Huawei P9 And P9 Plus Flagship Smartphones Flaunt Kirin 955 SoC, Leica-Branded Dual Cameras
Those dual cameras are the stars of the show, as Huawei teamed up with Leica for their development. Well, we should clarify by saying the the cameras have received “Leica certification”, whatever that means. The bottom line is that you’ll receive one traditional 12MP camera which is joined by a second 12MP camera that only has a monochrome sensor. The two cameras used in conjunction are said to improve contrast ratio in photos by up to 50 percent (the monochrome camera doesn’t have RGB filtering, so it’s able to capture more light). You’ll find a third camera, an 8MP unit, up front for selfie duties.
As for the smartphones themselves, both the P9 and the P9 Plus feature sleek, aluminum unibody designs, which is par for the course in Android land these days. On the hardware front, both P9 and the P9 Plus feature FHD displays instead of the QHD resolutions you typically find in today’s flagships. However, that restraint on the display front should help relieve some stress on the 3,000 mAh and 3,400 mAh batteries found in the P9 and P9 Plus respectively.
Both smartphones are powered by a Kirin 955 octa-core processor (four 2.5GHz Cortex-A72, four 1.8GHz Cortex-A53) and come with 64GB of storage storage standard. The P9 gets 3GB of RAM, while the larger P9 Plus ups the ante with 4GB. On European models of the smartphones, you’ll find a microSD slot for expansion, while Chinese-market phones eschew the microSD slot in favor of a second microSIM port.
Other features include a USB-C port, a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, fast-charging support and triple antennas to improve reception. Both smartphones run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but for better or worse, Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 interface is layered on top.
The Huawei P9 and P9 Plus are priced at £449 and £549 respectively and will be available in China and in Europe. Unfortunately, a U.S. release is not currently on the radar screen for Huawei.
