On April 6 Huawei released the P9 to the world. It’s just another mobile phone by another Chinese company I hear you say? Well you better listen up.
In 2015 Huawei rose to take the 3rd spot in global sales of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple, putting the Shenzhen-based company the largest Chinese smartphone company, that makes it ahead of other Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo. This is no mean feat when you consider other big brands such as Sony, LG and HTC were left further behind. Another feature of the Huawei P9 that got many users attention was when they announced earlier in the year that Huawei will be partnering with one of the leading manufactures of photography equipment, Leica, to produce the P9. This bit of news not only had many users of smartphones that care about the quality of photos they take on their smartphones, but more importantly another giant step for a Chinese company in establishing itself not only in the smartphone company, but also in becoming a more recognizable brand globally.
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 4Q15 (Thousands of Units)
|
Company |
4Q15 Units |
4Q15 Market Share (%) |
4Q14 Units |
4Q14 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung |
83,437.7 |
20.7 |
73,031.5 |
19.9 |
| Apple |
71,525.9 |
17.7 |
74,831.7 |
20.4 |
| Huawei |
32,116.5 |
8.0 |
21,038.1 |
5.7 |
| Lenovo* |
20,014.7 |
5.0 |
24,299.9 |
6.6 |
| Xiaomi |
18,216.6 |
4.5 |
18,581.6 |
5.1 |
| Others |
177,798.0 |
44.1 |
155,551.6 |
42.3 |
| Total |
403,109.4 |
100.0 |
367,334.4 |
100.0 |
*The figures for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by both Lenovo and Motorola
The P9 is Huawei’s 2016 flagship smartphone. The 5.2″ P9 has a 12-megapixel camera, but also a monochrome 12-megapixel camera right next to. In combination, the 2 sensors can improve contrast in photos by 50% and triple the light information taken in by the phone. This is because the monochrome sensor doesn’t have the RGB light filtering that its color sibling requires, and so is able to soak up more photons. Over at gsmarena, they have posted up a video on the quality of the cameras.
In line with other Android based flagship smartphones of 2016 such as the Xiaomi 5 and Samsung S7, the P9 has an octa-core Kirin 955 processor powered by a 3000mAh battery. A surprising difference is the developer’s choice of using the popularity-gaining USB-C connector for both charging and data transfer. In Europe, the P9 will have a microSD card slot, which in China and other Asian markets used for a second SIM slot. There will be other model differences for different regions of the world such as the rose gold P9 will not be available in Europe now will the 64GB version of the P9. All P9s come with 3GB of RAM, but European models will have to limit themselves to 32GB of built-in storage.
Externally, the enclosure of aluminum with a 2.5D glass, and as mentioned measure 5.2″. Color-wise Huawei has opted to offer a variety of elegant options in Haze Gold, Ceramic White, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Titanium Grey and Mystic Silver, you’ll have to get hands on to compare the differences in colourways and which you’ll prefer.
A larger 5.5″ P9 Plus is also being released with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, with China also getting a beefed-up 128GB version a well. The P9 Plus model will have an even bigger capacity battery at 3,400mAh and will use a Super AMOLED display over the regular P9’s IPS, both will still give you 1080p resolution. The P9 Plus also adds an IR blaster and a pressure-sensitive screen, which the company is calling Press Touch technology.
The standard P9 will be available by the end of this month, whilst the large P9 Plus will be available in May.
