Huawei P9, analysis after six months of use

El Huawei P9 came to the market with the intention of attacking the most premium range in the sector, until now dominated by Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC. But Huawei wants to change things and, after six months of use, I already tell you that we can forget about those phones that were one step below in some aspects.

I decided to bet on Huawei after having tested it during the presentation in London. The first impressions were really good so I decided to go for this phone. The Huawei P9 is a very premium terminal and, taking into account that it currently costs less than 500 euros on Amazon, it is the best option if you are looking for a high-end phone at that price. price. Without further ado, I leave you with my analysis of the Huawei P9 after using it for six months.

Huawei P9 has a beautiful design that follows the line set by the manufacturer

The latest member of Huawei's P family stands out for its quality finishes. In this way, the Huawei P9 has a unibody body made of aluminum polished on the part rear that gives it a very premium.

We will not find a trace of plastic on its body, since the manufacturer has used a system similar to that seen in the last iPhone or in the HTC 10 so that the antennas of the phone do not clash with the premium body of the Huawei P9.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei, remarked during the presentation that the brand has worked very hard to create a smartphone with good finishes and quality details. You can see that Huawei has taken care of the last detail of its new smartphone.

Let's talk about the front of the Huawei P9. The phone has a protection Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which will prevent the screen from breaking from a bad fall. I already tell you that after six months of use the Huawei P9 has dropped me a couple of times and has not suffered any damage.

I remember with special terror once I slipped and fell from a height of about five feet falling with the side of the screen facing the ground. I thought it was the finish and that it would have splintered into a thousand pieces, but nothing could be further from the truth since the screen was intact.

The only noticeable wear is on the aluminum frame and at the rear where there is as slight marks, something very normal considering that I do not use any type of cover and also they do not look too much so the design and appearance is still spectacular. It should be noted that the edges of the Huawei P9 are rounded, allowing the phone to hold quite comfortable, with a great feeling to the touch.

Huawei P9 has a 5.2 inch screen. Despite this, it has a very restrained size, 145 x 70.9 x 6.95 mm, making the new member of the P family one of the slimmest terminals on the market. In addition, its 144 grams of weight make the P9 a very light and comfortable terminal to use.

Much of the merit of its small size lies in the minimal minimal side frames of the Huawei P9, the screen occupying almost 73% of the entire front, a great success. In the upper part of the front is located the camera, light sensor and microphone of the phone, while in the lower part we see the logo of the brand. It's a shame that do not integrate double front speaker like el Huawei P9Plus. 

And here I have to criticize the situation of the speaker that invites us to cover it by mistake when we play a game. Something that happens with the vast majority of terminals and that has a difficult solution if the size of the terminal is not expanded to integrate them in the front part.

Let's move on to the rear. In the upper area is the double camera with optics Leica. The entire camera area is covered with a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 glass and is flush with the entire rear panel, so there is no trace of that annoying hump that most phones usually have.

Just below the camera is where Huawei has integrated the fingerprint sensor. Personally, I really like the situation of the biometric reader, although there are people who prefer it to be located on the front of the phone. For tastes, the colors.

On the right side of the Huawei P9 we will see the volume control keys, in addition to the on and off button of the terminal. A very common detail in the terminals of the Asian manufacturer that I like a lot is that the power button has a very characteristic roughness that allows you to easily differentiate it from the other keys. The buttons offer good resistance to pressure and a more than correct route.

With a totally clean upper side we will go on to talk about the left side. This is where Huawei has put the card slot nano SIM and the microSD. Finally we have the lower side which is where the connector is USB Type C and the 3.5 mm jack output to connect headphones, in addition to the speaker of the Huawei P9, which sounds quite good.

I like the design and after six months of use I can say that it is very comfortable and manageable. In addition, the fact that I have endured a couple of dangerous falls makes me really happy in this regard with my Huawei P9.

A powerful terminal at the height of the best telephones on the market

Huawei was the first manufacturer to use its own solutions. Its line of HiSilicon Kirin processors offer good performance and the Huawei P9 mounts its jewel in the crown: the powerful Kirin 955.  This Kirin 955 is the evolution of the 950, with eight cores (four Cortex A72 cores that reach 2.5 GHz of clock speed, along with another four Cortex A53 cores at 1.8 GHz of power).

To this we must add a really powerful graphics processing unit, we are talking about the ARM Mali T880 MP4 GPU that delivers more than enough offering excellent performance. With a higher screen it may be somewhat short, but if we consider that the Huawei P9 has a panel that reaches a Full HD resolution, this GPU is more than enough.

During all the time that I have been using the phone I have not noticed in no time no lag in the current interface. I have also been able to play several games that require a large amount of resources and the performance offered by the Huawei P9 has been excellent, allowing me to enjoy any game no matter how cutting-edge it was without major problems.

The version that I have a con 3 GB of DDR4 RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, of which there are about 25 GB free for the user. In any case, the Huawei P9 has a slot for Miro SD cards that allows us to expand its capacity up to 256 GB, so you should not worry about this aspect.

One detail that I liked is that the phone does not get too hotConsidering its metallic body is something I appreciate. I have been using it in different environments, very sunny days on the beach for example, and I have not suffered any problems in this regard. It was to be expected that a high-end terminal works perfectly, but I especially appreciate that EMUI 4.1 is such a fluid interface.

And is that the Huawei P9 works with Android 6.0 under the latest version of Huawei's custom layer. EMUI it relies on desktops, rather than using the usual app drawer system seen on other Android phones. I personally got used to your system very quickly so I can't say anything bad about it.

A screen that complies, but without standing out

At first I was disappointed that the Huawei P9 did not have a 2K display. Although honestly, if you do not want to enter fully into the world of virtual reality, I think that with a 1080p screen you have more than enough. In this way, the new phone of the Asian manufacturer has a screen formed by a 5.2-inch IPS panel that offers very good performance as you may have seen in the review on video

The phone offers vivid colors in addition to having a excellent viewing angle that allows you to view the contents in any environment, it does not matter if it is a sunny day, in that aspect the Huawei P9 will not fail you. Although I have to say that its brightness level is not too remarkable, rather within the average.

One aspect that I do not like is that on very sunny days, where the screen receives a lot of light, it takes time to adjust the brightness. I've gotten used to doing it manually when this happens, but it annoys me that it takes so long to adjust automatically.

It should be noted that the software that integrates the Huawei P9 will allow you to change the color temperature of the screen. But beware, we can not only choose a warmer or colder temperature, but we can choose exactly the color temperature through its chromatic scale. A detail that the most purist users will appreciate. Although I personally recommend leaving the color of the screen as it is since it is the most balanced level in my experience.

A good screen but that, as I said, does not stand out compared to its competitors in the highest range in the sector. Of course, it will more than meet the expectations of any user, do not worry that The screen of the Huawei P9 will not disappoint you.

An amazing camera that offers impressive captures

Ok, the Huawei P9 is not the first phone to use a dual camera system. We have already seen it in other terminals such as the ZTE Axon Elite, but Huawei has taken advantage of it in a different way. And the result couldn't have been better.

For this, the manufacturer has teamed up with Leica to integrate the dual camera of the Huawei P9 dthe lenses Leica Summary H 1: 2.2 / 27 ASHP. You may have noticed that the f / 2.2 aperture is somewhat limited, more if we compare it with other cameras such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 or the LG G5. I already tell you that, without reaching the level of these two terminals, the Huawei P9 has one of the best cameras on the market

And it is that the double camera of the Huawei P9 has two Sony IMX286 sensors, the first of these two without a Bayer filter, which is the one that adds color to the image. With this system, the monochrome sensor It only captures black and white frames so it can capture more details than the color sensor.

As this monochrome sensor only has to absorb light without taking into account the color of it, its performance is much higher than that of a conventional sensor. Proof of this is that its sensors allow capture 270% more light than a sensor conventional, in addition to working much faster than its competitors.

In addition to absorbing more light, the dual camera with Leica sensor that integrates the Huawei P9 allows take selective focus photos in real time, creating an effect Bokeh really accomplished. Of course, it is not a real photograph, but a simulation made thanks to the powerful camera software of the Huawei P9. I have done several tests and the simulation results are quite good.

You will have been able to verify in el video analysis that the quality of the captures of the Huawei P9 camera are excellents. Part of the credit comes with the powerful software that integrates the phone and that offers a very interesting range of possibilities.

Especially noteworthy is the professional mode that will allow you to adjust a wide variety of parameters, such as ISO or shutter speed, allowing you to take almost professional photographs.

And we cannot forget the large number of configuration options, in addition to the well-known HDR modes, beauty, monochrome, night shot, slow motion ... And on top of that you can save the photos in RAW format! Not to mention the Leica filters that give a plus to the photographs taken with the Huawei P9.

Don't worry, you can put the camera in automatic mode to take pictures quickly and easily, although it is worth studying a little the possibilities of the Huawei P9 camera, because they will surprise you.

Examples of photographs taken with the Huawei P9 camera

A battery that fulfills more than enough offering a good autonomy

The Huawei P8 was not the best terminal in terms of autonomy and the manufacturer has wanted to solve this failure with its successor. To begin with, the P9 has a battery that goes from 2.600 mAh of the previous model to loas 3.000 mAh without the body suffering by increasing its size.

In addition, the Huawei P9 has different modes that will allow us to more or less optimize the battery. For example there is the Performance mode that will make the P9 go like a bullet. Do you want to save battery? activate the  ROG mode, which lowers the resolution to 720p and you will have much more autonomy.

I have played a lot with this function, mainly when I want to play or watch multimedia content I put the Performance mode, while if I am going to use the Huawei P9 to read, be it press, a book or pending emails, activating the ROG mode I have managed to get me to the night with an average of 30-35% battery.  

I am not very fond of giving details of hours of screen on since it varies a lot depending on the use you give it, but it has endured me an average of 6 hours safe so I'm very happy in this regard.

Also note that the Huawei P9, which has a type C connector, has its own fast charging system that will allow us to In half an hour we will charge 40%, 70% in an hour and in two hours we will have the Huawei P9 fully charged. I like the Quick Charge 3.0 solution better, which is much faster, but being able to charge 40% of the terminal in half an hour has saved me from more than one trouble.

In short, although its autonomy does not differ much from what we see in other high-end phones, so I can say that The Huawei P9 passes with flying colors in this regard, guaranteeing that it will not leave us lying in the worst moment.  

 Final conclusions

My feelings with the Huawei P9 have been very good. A resistant phone that has allowed me to use it without a cover for 6 months, with a very beautiful design and technical characteristics with which I have been able to enjoy any game, due to many requirements that I asked without major problems, they confirm that your purchase was more than successful.

What if some aspect would change? The same is true of the loudspeaker, which although it sounds quite good, its situation causes us to accidentally cover it in some situations, but I really have nothing to criticize. Okay, yes, the Huawei P9 does not have FM Radio and it is a subject that piss me off a lot since I am from the old school and I like having this option. Yes, there are online systems, but I think that the FM Radio chip should not be very big and all phones should have this option as standard.

But ultimately, the Huawei P9 has left me an excellent taste in my mouth being a totally successful and recommended purchase. If you are looking for an inexpensive high-end phone, do not hesitate, the Huawei P9 will not disappoint you. Promised.

Editor's opinion