Detailed review of Huawei P9: brave new world

As expected, on April 6, the Huawei brand presented a new generation of smartphones from the flagship P-series. The Chinese showed three devices from this line to the guests of the event, the venue of which was London. However, it was the P9 model that received the most attention, since it is equipped with a two-camera system from the famous company Leica. But this is not the only thing that is interesting about the freshly baked flagship from the Middle Kingdom. This article will help you learn more about the new product.

Packaging and equipment Huawei P9

• cable USB Type-C;
• charger;
• headset;
• documentation.

Appearance, materials and screen P9

It is worth saying that in terms of design, the new product is not far from its predecessor P8. At a quick glance, you may not notice any differences at all. Nevertheless, they are present. The shape of the body remains the same; it is a tightly knit block, the design of which is dominated by minimalism. Thanks to this appearance The smartphone feels like a solid and expensive thing. On the front side of the device there is a protective 2.5D glass, which gives it even more charm. The edges and back are made of aluminum, plastic is used only in the camera and backlight areas. The Huawei P9's proportions make it easy to use with one hand. There are no complaints about the assembly, nothing is held together or loose, the smartphone feels like a kind of monolith. By the way, the “nine” received the following body dimensions: 145 × 70.9 × 6.95 mm. Weight does not exceed 144 grams. There will be devices in four colors - dark gray, silver, gold and pink.

The controls in the new device have not undergone virtually any changes since the model. On-screen buttons are located at the bottom of the screen. The left edge of the device contains a combination tray designed for two nanoSIM cards or SIM cards paired with a microSD card. On the right side there is a button responsible for the sound volume and a power key. Pleased with the availability USB port Type-C, which, together with the audio output, microphone and speaker, is located at the bottom end. A fingerprint scanner is installed at the back under the photo module.

The device is equipped with an excellent FullHD IPS display with a diagonal of 5.2 inches. There are maximum viewing angles and excellent color rendition. The color temperature can be adjusted to suit your taste. Backlight adjustable automatic mode.

Huawei p9 specifications

The manufacturer will release two versions of the smartphone - Standard and Premium, equipped with 3 and 4 GB of RAM, respectively. Also, both modifications will receive different storage capacities - 32 and 64 GB. The storage can be expanded with a memory card up to 128 GB. A smartphone with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of user memory on board will be available in Russia. Software part gadget is based on Android platform 6.0 Marshmallow, which is hidden under the EMUI 4.1 shell. Responsible for autonomy in the new product non-removable battery with a resource of 3000 mAh. Supported fast charging. Wireless communication It is represented by Bluetooth 4.1 LE, NFC, and Wi-Fi interfaces.

Cameras Huawei P9

This smartphone can certainly be considered one of the most powerful photographic solutions. The Chinese equipped their creation with a dual camera with optics from Leica. Both modules have 12-megapixel resolution and f/2.2 aperture. The pixel size is 1.76 µm. The main camera has laser autofocus and a dual LED flash that can work as a flashlight. Thanks to this innovative approach, contrast is increased by 50% and light is delivered three times more. Both cameras work together to provide incredible detail and excellent color reproduction. In low light conditions the device also feels very confident. There are three shooting modes - standard, bright colors and soft colors. You can create unusual photos using various visual effects. It is clear that cooperation with Leica is reflected in the new smartphone in the best possible way. Frontalka received a sensor with a resolution of 8 megapixels.

Conclusion

Where to buy Huawei P9 and prices

Two Leica cameras are the main pride of the Chinese. One of the cameras works as a regular 12-megapixel RGB color sensor, while the second one only shoots in black and white mode. But after the cameras fire synchronously, the resulting result is processed together to produce a single image with maximum contrast and clarity. According to Huawei, the pictures are three times brighter and 50% more contrasty than usual.

The dual module is based on two identical Sony IMX286 CMOS sensors with a pixel size of 1.25 microns, a crop factor of about 6.75x, and an effective resolution of 11.81 megapixels (3968 x 2976 pixels). Both SUMMARIT-H 1:22/27 ASPH optical systems from Leica are also identical, with a fixed focal length of 4 mm (27 mm in 35 mm equivalent) and an f/2.2 aperture (up to f/16). There is laser autofocus for instant and accurate focusing, but there is no optical stabilization system (OIS) in the smartphone. The latter, according to the company’s idea, is compensated by the second camera.

Optics for Huawei smartphones are manufactured by Chinese OEM contractor Sunny Optical Technology under license from Leica - just like most lenses for compact cameras. Leica is still responsible for the quality of the lenses and their alignment, but the process is noticeably cheaper.

Feature of Leica cameras - modes black and white photography. Here Huawei P9 Plus provides complete carte blanche for creativity; some frames, especially overexposed ones, are simply indistinguishable from experiments with real film.

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In manual (Pro) mode, Huawei P9 and P9 Plus smartphones allow you to configure all parameters yourself, and even choose to shoot in RAW format. An interesting possibility is refocusing already in the shot frame, changing the depth of field of the image. True, many other smartphones can do this, even with one camera - Lumia 950, HTC 10 and others.

The HDR mode works well, especially against the background of a bright summer sky, when neither manual nor automatic settings. Without HDR, you will certainly end up with either a “knocked out” sky or a lack of halftones in the shadows. Here is an example of panorama shooting, the stitching works well.

Unfortunately, the P9 Plus's video capabilities are limited to Full HD quality (1920 x 1080). Shooting with the main dual camera shows quite acceptable results in good lighting and above average in twilight or weak artificial light. Fans of experiments will like the slow-motion and interval shooting modes. In a word, YouTube is suitable for cats, but filming a business presentation in a darkened audience, especially hand-held, will not be easy.

Experimenting with Leica film effects is great. But in normal modes The camera is at the level of competitors who do not have such a brand behind them.

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Practical metal

The all-metal body with rough grinding looks expensive, a special coating prevents fingerprints, and the minimum thickness completes the look flagship smartphone. 6.9 mm is an excellent indicator for a model with a capacious battery and thin screen frames. Competitors are thicker: 7.9 mm for the Galaxy S7 edge and 7.3 mm for the iPhone 6s Plus.

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What's most impressive about the thin body is the lack of protrusions for the dual camera with powerful Leica optics. Considering the negative experience of the first 3D smartphones, the lenses in the P9 Plus are wisely moved away from the edge, but you can still cover one of the lenses with your finger, especially when horizontal position apparatus.

Huawei P9 Plus is noticeably narrower and lighter than its competitor, the iPhone 6s Plus. Even the dual Leica camera doesn't protrude.

High speed scanner

The fingerprint scanner in Huawei P9 Plus is located on the back of the case. The location has proven itself: you take the smartphone in your hand, and your finger intuitively rests on the scanner. But in the “on the table” position, you cannot view a message or other notification; you have to enter a code or lift the smartphone from the surface.

The scanner has additional settings: it can serve as a camera shutter button, help you scroll through photos in the gallery, and recognition speed takes tenths of a second: Huawei has one of the fastest scanners among its competitors.

Great screen with Press Touch

The P9 Plus screen matrix is ​​AMOLED. So the black color is blacker than night, the contrast and viewing angles are maximum, but most importantly, energy savings compared to IPS matrices.

They didn’t chase resolution, and rightly so: Full HD with a pixel density of 401 ppi is enough: the human eye can comfortably distinguish 326 ppi (the so-called Retina resolution), and the promoted high resolution Quad HD and even 4K are needed for virtual reality gadgets.

Press Touch technology, similar to 3D Touch in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, activates additional functionality depending on how hard you press the display. Touch the icon a little harder and a pop-up menu will appear that will help you immediately make a call, send a message, create an appointment in the calendar, or open the selfie camera instead of the usual one. But third party Android programs They don’t work with Press Touch yet, the word is up to the developers.

Everyone will like the economical AMOLED screen with pressure recognition; we found no shortcomings.

Very fast, but not a leader

The Huawei P9 and P9 Plus smartphones are powered by the latest 8-core 64-bit HiSilicon Kirin 955 processor using the traditional ARM big.LITTLE push-pull scheme: the main load falls on four powerful 2.5-GHz ARM Cortex-A72 cores, and in the lungs modes, four economical 1.8-GHz ARM Cortex-A53 cores operate.

The HiSilicon Kirin 955 processor is somewhat inferior in performance to the Samsung Exynos 8 Octa 8890 (Galaxy S7) and Apple A9 (iPhone 6S) chips, but at the same time it looks invigorating even against the background of the flagship Snapdragon 820 from Qualcomm, which, in particular, powers the Xiaomi Mi5, LG G5, Sony Xperia X Performance, HTC 10 and other sensational models. But in practice this minimal lag is not felt, the shell is highly optimized, heavy games run at maximum settings.

IN Russia Huawei P9 Plus will be available with 4GB RAM and 64 GB of internal memory, and the slot is hybrid: in addition to the main SIM card, you can install either an additional one or a microSD card with a capacity of up to 128 GB.

Below are the benchmark test results and how the smartphone compares to other competitors:

Capacious battery and fast charging

3400 mAh battery combined with economical AMOLED screen sounds promising. Officially, Huawei announced for the P9 Plus two days of operation in normal mode and one and a half days with intensive use. In practice, in intensive work mode - with Wi-Fi and navigation always on, watching and listening to music and movies, playing games, taking hundreds of photos and dozens of videos, the smartphone will last during daylight hours: this is an excellent result!

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Opinion site

Huawei P9 Plus brought together several innovations at once: for the first time, Huawei used two camera modules, and not just for different effects such as blur background, but more serious things, thanks to working with Leica. Photos in special modes are impressive! And the Leica brand is not such a big burden on the price; the Huawei Mate 8 phablet is even more expensive. For the first time - Press Touch technology for the screen, analogous to 3D Touch in the iPhone 6s. We also note great sound, an all-metal body, a super-fast fingerprint scanner and a long-lasting battery. The set is quite a flagship one. But there are still few applications that support Press Touch, and the camera, apart from special modes, is at the level of its competitors.

The official price has not yet been announced, we expect about 45-50 thousand rubles for the P9 Plus and up to 40 thousand for the P9. The regular Huawei P9 differs from the flagship in the absence of Press Touch, a smaller screen, and a more modest battery, but the camera system and body are the same. And if the expensive P9 Plus will compete fiercely with Samsung flagships Galaxy S7, HTC 10, iPhone 6s Plus and others, then the more affordable P9 will be a good buy.

Pros:

• High quality shooting and many camera modes
• AMOLED screen with Press Touch technology
• Slim metal body with 2.5D glass
• Hybrid slot, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB internal memory, 2 SIM cards
• Fast fingerprint scanner
• Capacious battery and fast charging

Cons:

• Lack of 4K video shooting mode
• No optical stabilization
• Shooting algorithms have room for improvement
• High price at the start of sales

The design of Huawei P9 can be called stylish and attractive, but not original - it looks the same as P8 or P9 Lite. It looks good and feels comfortable in the hand, but we think it could use a little more uniqueness.

The dimensions of Huawei P9 are 145x70.9x7.2 mm, comparable to Huawei P8 or Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016), but slightly different in thickness. The phone is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and can even be operated well with one hand. The weight remained the same as its predecessor, 144 grams - of the direct Android competitors of 2016, perhaps only Xiaomi Mi5 is lighter.

Externally, as we have already said, Huawei P9 is similar to its predecessors - a rectangle with the Huawei inscription under the screen and touch keys on the display. The frames around the screen are quite thin - the ratio of its area to the surface of the device is about 73%. The only peculiarity is the fancy so-called 2.5D glass, which means that it is slightly curved at the edges. For the antennas (of which there are three), the metal case contains plastic strips running across the side ends. From the back, the smartphone looks a little more unusual, mainly due to two cameras (by the way, not protruding from the body), which immediately catches your eye and can raise surprises and questions among people you meet. Well, there is a certain effectiveness in this; today, not every smartphone or tablet can evoke any memorable emotions. Without taking into account the second camera, Huawei P9 is reminiscent of the company's other flagship - Huawei Nexus 6P due to the same black stripe on top. True, in this case the fingerprint scanner is not round, but square, the strip is thinner and does not look as if it is sticking out from the body. The fingerprint scanner on the back responds instantly when touched. The only pity is that the slot for the second SIM card is combined - in its place you can put either a SIM card or a memory card. Another unusual detail is the new connector USB Type-C, instead of the common MicroUSB.

The body of Huawei P9 is made of metal, the quality of workmanship is quite high. It looks and feels like a premium device - it's not just the looks, it's the feel. The metal back is pleasant to the touch, this feeling is akin to the same in HTC phones eg HTC One M9. Still it's pretty thin phone, somewhat bendable, so don't be fooled and put it in your back pocket.

The Huawei P9 smartphone can be purchased in six colors - white, gray, silver and three varieties of gold (regular, smoky and rose gold). Many of them will probably not be sold in Russia.

Screen - 4.8

5.2-inch Huawei screen The P9 is of sufficient quality to be called truly a flagship. But, in our opinion, it is “typically flagship” and lacks some features compared to its stellar competitors.

The Huawei P9 display has a “low” Full HD resolution. Yes, today it looks modest and outdated for a flagship, but in fact this is enough for the eyes. The pixel density (423 per inch) is sufficient for clear images. The type of matrix used is an updated IPS (or IPS-NEO), with deep black color and quite wide angles review. The display brightness increases to 516 cd/m2, and at minimum drops to 7 cd/m2. This is quite enough for both sunny day, and for darkness. The screen received a fairly effective oleophobic coating and an auto-brightness function. The contrast is also good, 980:1, although it can be better. The color gamut falls slightly short of sRGB, covering only 91% of it. But the color deviation is small, about one unit, which is good even for a flagship. The screen is readable in the sun with almost no problems, which makes it stand out from displays with a conventional IPS matrix. Separately, we note the operating mode with gloves for working in winter and manual adjustment color temperature screen.

Camera

Huawei P9 received top-end cameras - two on the back of 12 MP each with dual flash and laser autofocus, plus a front one of 8 MP. They can easily be called one of the best, but, in our opinion, they are still slightly inferior to the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5.

Indeed, the most interesting and innovative thing about the smartphone is its cameras, developed in cooperation with Leica. So, these are two modules of 12 MP each, and the first camera is quite ordinary, but the second is not at all simple. No, it is not gold, but monochrome (read black and white). It does not have a Bayer filter, which is used in color cameras, due to this it captures a lot of light (up to 3 times more than a regular color camera). This allows the camera to shoot well in low light conditions or, for example, take real monochrome photos, rather than decolorized by processing color photos, like other smartphones. When you take a photo, both cameras work and the information from them is combined into one photo, that is, the black and white camera, as it were, complements the photo. So the second camera isn't just for dramatic black-and-white shots; together with the main one, it also allows you to more accurately determine the distance to objects (coupled with laser focusing). It also helps you take photos with a blur effect, and the result of this effect can be seen live on the screen, and not after the fact after processing, as on other phones.

If we talk separately about the color camera, then it corresponds to a high flagship level and is quite comparable in shooting to the iPhone 6s, but still inferior to other leaders. Thanks to its wide dynamic range, there's virtually no need for an HDR mode, although it does have an automatic HDR mode.

IN manual settings camera, you can choose to shoot in RAW format, and also adjust the following parameters:

• ISO (50 to 3200)
• shutter speed (1/4000 to 30 sec)
• exposure (−4 to +4)
• focusing (from macro to infinity)
• white balance (from 2800 to 7000 degrees).

It's impressive that in the dark you can take photos with a long shutter speed of up to 30 seconds, the rest is not so surprising. Thus, the camera can be called one of the best for low-light shooting conditions.

What we didn't like was the updated interface. Firstly, at first it is not clear that all settings need to be pulled out by swiping to the left or right. Secondly, the icons in the “modes” window have almost rectangular frames, smoothed at the edges and rough fonts that are reminiscent of some Soviet device, for example, a game where a wolf catches chicken eggs.

The 8 MP front camera is quite “dark” by modern standards, with a narrow aperture (f/2.4). Nevertheless, she takes selfies very well. As always, by default she suggests shooting with a beautifying filter that hides skin imperfections.

It's a little frustrating that cameras can't shoot video in 4K resolution, while others are already doing it with all their might.

Photos from Huawei P9 camera - 3.7

Photos from the front camera of Huawei P9 - 3.7

Comparison of color and black and white photos from Huawei P9 cameras

Working with text - 4.0

On Huawei P9 you can choose one of two keyboards: standard from Google and Huawei Swype. Well, or install any other of Play Market. You are most likely already familiar with the Google keyboard; it comes by default on most Android devices. It has support for continuous input, the ability to change the language with a separate key, but no quick access to additional characters. For the latter, you will have to go to a separate menu each time. Huawei's own Swype keyboard is no worse, and maybe even better; it is distinguished by its proprietary design and the layout of those additional characters. But besides this, it has many other functions: from displaying the trajectory of finger movement and adjusting the keyboard height to adjusting fonts and control gestures. A small drawback that can be annoying is switching between languages. There is no separate key for this, so you will have to hold down the spacebar and swipe to select a language from the drop-down menu.

Internet - 5.0

Huawei P9 comes with pre-installed browsers Google Chrome and Opera, the branded one disappeared for some reason. The first one is found on almost all Android devices and it has its own characteristics. It works quite quickly, although it is memory-hungry. Besides this, popular browser allows you to synchronize your history and tabs with your desktop version. This is quite convenient due to its prevalence. The main advantage of Opera is that texts automatically fit to the width of the screen. At the same time, it’s unclear where Huawei’s proprietary browser with a bunch of interesting features has gone.

Communications - 3.8

In terms of communications, Huawei P9 can be called an advanced smartphone with some shortcomings. So, it is equipped with an impressive set of interfaces:

• high-speed dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 (a/b/g/n/ac) with Wi-Fi Direct
• Bluetooth v4.2
• fast LTE (up to 300 Mbit/s)
• A-GPS with GLONASS and Beidou support
• Single-SIM versions have an NFC chip.

There is no FM radio, but there is support for up to two NanoSIM cards. At the same time, the slot for the second is a combined one, which means that you can insert either a SIM or a memory card in its place. A version with NFC has not yet appeared on sale, so you are faced with a choice: either one SIM card and NFC, or two, but without NFC. And even if you choose the second option, you will again have to choose whether to install a memory card or not.

Instead of a regular MicroUSB connector, it is used new usb Type-C. It also supports OTG for connection peripheral devices, if you can find a suitable cable.

Multimedia - 4.4

The Huawei P9 stands out for its support for most common audio and video codecs, and it also has fairly good sound.

The following can be said about this support - the smartphone calmly chewed everything that we threw into the mouth of its players, the only exception was AC-3 audio, but this is typical for most mobile devices.

Huawei P9 uses its own music player, however, it does not shine with anything special. It only has display settings, a timer, and a sound enhancer (it becomes larger) when listening with headphones. The only strange thing is that there is at least no equalizer, which was found in other phones with older versions of proprietary firmware. The video player is also quite simple and trivial, but in it you can swipe up and down on different parts of the screen to adjust the brightness and volume. In addition, there is only a playback speed setting and the ability to lock the screen so as not to accidentally close the video you are watching.

Battery - 3.0

The autonomy of the Huawei P9 turned out to be only average, it is not much different from the results of the Huawei P9 Lite. This in itself is not bad, but you expect the best from flagships.

The smartphone received a battery with a capacity of 3000 mAh, the average. So, when we watched HD video at maximum brightness, the phone was discharged in 7 hours 20 minutes, the result is slightly higher than that of Huawei P9 Lite and LG Nexus 5X. In the test in player mode, the P9 also turned out to be slightly better than its “light” version, but not by much, 52 hours, like the LG G4, which also does not stand out for its high autonomy. But in other tests the results turned out to be quite good, for example, an hour of running the GeekBench 3 benchmark drained the battery by 13%, and shooting a 10-minute video took only 5%. In 3D games, the smartphone will last for more than 4 hours. In daily use, the Huawei P9 was enough for us for a day, and sometimes less (being carried away by shooting or some kind of game). For those who want to save battery, there are a number of interesting features - reducing the screen resolution to 1280x720, automatically closing energy-consuming applications and an energy-saving mode (only calls and SMS messages are available in it).

Performance - 5.0

Huawei P9 works quickly in daily use, it is enough to solve all smartphone tasks, but in heavy games and in benchmarks it is still inferior to other flagships.

The phone received a new 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 955 processor (four Cortex A-72 cores operate at a frequency of up to 2.5 GHz, the remaining four Cortex A-53 - up to 1.8 GHz), not very different from the Kirin 950 in Huawei Mate 8 . The graphics accelerator is Mali-T880 MP4.

The smartphone does not slow down, the interface works briskly, but if in tests of processor performance the smartphone is still somehow comparable to other flagships (for example, the HTC 10 or LG G5), then in graphics tasks it is inferior to them, and quite noticeably. True, in daily use you are unlikely to notice the difference - everything works smoothly, and even the most demanding games do not slow down. But the benchmark scores are still lower than those of other flagships, by the way, and here they are:

• Geekbench 3 – 6245, comparable to Galaxy S7
• AnTuTu 6.1 – 91232, higher than 2015 Android flagships, for example Motorola Moto X Force, but lower than more modern ones
• Ice Strom Unlimited from 3DMark - 19312, about the same as Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML, the “flagship for the budget-conscious,” or Galaxy Note 4, an already old phablet.

By the way, the smartphone body practically does not heat up during operation. So, after half an hour of playing, his temperature did not exceed 38 degrees.

Memory - 5.0

You can choose a smartphone in two versions - either 32 or 64 GB of internal memory. Moreover, by choosing the first, you will get 3 GB of RAM, and with the second it will already be 4 GB. We tested the 32 GB modification, of which 25 GB were available. For those for whom this is not enough, there is a memory card slot with which you can add up to 200 GB. The smartphone supports hot swapping of cards without rebooting the device. On external memory You can store not only photos and multimedia content, but also transfer many applications.

Peculiarities

The new flagship Huawei P9 received the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow and a new iteration of the EMUI 4.1 interface.

What is unusual about the smartphone is the combination of two rear cameras - color and black and white, a metal body, a new USB Type-C connector and a fingerprint scanner. Moreover, the latter works not only for unlocking, but with its help you can also control the phone. For example, take pictures, answer calls, scroll through photos and much more. The fact is that the sensor distinguishes double taps, pinches and swipes to the side.

The corporate interface has been updated, but it cannot be said that it is for the better. It seems that Huawei has outdone themselves with permanent job over it. You can no longer see your own browser, the camera application looks completely new, with strange, in our opinion, icons. But this is not the worst thing, the phone settings have also been redesigned, many items have disappeared to an unknown location and it is unclear where to look for them now. Okay, at least the system has a settings search to find what you need (though you need to know in advance exactly what to look for and what it might be called).

Not the most pleasant feature for many will be the combined slot, into which you can insert either a nanoSIM or a MicroSD memory expansion card.

Huawei's P line of flagships has always been focused on pushing the boundaries of smartphone design, and the P9 continues that tradition with stunning looks. Plus, Huawei is stuck with 1080p resolution and a proprietary processor.

Huawei faces a difficult task: convincing people that the P9 can challenge the excellent Samsung Galaxy S7 and innovative LG G5. This is a risky move. We tested the Huawei P9 to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Sleek design

Huawei makes a lot of attractive phones and doesn't always get the recognition it deserves. That should change with the P9 because the smartphone is stunningly beautiful. This is a phone to see, take a look at back Huawei P9, attention is attracted by two cameras located on the same level. There are no bulges here, the all-metal P9 is very smooth.

Huawei P9 is comfortable in the hand

The new Huawei P9 is compact, easy to hold, and a visual masterpiece. The P8 was good, but this phone is stunning. However, there is a problem. For some this new smartphone will be a little small. It's not small, and the screen is a reasonable size, everything is simple and so well designed that there's nothing superfluous. Everything is very familiar, just on a smaller scale.

Huawei offers a solution in the form of the P9 Plus. Yes, Huawei chose Plus for the P9 and we just can't imagine why (ahem! IPhone 6S Plus). Huawei P9 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen with innovative touch technology, but it only works in selecting native applications, a bit bigger battery and the same cameras. Surprisingly, the P9 Plus isn't much larger than the regular P9, but it does have a larger screen.

The P9 is impressive and powerful phone, although Huawei does not use the same processor Qualcomm Snapdragon, which LG and Samsung use in theirs. The Chinese company relies on its own Kirin 955 processor. General Use, music, streaming video, and working with the camera do not load the processor at all. The games have shown that it is strong enough to keep up with Qualcomm chips. There's 3GB of RAM, which is a little less than we expected. After all, less RAM is initially a concern, but our preliminary tests did not reveal any shortcomings.

This year, Huawei P9 is ready to compete with LG's G5 and Samsung Galaxy S7

We tested it with several criteria. Huawei's P9 scored 98.261 on the AnTuTu benchmark. For comparison, the GalaxyS7 scored 134,704, and the LG G5 scored 133,054, while the Nexus 6P scored 60,007. The P9 is weaker than the G5 or Galaxy S7 in this test, but it's better than the Nexus 6P.

The Kirin 955 has a co-processor that powers the fitness tracking mode and the step count appears on the lock screen and notification. Huawei's Health app is relatively simple, but provides goals and the ability to track specific activities such as cycling, walking and running.

The back of the phone features a square fingerprint sensor, which is an evolution of the sensor used on the Mate 8. This time, it offers a new level of security. It's very fast, but the sensor still won't respond if there's more than just a hint of moisture on your finger.

Software

The P9 runs on Android 6.0 with Huawei's EMUI 4.1 user interface. The company continues to improve the user interface, and the latest version is less intrusive than the older ones. No it's not pure android, there are too many pre-installed (but easily uninstalled) apps. You can choose different themes if you want to personalize your smartphone even more.

The main disadvantage of the unique user interface, this is that the company will not be able to update its devices to the latest Android versions. Updates software are important because they often serve to plug security holes. It's a shame that Android manufacturers don't take updates as seriously as they should.

Leica camera

Huawei is not alone in contributing much to the success of the P9. Leica didn't just put its name on the back of the phone and put some filters in the camera app. The renowned camera maker is deeply involved in the creation and customization of the P9's dual cameras. How deep is Leica's involvement? Discover the Huawei P9 camera interface, icons, fonts, and even the shutter sound are all from Leica. Leica wants fans of their products to feel right at home using the P9.

The monochrome lens is a revelation, producing deep, true blacks and beautiful sharp whites and grays.

Both lenses, the wide-angle camera on the back of the phone were developed jointly with Leica, and the 12-megapixel sensor itself is from Sony. One camera shoots in color, while the other captures the detail in monochrome (black and white). Meanwhile, wide-angle lenses provide depth and sharpness adjustments after shooting.

Let's start with the P9 camera interface. Huawei has made big improvements to this app on the P9. It's much easier to use than the app on the P8, Mate S, or Mate 8. Every feature is accessible, but the interface isn't cluttered with anything.

Camera requires setup

Swipe your finger to the right and a selection of modes will appear, starting with HDR and video, as well as night shooting settings. Swipe left to view less-used features such as timer, camera settings, grids, and GPS tagging. The manual mode is called Pro, and appears when you drag up a small menu on the main screen. When it is hidden, the phone is in automatic mode. It's simple, convenient and intuitive to use manual mode on P9. Annoyingly, the Pro mode menu doesn't rotate when the phone is in landscape mode, so the settings aren't as easy to read. Fortunately, such things can be resolved with a software update.

Battery life

The combination of the Kirin chip and Android with Huawei's shell has ruined battery life in the past. After a full day of heavy use that started at 9am, during which we took most of the test photos, played games, browsed and downloaded apps, Huawei's battery showed 16% at 11pm. This is quite predictable, because the battery here is 3,000 mAh, it is comfortably located inside the 6.9 mm case.

Huawei P9 warranty

The Huawei P9 comes with a two-year warranty and a six-month battery warranty, but only under normal use. Spill something on it, or break it, and your damage will not be covered.

Bottom line

The Chinese company comes close to perfection with the Huawei P9, closer than with the Mate 8 and Nexus 6P, which we consider the best Android phone in 2015, but this is not able to attract the masses of Samsung and LG buyers.

However, Huawei P9 has captured our attention like no other Huawei phone. Even though we only tested it for a few days, we can confidently recommend this smartphone. If you want a good flagship at a lower price and benefit from a powerful camera, the Huawei P9 is for you.

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In early April, Huawei demonstrated in London an updated line of its fashion models, represented by the P9 and P9 Plus smartphones. The main emphasis this time was on cameras: dual camera with lenses created in collaboration with Leica, should, in theory, attract special attention from the public and raise user perception of the Huawei brand to a new level. We will find out during the testing process whether the Chinese succeeded in everything they planned, but for now it is also worth noting that the manufacturer has not forgotten about the “light” version of the smartphone. In the case of the ninth series, along with P9 and P9 Plus, a more affordable version of P9 Lite will be presented for those who want to save money. But the premium modification P9 Plus with the Press Touch screen function (analogous to Force Touch), as well as the simplified P9 Lite, will be discussed in other articles, and today we will turn to the central model of the new series - Huawei P9, priced for the European market at 600-650 euro, and for Russian - around 50 thousand rubles.

Main characteristics of Huawei P9 (model EVA-L19)

• SoC HiSilicon Kirin 955, 8 cores: 4x2.5 GHz (ARM Cortex-A72) + 4x1.8 GHz (ARM Cortex-A53)
• GPU Mali-T880 MP4
• operating system Android 6.0
• Touch display IPS 5.2″, 1920×1080, 423 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 3/4 GB, internal memory 32/64 GB
• SIM cards: Nano-SIM (2 pcs.)
• Map support microSD memory up to 128 GB
• GSM networks 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 MHz networks
• LTE networks Cat.6 FDD Band 1/3/4/7/20, TDD Band 38-41
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Concurrency
• DLNA, Miracast
• Bluetooth 4.2
• USB 2.0 Type C, OTG
• GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• Direction, proximity, lighting sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetic compass, step counter, fingerprint scanner
• Cameras 12 + 12 MP, f/2.2, autofocus, LED flash
• Camera 8 MP, front, f/2.4
• Battery 3000 mAh
• Dimensions 145×71×7 mm
• Weight 144 g

Appearance and ease of use

A little history

Without exaggeration, Huawei P9 can be described as a fashion model with a beautiful, thought-out design. This time the company's artists did a great job. At this point, we can recall that the beginning of the Huawei P line of smartphones, in which the emphasis has always been on the external component, was laid by the Huawei Ascend P1 model, released back in 2012. That is, the company opened its image series of smartphones, then called Ascend P, exactly four years ago.

That first model, however, did not have a metal body, and its main feature was its very small thickness. This distinctive feature is preserved in all members of the P. family.

Huawei Ascend P1

Subsequent models received both a metal rim and glass panels, but each time there was a feeling of some incompleteness in the design. This was especially true of the ridiculous rounding of the lower end, which did not want to fit into the whole image.

So smartphone cameras have hit a certain ceiling. Quality mobile cameras already corresponds to the level of medium-sized compacts, and even surpasses the junior lines. And you have to come up with something else to stand out. We have already seen smartphones with two main camera modules, but here Huawei engineers decided to distinguish themselves by making one module black and white. Thanks to the fact that the second module is not distracted by colors, it can better resolve details and also (supposedly) expand the dynamic range. After software stitching together images from two cameras, we should get a sharp, detailed image with good dynamic range.

In reality, it turns out that everything is not so great. Unstable color resolution can still be attributed to crude firmware, but problems with shooting in low light, which, according to the manufacturer, should not exist, are very upsetting. At the same time, the monochrome module itself works quite well. However, its small lead over its non-white counterparts may be due precisely to the lack of color and fewer problems with noise. However, the dynamic range of the camera is really quite good. The photos don't have the unnatural quality of HDR, but the highlights and shadows are well balanced.

Huawei P9	Apple iPhone 6Plus

Perhaps in production samples the program will already learn how to stitch images correctly, getting the best from each module, and we will really see an outstanding result. For now, the camera doesn't show anything special. Moreover, in some places there are areas of blur in the corners that are completely unworthy of a flagship. However, the camera will cope well with documentary and artistic photography.

Here it is worth remembering one of the testaments of the modern amateur photographer, which says: “Almost any photo in black and white will look cooler.” So in this case, the monochrome module can really be used to its fullest, like Leica M-Monochrom connoisseurs. However, it is worth understanding that this module itself will not shoot like a Leica, and its dynamic range is at least worse, not to mention other quite obvious points.

Color module	B&W module

Telephone and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern networks 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA, and also has support for fourth-generation networks LTE generation Cat.6 with the maximum possible speed of up to 300 Mbit/s per reception, frequency aggregation is supported if there is appropriate support from the operator’s network. Huawei says that in their next smartphone they have used not a double, but a “triple virtual antenna Signal+ 2.0.” Combined with technology fast switching“Signal+” allows the smartphone to select the optimal communication mode and improves the quality of the connection even while moving at high speed, for example if the user is talking while on a high-speed train.

Five FDD LTE bands are supported, including the three most common domestic operators(B3, B7 and B20). Four FDD TDD bands (Band 38–41) are also supported. In practice, with a SIM card from the MTS operator in the Moscow region, the smartphone was confidently registered and worked in 4G networks. In general, both the connection speed in 4G networks and work with cellular networks Overall, I liked the Huawei P9: the smartphone instantly produces reconnection after a break, does not lose connection in areas of uncertain reception, gives maximum high speeds in 4G in test locations where many others perform much worse. In terms of communication capabilities, the hero of the review is at his best.

Eat Bluetooth support 4.1, but for some reason there is no NFC. It is very strange that Huawei does not consider this function necessary at least for top-end devices, while the usefulness of this technology is only growing. The smartphone supports Wi-Fi Direct, you can organize wireless point access via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels. "Smart" Wi-Fi function+ allows you to automatically switch between Wi-Fi and network mobile transmission data. USB 2.0 Type C connector supports connection external devices V USB mode OTG.

The navigation module works with GPS (A-GPS), Glonass and Chinese Beidou. There are no complaints about the operating speed of the navigation module; the first satellites are detected during a cold start within the first minute. The smartphone is equipped with a sensor magnetic field, on the basis of which the compass of navigation programs operates.

It is possible to reduce in size virtual keyboard and even the entire working area of ​​the screen for easy control with the fingers of one hand.

The smartphone, like all representatives of the P line, supports two SIM cards using the Dual standard SIM Dual Active. That is, here both cards can work in parallel and at the same time, because the smartphone uses two separate radio modules. This is very rare in modern smartphones option. It is very simple to use: during parallel conversations, you can instantly switch from one interlocutor to another by pressing just one button.

Any of the SIM cards can be designated as the main one for organizing voice calls, transferring data and sending SMS messages; When dialing a number, you can also select the desired card using the corresponding buttons. A SIM card in any slot can work with 3G/4G networks, but only one of them can function in this mode at a time. To change the assignment of slots, cards do not need to be swapped - this can be done directly from the phone menu.

OS and software

The device is used as a system software platform Google Android 64-bit version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. On top of the standard one Google interface As usual, Huawei’s own shell is installed, the fourth version of Emotion UI 4.1. Everything here is quite familiar and familiar: working with gestures is supported, there is an additional virtual control button that folds out on the screen into a radial menu. The navigation panel has been modified, divided into several tabs, the first of which has a convenient timeline of events, the next one you can find a quick access menu to the main settings, and by swiping up from the bottom you can call up another menu where you can find a flashlight, a voice recorder and some others useful features and settings. It is possible to change the design themes and enable simplified desktop mode, bottom control row virtual buttons You can also reassign at your discretion.

The operation of the fingerprint scanner does not cause any complaints, you can place your finger, as usual, at any angle, authorization occurs very quickly and without errors. Using a fingerprint scanner, you can not only unlock your smartphone, but also block access to certain applications, make payments, scroll through photos in your gallery, answer calls, and even turn off your alarm. There is nothing new in this; the functionality is quite familiar and convenient. True, the convenience of the scanner's location on the back of the case raises questions, but this is a separate topic for discussion.

Performance

The Huawei P9 hardware platform is based on the new 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 955 SoC of Huawei's own design. This SoC is made using 16-nanometer technology and is actually an overclocked version of the Kirin 950 model. It includes four powerful 64-bit ARM Cortex-A72 cores with a frequency of up to 2.5 GHz, which are complemented by four simpler 64-bit Cortex-A cores A53 with a frequency of up to 1.8 GHz. The quad-core Mali-T880 MP4 video accelerator is responsible for graphics processing.

The smartphone's RAM is 3 GB, the built-in flash memory is 32 GB (about 23 GB remains for the user) free space). This volume can be increased using microSD cards, but then you will have to remove one of the SIM cards. It is also possible to connect to USB port external flash drives in OTG mode. microSD cards officially supported with capacities up to 128 GB, in practice our test Transcend card Premium microSDXC UHS-1 with a capacity of 128 GB was confidently recognized by the device.

The test results of Huawei's new flagship platform left a mixed impression. In comprehensive tests, the SoC shows good results, although they are far from the leading positions of the latest flagship platforms from Qualcomm and Samsung. But as for graphics, in this regard, the flagships of Huawei and Mediatek (Helio X20) are at an incomparably lower level than the Snapdragon 820, Exynos 8890 and even the Snapdragon 810.

To summarize, we can say that the flagship Qualcomm processors and Samsung retain a significant advantage over the Kirin 955. However, the performance of this platform should be more than enough to complete all tasks, including demanding games. Simple games such as Tanks can be played very comfortably on the Huawei P9; the number of frames per second does not drop below 60 fps.

Testing in latest versions comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench 3:

All the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the most latest versions popular benchmarks, we have summarized them in tables for convenience. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that at one time they passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

Thermal photographs

Below is a thermal image of the back surface, obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program (the lighter, the higher the temperature):

Heating is slightly more localized in the upper part of the device. At the same time, a large area with approximately the same temperature suggests that the case distributes heat well from heating components. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was only 36 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is relatively little.

Playing video

To test omnivorousness when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, for example subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

According to the testing results, the test subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network, in this case, audio files. To successfully play them, you will have to resort to the help of a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 sound format.

Further testing of video playback was performed Alexey Kudryavtsev.

We were unable to test support for SlimPort or MHL adapters due to the lack of an adapter option that connects to the USB Type C port, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)

Note: If in both columns Uniformity And Passes Green ratings are given, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and frame skipping will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems related to the playback of the corresponding files.

According to the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235 - all gradations of shades are displayed in shadows and highlights.

Battery life

Capacity removable battery, installed in Huawei P9, is as much as 3000 mAh, which is worthy, given the thin and light body of the device. A smartphone with such a battery and without an increased display resolution logically demonstrates a very impressive level of autonomy. The device confidently survives until evening charging even with an eventful day, sometimes it can live longer, but it is still better to charge it at night. Testing, as usual, was carried out without using any energy saving modes, although, of course, there are some in the device.

You can use them not in the usual settings menu, but through a comprehensive application that contains a battery manager, system optimization and cleaning tools, as well as virus protection tools.

Continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme, with auto-scrolling) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (the brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasts a very long time, from 18 to 19 hours. When continuously watching videos from Youtube in high quality(720p) with the same brightness level via home Wi-Fi network The device operates for more than 9 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone works reliably for more than 4 hours.

Unfortunately, a copy of Huawei P9 arrived to us for testing without a complete charger. From a conventional charger with a maximum output current of 2 A, the device is charged in approximately 2 hours with a current of 1.8 A at a voltage of 5 V. Wireless charging the device does not support.

Bottom line

The declared price of Huawei P9 is frankly upsetting: the Chinese, having put a price of 50 thousand rubles on their smartphone (in Europe - 650 euros), make it clear that they will stop at nothing in an effort to hammer into the minds of buyers the belief that the Huawei brand may not be less expensive and “premium” than market leaders such as Samsung and Apple. However, the grumbling of users (“50 thousand for Huawei is expensive”) does not stop, because for that kind of money you can buy the most desirable Samsung Galaxy S7 or Apple iPhone 6. As a result, after about a month and a half of presence in Russian retail, Huawei P9 fell in price from official representatives up to 40 thousand rubles, and “gray” models can be bought for almost 30 thousand.

And in terms of product quality, the Chinese company still needs to improve. Cooperation with Leica in fact did not provide significant advantages when shooting photos over the same market leaders. But cameras and shooting quality are currently the main measure of top-end smartphones, since the rest of them are, for the most part, almost the same. And in this “rest”, Huawei P9 is quite good, with its impressive design, high-quality screen, sound system, communication capabilities and good battery life. But as for its own hardware platform Kirin, here too Huawei has not yet been able to catch up with the leaders. The platform itself may not be bad, but if you compare its capabilities with the same Samsung Exynos 8890, and add here the incredible camera capabilities of the same Galaxy S7, then the question of who will get 50 thousand from the buyer’s wallet will be resolved, rather, in favor of Samsung.