Huawei P9 on trial: Our HardwareZone members review and tell all!

[qyc_91]

Huawei P9 – Reinvent Smartphone Photography #OO



I am proud to be selected by HardwareZone as the trial user of Huawei P9, the first official Leica-certified duo lens camera phone.

Pricing & Design

Huawei P9 is the latest flagship phone introduced early this year, along with P9 Lite & P9 Plus. Huawei is commonly known to be introducing flagship-standard phone at a much affordable price. P9 is not exception with its retail price of $768 during their first launch, it is one of the most affordable flagship when you consider the fact that it is the easiest entry to get yourself into the Leica bandwagon.

At 6.95mm, Huawei P9 is the slimmest flagship phone introduced this year so far. Consider it as an achievement as Huawei managed to squeeze in a 3000mAh battery and managed to avoid camera bump at the back of the phone.

On the back of the P9, an additional fingerprint sensor was added, a great improvement from last year omission from Huawei P8 where fingerprint sensor are becoming mainstream on flagship devices.

5.2 inches display are vibrant and shape despite the only have the resolution of Full HD 1920x1080. At screen PPI of 423 pixels/inch, it is almost impossible to distinguish each pixel from a usual viewing length and angle.

Performance
Huawei is one of the only few companies that produce their own chipset for their devices, P9 is using brand new octa-core Kirin 955 CPU, an slight upgrade from previous Huawei Mate 8.

Daily usage proven to be smooth & responsive despite the fact that benchmarking are considerably lower than other flagship running on Snapdragon processor.

For Huawei P9, there will be 32GB/3GB RAM & 64GB/4GB RAM version. I was given a 3GB RAM version while I personally owned a 4GB RAM version of Huawei P9. From my experience, both P9s are able to navigate through the EMUI and switching of all the apps smoothly. Despite not having additional 1GB of ram, the 3GB version does not have any lagging issue or running out of memory.

Huawei’s own power manager are able to identify the power-hunger application and shut it off when needed, along with Android 6.0 Marshmallow’s Doze function. Users of Huawei P9 are able to get a decent amount of screen on time without reaching for the charger in the midday.

Camera

Duo camera phone has been here for years, from 3D camera to purely creating bokeh effect, no one seems to have an idea what to do with the second rear camera. Unlike others phones where the second rear camera are often an assistance to create effects, Huawei P9’s second camera can actually work on its own. The co-development with Leica results in one of the most interesting duo camera set up so far – a pure monochrome camera.

Leica users should be familiar with their monochrome camera series that only shoot in B&W. Huawei P9 works exactly like that without a color filter array on the sensor, hence the sensor is able to take in as much lights as possible.

With the duo camera setup, P9 is said to be able to capture 270% more light than typical smartphone these days despite the fact that the F stop is at F2.2 for both 12 megapixels sensor.

Focusing are assisted by laser focus to provide fast focusing. Duo-LED flashlight are also here for your night shooting need, though I would not recommend using any flashlight for shooting on phone but the overall quality remains acceptable.

Monochrome camera

Only one word to describe the monochrome camera performance – Stunning. Details are kept to their best – as opposed to taking a color photo and covert it to B&W. Check out the monochrome photo sample below!



RGB camera

The usual camera benefits from the help of monochrome camera & laser focusing. Color turns out to be accurate and night time shot does not suffer from shutter lag.



Wide Aperture Mode

Huawei P9 make use of the duo camera set up to produce a realistic bokeh – RGB camera taking the usual shot while monochrome calculate the focal distance. With P9’s top tier processor & camera application, you are able to view the bokeh effect live while shooting photos without any lag. Noted that the effect can be best achieve within 2 meter distance.



Pro & Other Modes

The overall UI are different from usual Huawei phone we’ve seen so far. With the collaboration with Leica, the camera UI has been revamped with the standard Leica interfaces.

While the amount of different mode seems to be overkill, there are a good reason to it. Pro mode is available for both RGB & monochrome camera. Photographers will appreciate the whole range of customizable setting similar to a standard DSLR.

Swiping left & right on the camera app will brings you to various mode (HDR,Night mode & time-lapse, to name a few)

I particularly love the light-painting mode. In light-painting mode, there are four different choices given – Trail lights, Light graffiti, Silky water & Star track. What sets P9 light-painting mode apart from pro mode is that P9 took the photo in right exposure first, and you are freely to add in any lighting effect for almost an unlimited time period without risking the photo being over-exposed.


(Trail lights)


(Light graffiti)


(Silky Water)

Conclusion


*Check out the rest of the photo album at http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/qyc_91/P9%20Album/story

With the expectation of camera innovation raised so high this year. Huawei P9 has proven to be a worthy contender for this camera race for 2016. Along with the affordable price, slim design & Leica-certified camera, it is hard not to recommend Huawei P9 to everyone this year.

Bonus

Do you know that Huawei is the first to introducing a warranty scheme that last more than one year?

You are able to get up to two year of prestige warranty for your Huawei P9, along with one year of free screen protect (changing of screen within one year due to screen crack). Huawei also provided a Google app called HiCare (installed on P9) that can provide you with more tips & contacting services to ensure you that Huawei is always there for you when you required assistance.

 

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Huawei P9 Trial Review - Reginald Khoo (Part 1)

Overview

The Huawei x Leica collaboration is one that created immense excitement in me. As a long time iPhone user, I have developed certain expectations of my mobile device, in terms of aesthetics, build quality, user interface, battery life and camera quality. The post Steve Jobs era has been unexciting for me. The upgrades have not been significant enough to stir an interest, creating a new desire. The iPhone camera has been good, but lacked the wow factor.

When Huawei launched the P9, I was immediately thrilled. I have not felt this way about a mobile device for a long time, not with Apple, not with the Korean phones. I surprised myself getting excited over a phone from a Chinese maker, which in the past, was never my interest. The key reason was the partnership with Leica. Having a strong interest in photography and someone who dabbles with DSLRs, this was a game changer for me. Leica is regarded as the pinnacle of desire, setting the bar for the best photo imaging device money can buy. I was keen to find out what can Huawei and Leica and offer, to the saturated mobile device market.

Over the past 3 weeks, I had the opportunity to participate in the Huawei P9 trial and I must say that I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with the P9. The camera was exceptional! The quality of the images, contrast and detail in the black and white shots, depth of field was truly impressive. It also felt easy on the hands, very well designed and constructed.​

Comments on Key Features

1. Camera
The P9’s photo imaging quality with a dual lens system (RGB and Black & White) was very impressive. It was able to capture very good detail, and performed exceptionally well under low light conditions without much shutter lag. The low light conditions were so good, that I had little use for the two tone flash. The pictures had rich colours, and great detailing under B&W mode. The other standout feature was the aperture setting. I had loads of fun taking pictures using the aperture mode, and changing the focus and aperture settings after the photo was taken.
Here are some pictures taken with the Huawei P9.

Went for a walk at Dakota, and found lots of character in this old neighbourhood, the houses and their balconies.



ii. Old neighbourhoods are often characterised by the cats that roam the place. Saw this black cat resting on its comfortable “bed”. This cat must be a techie, judging from the electronic gadgets it is playing with. The P9 was able to capture the black tones very well, from both the cat and its “bed.”







iii. Wide angle shots are a must! Some pictures of the Pasir Ris beach.





Here’s a view of Tanjong Rhu with the Classic Blue filter applied.



iv. Took this B&W shot at a car workshop under medium lighting. The contrast and detailing is beautiful, not washed out at all.



(Part 1)

 

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Huawei P9 Trial Review - Reginald Khoo (Part 2)

v. Singaporeans definitely love taking pictures of our food! Macro shot on this camera is exceptional. Colours on the plate of sashimi were well represented, not oversaturated.



Had a yummy pizza the other day. This was taken using wide aperture, f2.8. Love the bokeh!



vii. I was testing the aperture mode on this one. First shot taken at F2.8, highlighting the big flower at the front.



Second photo was created by editing the focus spot to the flowers in the middle, and changing to F3.2. The P9 certainly passed the test, as the rest of the flowers in the middle zone were equally in focused.



viii. Music is a big passion of mine, and I love taking pictures of guitars! Typically I do a lot of macro shots, and getting a nice depth of field was important for me. The P9 was able to capture details of the carpet.



It was also able to create a nice bokeh (F2.8) at the background with the close up shot.



ix. Lastly, the P9 performed very well under low lighting at night. These were taken at Esplanade.





2. Screen
The screen had very rich colours, and sharp resolution. Despite being an IPS screen, I did not feel that it lacked anything as compared to Super AMOLED screen. Watching videos on this was also very clear and sharp, with very good black colour rendering.

3. User Interface
Huawei’s Emotion UI worked very well for me. It felt familiar and easy to use. Adapting from the iOS and porting key information from my iPhone was smooth as well. The Kirin 955 chipset was fast, and was able to load apps quickly.

4. Battery Life
The 3000mA battery lasted a full day’s use and more. I consider myself a medium user. I always had more than 50% battery life at the end of the day after surfing the net, Facebooking, watching YouTube. No issues for me on this one.

5. Dual Sim card
I appreciated Huawei for adding this nifty feature, and I’ve always wanted this on my phone when going overseas for holidays and buying a local sim card there. This feature is typically associated with low to mid-level phones, not with high end phones.


Design & Aesthetics

1. Form factor
Beautifully constructed and well thought through design. I liked the slim form factor, and the size of the phone was perfect for one-handed usage. Huawei also provided a plastic casing, which I used, improving my grip on the phone.

2. Fingerprint ID
The fingerprint ID at the back took a few days for me to get used to. I just needed to remember to position my index finger at the sensor, and it immediately unlocked the phone. The response on the P9 was much faster than my iPhone 6s, and I liked the fact that the sensor had other uses, like scrolling down the drawer and flicking through pictures.

3. Triple antenna
One of my frustrations with my iPhone was that the phonecall always gets cut off when I drove through a specific spot along the AYE/MCE. The P9 was designed with an extra antenna to cover blind spots and improve connectivity. Not sure if this was the reason, but I didn’t have this problem when using the P9, and driving through the same spot.

Conclusion
When it came to mobile phones, for years the Chinese phone makers were not at the top of my list. Huawei P9 certainly busted all my pre-conceived notions. When I first started the trial, I chose not to know the price of the P9. I wanted to test and experience the capabilities of the phone, before tagging a price tag to it.

After the first week of use, I was thoroughly impressed. It fulfilled all my regular needs from phone calls, surfing the net, using GPS when driving, listening to music and more. But most of all, I fell in love with the camera. The Leica designed camera far exceeded my expectation. The photo quality was beyond what I was able to achieve on my previous phones. I appreciated that Huawei P9 was not gimmicky like another Korean phone with dual lens, but the P9 had real capabilities.

When I found out about the price after a week’s usage, I was pleasantly surprised. At a street price of SG$768, this phone far surpasses its competition. The P9 is a feature packed phone with superior camera. The other thing was the excellent warranty coverage, which even covers the first screen replacement.

Will I choose the Huawei P9 over my existing iPhone 6s? Without a doubt, it would be a big YES!

More photos here http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/reginaldkhoo/library/

 

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Overview

Like many Android smartphones available in the market today, one would not have given much thought for the Huawei P9 if not for its unique key feature that comes in the form of a Dual Camera Lens. Designed in collaboration with Leica, the one thing that sets it apart from other smartphones is the appearance of two cameras located right behind the phone. Unlike most other major smartphones in the market today, the two lens are flushed neatly behind a glass enclosure, giving it a smooth and sleek appearance.

Each of the rear cameras come equipped with a 12-megapixel sensor while the front facing camera has a resolution of 8-megapixels. Unlike other dual camera phones, the rear cameras in the Huawei P9 work together to create shots that are rich in color and details. This is because one of the cameras is responsible in shooting color, while the other shoots only in black and white. Shooting an image only in black and white (monochrome) has the advantage of producing images that are highly detailed with great contrast throughout. What the Huawei P9 does so effortlessly in the background is to combine both the color and monochrome images to create an impressive color photo with plenty of clean lines, contrast and even tonality.

Although the black and white camera assists in creating great color photographs, one should never forget that it is still a very capable standalone camera. Capturing black and white images with it will give you a whole new experience in photography and it’s different from capturing an image in color and stripping off all color information. You might even find yourself falling in love with black and white photography because of the Huawei P9.

Camera Performance

Below are some of the shots I’ve taken with the Huawei P9, trying out each of the shooting modes available from the camera controls. It’s nice to be given a lot of options to experiment and the professional controls do let you do more than you typically can on a smartphone camera.

The Huawei P9 can capture really vibrant images with great contrast and color quality. It’s especially great in bright daylight.

Indoor photography is great too. Pictures turn out really sharp and crisp.

When you have subjects in lowly lit areas moving around quickly, you do need a camera that can capture the moment immediately.

This squid ink pasta looks great whether it’s in color or black & white.

This is a pretty challenging scene to capture with most smartphones, but not the Huawei P9. It may look bright here, but it was pretty dark except for the few street lamps lighting up the pathways. What impresses me is the image clarity.

The skies may look bright here, but this was shot after sunset. The black & white camera’s performance is really stunning here, with clear sharp lines and most importantly, no graininess.

If you’re dealing with night sceneries, you can always use the long exposure mode to capture the lights and colors.

As you explore the monochrome shooting mode, you’ll grow to appreciate it more than color.

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The black & white camera gives you pictures with sharp clean lines and great contrast.

If you’re more adventurous, the Light Painting mode lets you unleash your creativity with more effects.

When shooting in color, you can choose from three different film modes, from standard (left-most), vivid colors (center) and smooth colors (right-most).

It’s also great to be able to shoot in RAW format. Although the image file is larger than JPG, you get to adjust and tune your image in Photoshop. The image on the left has been adjusted for exposure, white balance and color while the one on the right is what you’ll get from JPG.

Smartphone Design and Specs

The phone’s build quality is pretty solid and the phone is surprisingly slim. Measuring only 6.95mm in thickness, it is by far slimmer than the iPhone 6s (7.1mm) and the Samsung Galaxy S7 (7.9mm). Both the power and volume buttons are located on the right side of the phone; with the power button having a textured surface to give you an easily identifiable power knob. Employing a unibody aluminium design, the phone is sleek and feels great when held while the shiny chamfered edges (diamond-cut) gives you the feeling that it’s precision engineered to perfection.

Similar to most flagship phones available in the market today, the new Huawei P9 comes with support for dual SIM cards. Powered by Huawei’s very own Kirin 955 64-bit octa-core processor running the latest Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), the phone handed to me in this trial had 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. Although storage seems low (actual space available was only about 25GB, with the rest taken up by the operating system, EMUI and built-in software), you can easily insert an additional microSD storage card to boost its storage space up to 128GB. However, like the Samsung Galaxy S7, the microSD card shares the same tray as the second SIM card, so it’s either one or the other. If you’re frequently running out of space, then you might want to consider the 64GB version with 4GB of RAM.

Improvements for Future Firmware Builds?

The thing that struck me most is how much more of a hassle it was to switch in between shooting modes. Since the dual camera lens also offer superior black and white imaging performance, it would’ve made perfect sense that the monochrome mode be made accessible directly from the camera screen. Although you can swipe right to change the shooting modes rather easily, it became a hassle once you’re regularly shooting with the various modes. In fact, since both cameras capture images at the same time, why not have the option to save both color and monochrome images at once? When it comes to photography, you can never recreate the perfect shot once the moment is gone. I think the potential of the dual cameras offered by the Huawei P9 is great and it can only get better when the camera software offers the option to save both images.

The other interesting camera mode available on the Huawei P9 is the wide aperture feature. Selecting that would give you the ability to adjust the aperture to create bokeh, giving you great depth-of-field effects like what you would usually get with expensive DSLR cameras. However, I find that this mode isn’t really enhanced by the camera’s optics but more of a software feature that allows you to create the bokeh effect. Because of this, the visual effects created by this shooting mode can often be a hit or miss, as some objects can be a little bit difficult for the software to recognize as either part of the foreground or background. Perhaps a future improvement to the camera software could make this feature more intelligent, hence creating more natural-looking images.

The aperture feature is great when it works well but it can sometimes create quirky effects like the two images seen above. On the left image, you can see some of the flowers were blurred out while the right image rendered part of the background as part of the flowers.

In panorama mode, I would have liked the option to reverse the capture direction offered by the camera software. What we’re given is a single direction capture (from left to right). The only way to reverse the direction is to flip the phone upside down to trick the software to capture from the right to the left. It may not be the most elegant way to capture an image, but I guess it would’ve been better if the software allows you to choose the direction. However, it was interesting to find a vertical panorama capture mode, but alas, the only direction given was from bottom to top.

When it comes to the phone hardware, it’s great that the phone has a dual SIM option, giving users the option to use two phone lines at the same time. However, what I didn’t like is the second SIM card tray sharing with the micro SD card. This means that you can never have a second SIM card installed along with a micro SD card. That is quite the bummer when you’re running out of storage memory (because you’ve taken all those great photos) but you can’t give up the second SIM card to expand your storage.

To add on to the storage issue, pictures captured in the RAW format will automatically be saved only in the internal storage and not the micro SD card. This will eat up your phone’s storage space fairly quickly as each RAW image (in the DNG file format) is 22.55MB in size.

Conclusion

If you’re a big fan of smartphone photography, then the Huawei P9 does not disappoint. Performance in low light, daylight and indoors were great and what it captures would almost always be usable without editing. Using free image editing tools like Snapseed, you can enhance your images even more by creating compositions that could even rival standalone cameras.

Although it did have a few limitations in the execution of its camera software, the Huawei P9 is still a very capable smartphone. With dual SIM support, fast LTE speeds, an octa-core processor and the latest Android operating system, it has everything the latest smartphone can offer. Battery life is good too and if you’re a moderate user, the built-in 3000mAh battery should last you a full day without recharging.

All in all, the Huawei P9 is worth your consideration if you’re on the lookout for a smartphone with awesome camera performance. The dual camera lens feature is not a gimmick and it is really quite impressive. If you’re the kind who travels light, then the Huawei P9 is the smartphone for you, thanks to its dual SIM support and great camera – because I did just that and it lived up to the challenge.

 

[Tuckzz]

Huawei P9 Review

Huawei P9 Review

This review shall be structured in such a way that it will revolve around normal usage of the phone more so than professional photographers. I will also try to be as subjective as possible and will be listing my opinions as stated. I was previously using a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and am using an iPad Pro 9.7 as well. I’m also using a Nikon D7000 for more serious photos. Let's start straight.

First Impressions (Opinion)
The phone was packaged very nicely into a square white box, branded with both Huawei P9 and Leica names. Huawei took a cue from Apple by including “Designed by Huawei”, sounds familiar? The box however was more original and I felt that it was better than apple’s minimalist offering.

Digging deeper into the box, you’ll find the handset itself, and digging even further will get you the charger (Adapter and USB-C cable), transparent casing, earbuds, SIM tray remover pin, and the usual manuals. I found the case to be a simple but great addition. As the P9 is not much of a mainstream phone in Singapore, casings can be harder to find. This courtesy casing will protect your phone from dings when you’re babying it for the first few days. The worst inclusion which might not look the case happens to be the earbuds, the sound quality disappoints even for stock earbuds.

Build Quality
The phone has a design language very much like the Apple iPhones. Its front is covered from top to bottom with Gorilla Glass 4, thinner but stronger than Gorilla Glass 3 as claimed.

Its sides are clad with metal, seemingly brushed aluminium with chamfered edges. The phone is fully metal with the exception of plastic antennae bands and the camera housing on top.

The phone is sturdy and feels similar to an iPhone (opinion). There are no physical buttons on the phone, the P9 uses a virtual set of buttons for back, home and recent apps. While the virtual set of button saves space for a bigger screen, it comes in the way when you’re texting (ie. The P9 gets confused whether you were pressing on the bottom keyboard keys or on the virtual buttons). The overall feel of the phone is a well built, stylish, light and thin phone.

Software

EMUI4.1 that came loaded with my test set looked very similar to an iPhone’s home screen, yet it contains android’s widgets. It is a hybrid of both and at times, it is lacking from both iOS and Android (Opinion). For example, I have no way of getting into the phone shortcuts with a single gesture. In EMUI, I have to swipe down from the top and pick shortcuts. This is made worse by a very limited amount of shortcuts I can store. I felt that it could definitely fit another row but there wasn’t any option to do that. Other than small quirks from EMUI, it was generally smooth and quick to respond in my 2 weeks of usage. Android fans ought to be warned that the EMUI experience does look closer to iOS than android though.

Performance
I won't be covering much on the performance side of the phone. Except for the most part the phone has been fluid. It did crash on one occasion when it couldn’t load the galleries for some reason. I noticed that my RAM usage even when using Google chrome only hovered at 1GB/3GB. This might be due to the RAM management from EMUI. In this case, I wonder how would the 4GB ram on the higher spec P9 be an improvement. I did not try out computationally or graphically intensive tasks, you should be able to find much of these information on other reviews. However, if your usage pattern is like mine (I.e. Surfing the web, Instagram, emails, texting, calls, taking pictures), you will find no problem with the performance side. (Opinion)

Battery Life
The phone packs a healthy 3000mA battery and for the most part it is enough battery to last through the day. I do switch on mobile hotspot for other connections and it eats up battery quite quickly even on other phones as well. I unplugged the phone from 8am switched on mobile hotspot from 2pm to 10pm and the phone finally gave up at about 11pm. From this time I’ve been using the P9 for Google maps, WhatsApp, occasional Instagram and minimal web surfing. I consider this as quite taxing on the battery and the P9 held up fine. This result was satisfactory but wasn’t impressive (Opinion).

What was more impressive was that the phone managed to last for 2 full days with ROG power saving accidentally enabled. ROG power saving turns down the resolution of the P9 to consume less power. With that switched on, I managed to last from 8am all the way to 10pm the following day. Usage included minimal usage at work, but was enough to entertain me when commuting through the use of Spotify, Instagram and web surfing.

Charging however, is not fast. It took 1 hour to charge up the phone to 45%, I expect about 2 hours for a full charge.

Fingerprint scanner
The fingerprint scanner is one of the best I’ve used (Opinion). It is quick and accurate, sometimes to the point that it is too quick and it accidentally unlocked my phone without my intention to do so. It is good for unlocking the phone but it was less refined for the more gimmicky parts such as scrolling through the gallery or taking a picture using the scanner (Yes you can scroll with it). I do wish that the scrolling works for surfing web or the home screen though.

Speakers
The mono speakers of the P9 sounded normal to me (Opinion). However, I am quite sure that if speakers are what you look for in a phone, this phone won't be it as the sound quality is passable but not great.

Display
The display is a FHD display, similar to Apple’s Retina display but inferior to Samsung’s higher end QHD displays. Samsung’s display looked better to my eyes either due to it being AMOLED or QHD (Opinion). Taking the Samsung out of the equation, the P9’s screen is good and clear.

 

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Camera
This is where this review will focus on. However, the focus will be on every day subjects, instead of what pro Photographers would use their camera on. Long story short, while the phone is definitely not capable of DSLR level photography, it is one of the best in terms of smartphone camera.

The P9 packs a 12MP camera, f2.2 lens and a pixel size of 1.25µm. The Samsung Galaxy S7 in comparison has a pixel size of 1.4µm at 12MP and f1.7 lens. This puts the P9’s camera behind in paper, but the P9 has two cameras which throws the paper calculations right out the window. We can only rely on actual images to determine if the P9 has a good camera.

Auto mode
Despite handling DSLRs quite often, auto mode is the mode I frequent on the P9. It is the more intuitive mode when using a phone for photography (Opinion). Aside from Creative or situational shots (eg. Fast moving actions), I will gravitate towards Auto mode for the photos. The images taken by me were mostly food. Pardon me if you get hungry at night. The following pictures were taken with auto mode, without enabling aperture mode.

From the indoor shots, noise can be seen in the background where it is off-focus. However, when light is shining on the object, the objects come out pretty clear and crisp.

This shot was taken right after I got the phone for trial. It showed that the camera was able to capture vivid colours.

The P9, along with the rest of smartphone cameras (with the exception of high MP cameras like Z5) perform poorly when using the digital zoom. This is because the camera is only capable of taking at a fixed distance, “zooming” can only be done by cropping, resulting in poor image quality. This limits the use of the camera such as in this scenario. This should be expected as it is a smartphone camera after all.

The above 2 photos of the BMW were taken in low light conditions in the carpark. The ISO were pumped up quite high to 3200 and the RAW images captured were extremely noisy. Luckily the JPEGs processed by the camera performed much better as shown above.

The above picture was taken against strong sunlight and it showed the lens flare from the P9. Shooting against sunlight isn’t easy and the P9 did decently here.

Shooting in sunlight is easy, the amount of details captured when the lighting is good makes the P9 a great camera. From the above shot you can see that the picture came out very sharp, bar the background as it is out of focus.

This is again a close-up shot showing the details captured. The background defocus was a result of the natural aperture.

 

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Enjoy the level of detail.

The above picture was decently lit and appeared bright to the P9, it did well again to capture the details. This performance in low light is due to the slow shutter speed the auto mode uses when in low light (1/17s for the above shots). This would become a problem if you are shooting moving objects in low light (e.g. Kids running indoors)

The pictures above were shot in darker conditions as well. This time, the auto mode chose to use 1/20s – 1/25s. Otherwise, when the lighting is good, pictures come out looking great on the P9. Bonus pictures of food below.

 

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Pro Mode
The pro mode allows for adjustments in ISO, Shutter speed, Exposure and focus. Of these adjustments, I found the shutter speed to be most useful (Opinion). As mentioned before, the shutter speed of the camera will be lowered dangerously by the P9 if the lighting condition is bad. To counter this, it is better to lock your shutter speed onto a safe shutter speed. If you are a novice when it comes to camera settings, you should at least give shutter speed a try if you’re capturing motion (eg. Kids running indoors). Furthermore, as optical image stabilisation will not be available on phones with dual cameras due to complications from the dual lens, the lower shutter speed is even more dangerous on the P9. The pro mode can also be used for some creative shots.

The P9 was locked at a faster shutter of (1/60s) for a stable shot at the dog.

The P9 was locked at (1/30s) for this pan shot of the bus above. This was captured with AF-C mode, meaning that the camera will continuously focus on the area chosen.

The P9 does have a shutter lag that makes these shot particularly difficult. The shutter does not open right after you press the button and might only activate after the car has passed. Such shutter lag is mostly only noticeable when taking fast paced shots like this.

I managed to catch a weird behaviour coming from the P9’s camera. There was a red silhouette coming off the back of this car. I suspect it is because of the P9’s dual camera and that the software did not manage to combine the images from the 2 camera properly. This is a one-off panning shot and is highly unlikely to occur if you’re shooting normal pictures.

Light Painting mode

The P9 does offer light painting mode. You can choose from “Car light trails”, “Light Graffiti”, “Silky Water”, “Star Track”. It allows you to take long exposure pictures either by holding the camera very still or by using a tripod. To the layman, this means that you can create streaks of lines from the light of objects, be it drawing line with car lights or drawing letters with sparkles. Silky water means that you can make your waterfall look misty (something like that). The idea of this mode is great. However, I found out that in actual it was very hard to use handheld. This mode is probably only just fun for the first few times (Opinion). I just wished that this mode was better programmed if it were possible.

This was the best image I got from 5 minutes on the overhead bridge. Even after leaning on the railing to get the shot, the surroundings with light got painted as well and ended up blur also. The camera’s program wasn’t smart enough to separate the non-moving lights and make them stationary.

Trying it on a long-exposure shot got me weird results too.





Aperture Mode

The aperture mode is a much more refined and programmed mode as compared to light painting. This virtual aperture is one of the more accurate and convincing one’s I’ve used (Opinion). When applied correctly and by the right amount, the effect is mesmerizing and it even looks realistic in some cases. However, when applied wrongly or excessively, the picture will come out funny. In this aperture mode, you are given the choice to focus wherever you want to and at what aperture ranging from F0.95 to F16. This can be readjusted infinite times after the shot is taken in aperture mode.

The above shot does not have any composition or meaning. But it does to showcase how the virtual aperture blurs out the background into nice round bokeh when there is highlights in the background. Bokeh of this magnitude will never be possible mechanically in smartphones.

 

[Tuckzz]

The above was shot without aperture mode. The mechanical aperture effect looks good when you are at close distance.

The virtual aperture adds even more blur into the photo. But notice that on the far right side of the photo, the program gets it wrong and blurred the purple bar too. The photo still looks nice though.

In this case, aperture mode gave this picture more feel to it, again, it would be hard to achieve in normal mode.

Aperture mode can also become too realistic as shown above. A mechanical aperture would blur based on distance, but in this case, the program blurred it based on entity which looks unrealistic.

The above was shot in aperture mode, it allowed me to compose the picture better and yet still achieve the depth of field even though I was holding the P9 at quite a distance away from the flower. The aperture mode worked brilliantly in this mode and it looks very realistic.

This shot was taken without aperture mode. In comparison, I have to shift the P9 to macro distances, the closest distance the P9 can focus is 5.5cm on a non-scientific bench test measured using my index finger (Opinion). Shifting it much closer to the flower gave me the blur I want in the background, but I sacrificed freedom in composing the shot.

The aperture mode is unique to the P9 in a sense that it does have the best implementation and no top smartphone makers have this feature yet. The photos taken are realistic enough to fool people that they were taken on much bigger gears. The interface is also easy to use and highly adjustable. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest standout feature of the Huawei P9.


Monochrome

The Huawei P9 also has a dedicated monochrome sensor. The monochrome sensor in theory should capture more detail as it’s pixels are fully dedicated on capturing light, unlike a RGB sensor which is split into 3 for the 3 different basic colours. While I’m not an expert in capturing black and white shots, hopefully the next 2 shots showcase enough details captured by the P9. #nofilter

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Huawei P9 is a well-built medium sized phone. It is above average in just about everything. But it comes with a camera that vies for the top spot. The Leica branding might have overstated its abilities, but in the right hands, it is capable of great photos. Much of the limitations come with the fixed focal length of the camera, making it hard to get closer in terms of things like street photography (my own limitations as well). The warranty of the P9 is also noteworthy, 2 years’ warranty with many perks such as 1-time screen replacement in first year, 3 days fixing guarantee if not 1-for-1 exchange. Combining the form factor, warranty, fingerprint scanner, battery, camera and build quality, it makes the P9 a compelling option.

 

[Wc3pro]

Trial

1. Introduction
Let me introduce myself before going into the phone. I am Cao Yu, a university student pursuing a degree in accountancy. I am also a freelance photographer who specialises in event and portraits. I have been a Canon shooter for the past few years and Canon has not disappointed me with its excellent image quality and a great variety of lenses. However, I always wanted something more portable and mobile. Something that I can carry around all day; something that is reliable and produces outstanding image quality. Thus, I am very excited when Huawei announced its partnership with Leica on this Huawei P9. I am glad to be chosen to be one of the ten candidates who will review the handset.

2.Specification and design

The Huawei P9 has followed the design of the P8 and improved it into a better-looking device. It was launched with 3 variants; P9 Lite, P9 and P9 Plus. The handset that was given to me comes with 3GB ram and 32GB storage. The 6.95mm thin Huawei P9 features a 5.2in screen with 1920x1080 resolution and all-metal body. When I hold the phone in my hand, it feels reassuringly expensive and premium. It measures at 145x70.9x6.95mm and weighs at 144g. I have listed the full specification of the phone below.

Figure 1: Taken from http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_p9-7972.php
Since a few years ago, Huawei has established 2 flagship smartphone series; namely the Mate series and P series. P stands for photography, attracting the younger generation or photography enthusiast. The highlight of this device is a pair of the rear-facing camera which was co-engineered with Leica. Unlike other dual camera phones, this pair of lens come with a monochrome sensor and a colour sensor. Huawei claims that the dual lens setup will get up to 300 percent more light and 50 percent better contrast.

 

[Wc3pro]

3. Camera
3.1. Dual Camera with Film Mode
It’s one of the best mobile phone cameras I have used. (I have personally used iPhone, XiaoMi and Nexus) Dynamic range is excellent, colours are vibrant. Leica has provided 3 custom filters – Standard, Vivid and Smooth which offers a great way to take Instagram-worthy photos. All photos below are taken with the Smooth filter and without any edits. My friend claimed that this filter gives the film effect and German-Leica feels to the photo. I also love the filter and always use the Smooth mode.

 

[Wc3pro]

 

[Wc3pro]

The integrated hybrid laser-focus assist allows the camera to focus quickly and accurately. Changing focus from near object to far object is swift. Coming from a DSLR user, it feels good when it allows me to adjust my aperture, shutter speed and ISO from the.

Figure 2: Pro mode
ISO Performance test

Figure 3: IS 200

Figure 4: ISO 500

Figure 5: ISO 800

Figure 6: ISO 1600

Figure 7:ISO 3200 (Max)
Personally, I feel that image is very much usable even at ISO 1600. At ISO3200, we can see the noise clearly. Given the fact that it has a small imaging sensor, the noise is reasonably good.

 

[Wc3pro]

3.2.Aperture mode
Looking back years ago, when I first bought my Canon 50mm F1.8, I am so happy to have a wide aperture lens because I love the bokeh effect from the wide aperture. (Bokeh usually refers the quality of blur) The stock camera app allows you to achieve a virtual f0.95 effect that makes your object pops out from the photo. This mode also allows you to have one touch re-focus after you have taken the photo.

The photo on the right is the result of f0.95 aperture effect. Personally, I think f0.95 is a bit of overkill. Most of the times, I have adjusted the aperture to f2 to be more realistic.

 

[Wc3pro]

3.3.Monochrome
The monochrome images are top-notch due to the dedicated monochrome lens and sensor. It is not the same as applying a filter above the coloured photo. I have taken the same set of the photo (same of them) with both in colour and monochrome.

 

[Wc3pro]

 

[Wc3pro]

3.4. Other mods
The stock camera app also comes with other built-in features such as Beauty, HDR, Light Painting, Time-lapse, Night Shot, Panorama, Slow-mo, Audio note and Document scan. They are fun to use but I did not use them on a daily basis. I believe these features are a bonus to the already good dual camera setup. They should not be the key reason why you should purchase the phone though.

4. Area for improvement
Firstly, the camera area on the back of the phone gets hot when you take photos for a longer period of time. According to Huawei, there are 4 dedicated processors working hard to process the photos from the sensor resulting in the increase in temperature. Secondly, P9 has been built EMUI on top of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the system is smooth with minimum lag. However, that had so much of modifications to the stock Android that it's simply different than what most of us on Android are used to. However, this can be easily fixed by installing your favourite launcher app from various developers.

 

[Dr.Vijay]

Feel free to drop in any questions you might have! The trial users might have more insights to share

 

[caterham7]

A recent firmware update [EVA-L19C185B162] has made some changes to the camera UI.
- Film mode [ability to choose Standard, Vivid, Smooth] is now in main camera screen; easier to change, instead of swiping in from the right to go to settings
- Pro mode tab is now more obvious, with an additional arrow triangle
- the icons in Pro mode also have a small dot on top right, to show that they are in the default settings