Huawei's P9 is a very capable phone that's just shy of greatness
The smartphone landscape is changing so fast that what worked a year ago would be a disaster today.
Every manufacturer deals with it in its own way: Apple is moving at its own pace, careful to add one marquee feature in each new iPhone. Samsung seems to love tossing in a dozen odd features in the hopes something will stick (although the company's toned down the gimmicks this year). The up and coming Chinese manufacturers just try to make a good looking, powerful phone and sell it cheap.
With its latest flagship P9 (and P9 Plus), Chinese smartphone maker Huawei — the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world according to IDC — is trying to out-Apple Apple. The P9 is an exceptionally well-built phone that sort of apes the iPhone aesthetic, but it's not cheap. And it has one very distinctive feature: dual cameras on the back.
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I spent a week and a half with the P9 — the base model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, in Mystic Silver — and the experience was very pleasant, but is it worth the 549 euro starting price?
Flawlessly built
The P9 is visually very similar to its predecessor, the P8, which is visually quite similar to the iPhone. However, with so many other manufacturers adopting the iPhone's "antenna lines" design, I wouldn't say the P9 is copying anyone. So while the design is elegant — tapered Gorilla Glass on the front and aluminum on the back — it's definitely not breaking any new ground.
A detail that stands out is the dual-camera setup on the back, together with the fairly prominent Leica branding (the cameras have been built in collaboration with Leica). The cameras are set in a piece of Gorilla Glass, flush with the otherwise metal back, and I love the way Huawei put it all together. It's fancy without being flashy, and in my eyes it makes the phone at least twice as desirable as the P8.
Forget the looks, though. The P9 starts earning winning points when you take it in your hand, and immediately realize it's a premium phone. Every edge and curve on the phone is soft and pleasant to touch; every button is machined into the frame with great precision, with zero gaps. Outside of an iPhone, no phone's ever felt this good in my hand.
One drawback of all this smoothness is that the phone, despite the sandblasted aluminum back, can get slippery; I spent most of the time with it worrying about not dropping it (luckily, Huawei usually ships the phone with a protective case).
The phone has a USB Type-C connector, which is quickly becoming a standard for smartphones, as well as a speaker grille and a headphone jack on the bottom. It also has an incredibly fast fingerprint sensor on the back -- for me it was nearly instantaneous, fast and more responsive than on any other phone I've tested.
Specs are great, but there is room for improvement
This phone's specs aren't meant to wow anyone. They're meant to be very solid across the board, and provide the best performance you can get without making too many sacrifices. But that approach means the P9 lags behind other flagships in several departments.
The P9 is a 5.2-inch phone, with Huawei's own Kirin 955, octa-core processor, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of storage (expandable via microSD memory card), and a 3,000 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery.
Personally, I don't mind the screen not having more pixels; it's easier on the battery.
Its screen is an IPS-NEO LCD panel with a full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution. Personally, I don't mind the screen not having more pixels; it's easier on the battery, and there are no real benefits to a 4K screen on a phone. But compare the P9's screen directly with a Samsung Galaxy S7, which has a Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution, and Samsung wins.
The dual, Leica-branded cameras on the back both have a 12-megapixel sensor -- there's an 8-megapixel selfie cam on the front -- and even though this particular setup offers a lot of features that outmatch other phones, I would have been happier with 16 megapixel for the back camera. The cameras also lack optical image stabilization and can only record full HD video. Don't get me wrong, the P9 takes some stunning photos, but some of these specs need a bump, dual cameras or not.
The dual camera on the back
I took an in-depth look at the dual rear cameras' capabilities in a separate article, where I compared it with another dual-camera phone, the LG G5. In a nutshell, the P9 usually takes great photos. It struggles a little with low-light scenes, but in broad daylight it'll sometimes match an actual DSLR camera.
The P9's 8-megapixel selfie cam is more than adequate, even though I would have loved to be able to fully get rid of its Beauty mode, which makes your skin smoother and eyes bigger.
On the video front, the P9 lags behind the competition. Even though it does support all the trendy features, such as slow motion, it doesn't go beyond full HD resolution at 60 fps, and footage is quite grainy in low-light situations.
It's fast, and the battery life is good
The P9 works well out of the box -- it's pretty speedy, but so are most new Android phones. Having thoroughly tested several Huawei phones in the past, I can attest that they typically stay fast even several months and several dozen app installs later -- though I can't say that for the P9 yet.
I put the P9's Kirin 955 processor -- the latest and greatest by Huawei -- through Geekbench and it came out ahead of most of its competitors, especially in the multi-core test. Compared to the Huawei Mate 8, which has a Kirin 950 processor, it scored 6% better in the single-core test and 5% better in the multi-core test. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S7 scored significantly higher in the single-core test, but much worse in the multi-core test.
While the 3,000 mAh battery in a 5.2-inch phone is nothing to scoff at, Huawei does a really good job of preserving it. In my regular use, it'd last me a day without a problem, though rarely much longer than that. It's not nearly the battery monster like the Mate 8, which has a 4,000 mAh battery in a 6-inch body, but it's still pretty good.
Software might give you headaches
Ah, the software. While the P9 runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Huawei (as always) slapped its own Emotion UI (or EMUI for short) on top of it. Some folks hate it, but I happen to be in the camp that actually likes it. EMUI borrows some ideas from Apple's iOS -- for example, there's no app "drawer;" instead, the apps are scattered across the folders in your home screens. If you're not hating on that idea on religious grounds, you'll probably be able to live with it.
I've totally gotten used to knocking twice on the screen to take a screenshot
Huawei even added a few great features into the mix. I've totally gotten used to knocking twice on the screen to take a screenshot, or swiping the fingerprint sensor to pull down the notifications menu at any time.
But -- and it's a sizable but -- every now and then you'll hit a wall and you won't know what to do. For example, some apps, like LastPass, require you to give them special access in the Accessibility portion of the phone's settings. But no matter how many times I turned that setting on, the P9 (and all other Huawei phones, as far as I can remember) inexplicably, quietly turned it back off.
Some of Huawei's choices make little sense. The Settings menu is divided into a "Standard" and "Advanced" portion, but I'm pretty sure Date & Time, Language & input and Battery manager aren't advanced options.
Plus, Huawei loads the phone with apps you'll probably want to uninstall right away. I'm sure the EyeEm camera app is great, but I've never heard about it and I don't want it on my phone. Worse, many of Huawei's apps can't be uninstalled, like HiCare and Health.
The combo of unwanted apps, odd choices and occasional glitches mars the overall experience considerably. Yes, Samsung and Apple phones have their own quirks, but everyone's gotten used to them. And yes, the world might, with time, get used to Huawei's EMUI, but I wouldn't count on it.
About that price
The 549 euro ($621) starting price leaves Huawei in a weird place. For the money, you can buy two Xiaomi Mi 5s. While the Mi 5 is, in my opinion, not as attractive or well-built as the Huawei P9, when it's half the price, the P9 becomes a tough sell.
Compared to iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy S7, both of which cost a little more, the P9 comes close in terms of polish, but doesn't offer anything different outside of the dual camera.
And let's not forget that the P9 is a 5.2-inch phone; Huawei's own 5.5-inch Mate S is actually positioned higher in the company's lineup, and starts at a whopping 649 euros ($734).
The P8 was in a similar place when it launched last year, but it started at 499 euros ($565), and that made a world of difference. The P9 is a better phone in every regard, but with enormous price pressure from other Chinese smartphone makers, it should be priced the same, if not cheaper than last year's model.
Huawei P9
The Good
Exceptionally well-built
Takes great photos
Great performance and battery life
The Bad
Quirky software
Some specs could be better
Not cheap
The Bottom Line
The Huawei P9 is a great phone that looks fancy and feels great. If only it were a little cheaper.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
