The big day came and Huawei finally announced its new flagship, the Huawei P9, but also the P9 Plus model. All of the official images of the device confirm what we knew already: Huawei has been working with Leica to deliver the optics of the new models.
The Huawei P9 is the core model here, a pretty compact flagship, that has measurements similar to the ones of the iPhone 6s, albeit the diagonal is bigger, at 5.2 inches. We’re getting an IPS LCD screen panel and Full HD resolution, plus the powerful Kirin 955 processor, that already leaked in benchmarks. This is a tweaked version of the Kirin 950 inside the Mate 8. The full specs list of the P9 goes like this:
- Display: 5.2 inch, IPS LCD, Full HD
- Processor: Kirin 955, octa core
- Storage: 32/64 GB
- RAM: 3 or 4 GB
- Camera: Dual 12 MP, F/2.2 aperture, 27 mm lens, Leica optics, PDAF, dual LED flash/ front 8 MP camera
- Sensors: fingerprint, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity compass
- Connectivity: USB type C, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual band, LTE
- Battery: 3000 mAh, Li-Ion
The back dual camera setup provides an improvement in contrast by 50% compared to regular shooters and the phone is able to capture three times the light information. The chassis is made of aluminum and the fingerprint scanner is placed at the back. Huawei P9 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 on top.
One of the dual cameras captures color and the other “sees” only in black and white, plus various levels of gray. They’re able to reduce the noise level in low light conditions, quite a lot. Strangely, there’s no OIS available.
Getting to the Huawei P9 Plus, this model shares 90% of the specs of the P9, camera included, but it’s a tad bigger at 5.5 inches in diagonal. Compared to the iPhone 6s Plus, this model is 5.9 mm shorter and 2.6 mm narrower. This model switches from an IPS screen to an AMOLED and also offers 3D Touch-style screen sensitivity.
This tech is called Press Touch. Only a 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage version will be available here and the battery increases in capacity. A welcome extra are the stereo speakers. Here’s the full specs list of the phone:
- Display: 5.5 inch inch, Super AMOLED, Full HD
- Processor: HiSilicon Kirin 955, octa core
- RAM: 4 GB
- Storage: 64 GB
- Camera: dual 12 MP, Leica optics, 27 mm, F/2.2, aperture, PDAF, dual LED flash/ front 8 MP camera
- Sensors: fingerprint, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity compass
- Connectivity: USB type C, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual band, LTE
- Battery: 3400 mAh, fast charging.
This model will come in grey, silver, gold and rose gold. Huawei P9 is priced at 599 euros in the 3 GB RAM/ 32 GB storage version and 649 euros for the 4 GB RAM/ 64 GB storage version. The Plus unit brings an extra 100 euros on top of the regular price. P9 is available from April 16th in 29 countries in Europe and the Middle East, while the P9P Plus comes on May 20.
