There are plenty of smartphones on the market and the big point of difference for most is the quality of the camera. Huawei’s new P9 stand out from the crowd with not one, but two cameras on the device.
The Chinese company has cleverly partnered with Leica – a company with more than 100 years of experience in photography – to create the impressive dual lens camera on the P9.
It is fair to say that smartphones are judged by customers more on the merits of the camera than on their ability to make phones calls and connect to the internet.
Let’s face it, making calls, sending texts and browsing the internet is what all phones can do.
Same deal on battery life – it’s hard to find a phone today that can’t make it through the entire say on a single charge.
And processing power – an eye-blink difference in speed between one device and another isn’t going to change a customer’s mind.
Apart from screen sizes, the camera is something that’s going to get your attention because our smartphones have become our go-to cameras.
And those images are what we see on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter so naturally the user is going to want those pictures to be great quality.
Huawei’s P9 with its dual-lens camera does stand out from a sea of other mid-range phones.
And it’s not just the fact that there are two lenses but the fact that it takes excellent pictures.
Images are sharp and clear with accurate colours and warmth. Even in lowlight, the images have a surprising brightness.
The P9 has a 5.2-inch full high definition display with a 64-bit octa-core processor and all housed in a chassis that’s just 6.95mm thick.
The device looks sleek and stylish and is pleasingly thin and light in your hand.
But the feature that’s really going to get your attention is the dual lens 12-megapixel camera.
Here’s how it works.
For each dual lens is its own sensor. One lens looks after RGB to capture life-like colour and tones while the other lens takes care of black and white and all the detail and clarity of whatever you’re shooting.
These images are then brought together and the results are certainly very impressive.
There is hybrid auto focus – a combination of laser, contrast and precise depth focusing – that is super fast you can snap off sharp images every second.
Also onboard the P9’s dual lens camera is aperture mode that means you can achieve some impressive depth of field.
This means you can have something in focus in the foreground or background while the rest is out of focus.
But the cool part of this is the fact you can change the focus of the image AFTER it has been taken.
Users will also find the Pro Camera mode with an upward sweep of the display. Here you can take manual control of your images with ISO, exposure, shutter speed and focus all at your fingertips.
You can even shoot in RAW format so you can edit your images without compromising their quality.
Other modes include panorama, monochrome, beauty, HDR, night shot, light painting, time lapse, slow motion and document scan.
And the result is great images.
Other features include a responsive fingerprint reader and a 3000mAh battery which has fast charging the USB-C port.
VERDICT
The Huawei P9 is a standout smartphone in the mid-range thanks to its innovative camera. But throw in the sleek styling and thin design it’s a lot more than just a fancy camera.
With its sharp display and snappy performance, the Huawei P9 is a pleasure to use.
HUAWEI P9
Price: $799
