images Huawei is showing at its press event look positively stunning.
Huawei P9: Battery, Connectivity & Other Hardware
The P9's battery isn't quite as massive as earlier rumours suggested, but still impressive nonetheless with a sizeable 3000mAh cell. The handset also packs in stereo speakers. The Huawei P9 Plus has a bigger 3400mAh cell and is alleged to offer two-day battery life. Both models have a "new generation" fingerprint scanner with 3D scanning, which is claimed to improve the security.
Huawei also made a point of how well-equipped the P9 is when it comes to mobile connectivity, including dual-SIM support with an integrated microSD and SIM slot and the world's first triple-antenna. The P9 has support for 18 4G bands across 1334 networks in 217 regions. MicroSD support allows for cards up to 128GB and there's the new USB Type-C connector in the bodywork. Onboard storage is either 32GB or 64GB depending on availability.
Huawei P9 Key Features:
The 5.2 inch full HD display included in the P9 uses the Hollywood movie colour gamut, allowing the display to cover 96 percent of the colour spectrum.
The dual-lens 12MP camera features RGB and BW sensors, as well as laser-assisted focus. This makes the camera 200 per cent more sensitive than predecessors and allows it to provide 300 per cent more detail.
The P9 is powered by Huawei’s latest Kirin 955 chipset, which is based on the TSMC 16nm FinFET Plus chip technology. CPU performance is 100 per cent faster than the P8 and 3D graphics are improved by 125 per cent.
Running Android Marshmallow 6.0, the P9 uses the Huawei Emotion UI 4.1 interface, adding hundreds of user experience tweaks and improvements.
The P9 supports the latest reversible USB Type-C Connector technology.
Huawei P9: Processor & Software
As expected, the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus pack Huawei's own Kirin 955 SoC, which is a pretty astounding bit of kit. It's an octa-core setup with a quad-core cluster of ARM A72 cores at 2.4GHz and another quad-core cluster of ARM A53 cores at 1.8GHz, together with an i5 co-processor. All of which is on ARM's big.LITTLE architecture as well as 16nm FinFET Plus semiconductor tech. Needless to say, Huawei is promising big performance, but also big battery efficiency. There's 3GB of RAM onboard the P9 while the P9 Plus has 4GB, and the software is Android 6.0 together with the firm's own UI.
Huawei P9: Price & Availability
Both the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus are available from today for a SIM-free RRP of £449 for the P9 and £549 for the P9 Plus
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