The Huawei P9 is one of the latest smartphones launched by the Huawei company on global markets and I told you more than a week ago that I had the opportunity to test one as part of the Orange Smartphone Tester program, and today I give you my impressions finals.
Huawei P9 is available for purchase including in Romania at the moment, and Orange has it available on this page, so if you are interested in it, you can buy it both with a subscription and at the standard price.
Design
First contact with Huawei P9 leaves you with the impression that you will use a premium smartphone, the front panel being perfectly molded on the case that surrounds it, the combination of glass and aluminum for the case providing extra elegance for this unique smartphone.
Huawei P9 looks elegant, gives you the feeling of a premium product when you hold it in your hand, but if you analyze it more carefully you notice that borrows many elements from the iPhone design, mainly regarding the side edges of the case, dividing the case with antennas or the base where there is the charging port.
The Huawei P9 demonstrates very clearly how easily the iPhone can be copied by a Chinese manufacturer, and I remain firmly convinced that relying on devices of this kind, Huawei has managed to substantially increase its sales in many areas of the planet.
Screen
The Huawei P9 has an IPS-NEO LCD screen with a diagonal of 5.2 inches and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, and 423 pixels per inch, the screen covering approximately 73% of the entire surface of the front panel, something that is not found in the case of any smartphone.
Although it has a smaller diagonal, the Huawei P9 has a screen with the same resolution as the iPhone 6S Plus, and between the two there are not many differences in this segment, especially since both screens are based on IPS technology, without the AMOLED be part of this discussion.
In direct sunlight, the Huawei P9 performs almost as well as an iPhone, and in terms of color reproduction, things are very similar, the maximum brightness being slightly higher on the iPhone 6S Plus.
All in all, the Huawei P9 screen does not impress in one way or another compared to the iPhone, and compared to the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge screen it is one step lower, the Koreans managing to offer exceptional quality for users.
performant
Huawei P9 it works with the help of a chipset Kirin HiSilicon 955 in which we find an octa-core processor with 4 cores clocked at 2.5 GHz and 4 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, 3 GB of RAM accompanying everything, along with a graphics card Mali T-880.
Although it has more than decent hardware, the Huawei P9 does not have impressive performance, the benchmarks putting it slightly ahead of the iPhone in terms of performance, but in real life the iPhone 6S Plus terminal from Apple does much better.
Compared to Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge or LG G5, Huawei P9 does not run Android as smoothly and although there are no blockages in using the operating system, there is still a difficulty in accessing applications or menus, which is not found in its Android competitors.
Things start to go more difficult when you have many applications open in the background, and this is because the 3 GB of RAM of the terminal does not prove to be powerful enough for the fast use of Android, which was to be expected.
On the other hand, I was pleasantly impressed by the fingerprint reader that unlocks the device as quickly as the Touch ID of the iPhone 6S Plus, the even better part being that on the Huawei P9 a simple touch of the fingerprint reader unlocks the device.
Camera
Huawei P9 it has a dual main room Leica with 12 megapixel image sensors, with f/2.2 aperture, 1.25 µm pixel size and 27 mm focal length, it is capable of recording video in 1080p format, but laser autofocus is missing.
Although those from Huawei put a lot of emphasis on the fact that this collaboration with Leica, the Huawei P9 camera is not quite as impressive as the Huawei company makes it seem, being close to that of the iPhone 6S Plus, but nothing more.
In strong light conditions, the Huawei P9 does not surpass the iPhone in terms of recording photos or video clips, and at night things are no different, both having great problems in recording photos that can be understood.
Unlike other dual-camera smartphones, the Huawei P9 does not have 3D or wide recording functions, so you should not expect an excellent camera, but only one good enough to meet the normal needs of users.
Front camera a Huawei P9 it has 8 megapixels, with f/2.4 aperture, it is also capable of recording video in 1080p format and of course it comes with a varied range of options for taking selfies.
Unlike the main camera of the iPhone 6S Plus, the one of the Huawei P9 records much better quality pictures, so everyone will see your face much more clearly when you want to share it via Facebook.
Similarity to iOS
Leaving aside the fact that its case has the same side bands as Apple's iPhones, when it comes to the operating system, we are talking about a mirror copy of iOS that Apple offers in their own smartphones.
Huawei is the largest smartphone seller in China and if I didn't have the money for an iPhone 6S, then the Huawei P9 would be the smartphone that would bring me closest to what I want, at least from a visual point of view.
As you can see from the images, there are few differences between iOS and EMUI, Emotion UI, those from Huawei managing to copy extremely well the interface created by Apple for its operating system, and the Chinese seem to like this.
Except for the status bar and the virtual buttons, in most cases it is impossible to distinguish between iOS and Huawei's EMUI theme, the differences being non-existent or minor so that an inexperienced user cannot see the differences.
To be honest, I'm amazed at how well Huawei managed to copy iOS for their own smartphones, and I think the work needed to do everything would have been better focused on creating their own defining elements.
In their absence, I stick to the idea that the Huawei P9 is the best choice for a person who doesn't have the money for an iPhone, but wants something that closely resembles it and has relatively close performance, the functionality being similar anyway.
Leaving aside the interface which is extremely similar, but also taking over some design elements, the Huawei P9 also uses the pentalobular screws used by Apple in its iPhones, but unlike Apple products it is much easier to repair.
If in the next fiscal quarters Apple will announce that the sales of iPhones continue to decrease, maybe you will remember this article and you will see why a user will not spend 600 euros for a smartphone when he has a cheaper version that looks almost the same and works very well.
Autonomy
The Huawei P9 has a 3000 mAh battery provided by the Huawei company and unlike the iPhone terminals in its category, it has a much better autonomy in daily use, as many of you probably expected from the terminal.
During the period of use, I obtained at least 1 day of use with the Huawei P9, so no matter how you use it, you should enjoy everything it offers for a whole day.
In terms of charging, although the Huawei P9 supports fast charging, the charger provided in the box does not offer this system, but if you have a previous model that has this system built in, then you can use that charger to fast charge your Huawei P9.
Conectivitate
Despite the fact that Huawei develops high-quality network equipment, the Huawei P9 does not excel in this segment, the terminal having lower results than the iPhone in terms of surfing the Internet through 4G networks, in the case of Wi-Fi, things are similar.
Huawei P9 has support for Wi-Fi networks a/b/g/n/ac dual band, and if you use a GSM card to use the Internet, then you will enjoy speeds of over 100 Mbps, of course depending on the quality of the network to which you will connect the terminal for use.
In conclusion, the Huawei P9 is a very good smartphone for the price requested by Huawei for it, and those who do not have the money to buy an iPhone can easily turn to the Chinese terminal.
