By Gerard Ramos / Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor
Partnerships/collaborations between global brands are not uncommon in a consumer tech landscape that’s always shifting, parcelling out in quick succession “the next big thing” that hopefully will capture the market’s fancy. Famously, there’s Beats Electronics, the audio expert founded by music moguls Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, which partnered with everybody from HP to HTC to bring a supposedly superior audio experience for a slew of laptops and smartphones, this before the company was swallowed whole by Apple in 2014.
While the appeal of such “partnerships” is obvious—one party enjoys additional marketing muscle beyond processor speed and such, which are so unsexy to the average consumer; the other is allowed easy entry into a landscape beyond its purview—their depth often seems suspect, with the tech media often sniggering about these partnerships being less an exchange of cutting-edge technologies and more of money. Huge sums of it. Back in April, Huawei Technologies caused quite the stir when it unveiled at an event in London the P9 and P9 Plus, its latest flagship smartphones on which it collaborated with Leica, the German optics specialist whose cameras, according to Wikipedia, have been the preferred shooters of some very hallowed names in photography, including Henri Cartier-Bresson.
“If you think your smartphone has the best camera, think again. We are confident the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus will elevate your standard in phone photography,” said Jose Vega, director for consumer business group (CBG) of Huawei Philippines, during the Philippine launch of the flagships early last month. The launch was held at the Grand Ballroom of City of Dreams in Pasay City.
Added Corinne Bacani, senior marketing manager for CBG of Huawei Philippines: “The arrival of the Huawei P9 line in the Philippines signifies a shift in the standard of smartphone photography. Now, the game has changed and we are confident to stand out from the norm. Much like how a Leica photograph stands out from others, P9 users set themselves apart from other smartphone users with the perfect tool for creativity and self-expression.” The LTE-powered P9 and P9 Plus became available around these parts on June 15, with the former coming in with a smaller, 5.2-inch display than the P9 Plus’s 5.5-inch screen.
None of the Huawei executives, either at the London launch or in the Philippines, went into great detail about the depth of its partnership with the German company, allowing only that the “Leica certification” of the P9 and P9 Plus was the result of “a coengineering process.” Of course, Huawei could’ve unleashed a stream of technical hoo-ha to satisfy the tech media, but as the maxim tells us, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
We have been playing with the P9 Plus for a couple of weeks now, and it must be said the smartphone builds on Huawei’s recent triumphs in the Nexus 6P, Mate S and Mate 8, all of which were well-earned.
Given a price point that’s substantially less than what other competing flagships command, the Huawei P9 Plus is almost shocking in the very premium quality of its build, the phone encased in an aluminium unibody that measures 75.3 millimeters (mm) by 152.3 mm by 7 mm, with a weight pegged at 166 grams. It is thinner, smaller and lighter than Apple’s iPhone 6s Plus, despite having a similarly sized display, and is just a smidgen bigger and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S7 with its 5.1-inch screen. And unlike both competing smartphones, the P9 Plus has no extra protrusion to accommodate its rear camera—make that TWO 12-megapixel (MP) rear cameras.
Yes, the Huawei P9 Plus has two cameras it “coengineered” with Leica (three, counting the front-facing 8-MP shooter): one is monochrome and the other RGB, both coming together to deliver composite images with better contrast and clarity, presumably on account that monochrome cameras are able to take in more light, according to literature. The merging, if you will, of the images taken by the dual rear cameras is a process the user never notices, as the snaps from our experience are displayed on the P9 Plus’s stunning screen almost instantaneously. And what gorgeous snaps Huawei’s new flagship produces: we had a photo of our darling angel blown up on a tarpaulin banner for her recent eighth birthday, and the end result showed very little noise. We’re not exactly sure if Huawei also codeveloped its camera app with Leica, but a plethora of shooting options and greater control are available, particularly in the pro option that we as a nonpro didn’t use, but which will no doubt delight professional photographers who can tweak such settings as ISO, auto-white balance and shutter speed.
The 2.5D AMOLED display of the P9 Plus has a 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and ~401 ppi pixel density, which some people may dismiss as being inferior to the Quad HD screens offered by competing flagships. Why Huawei has stuck to such a resolution, carried over from previous flagships except the Google cobranded Nexus 6P, has been attributed to maintaining compellingly competitive pricing, but from where we sit the 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution is also the best one for everyday use. And, again, the screen of the P9 Plus has more than enough pixels to display images that are sharp and vibrant.
Powered by Android v6, the Huawei P9 Plus, like its smaller-screen twin, runs as smooth as a butter on the 64-bit octa-core Kirin 955 processor with 4GB RAM, and a 3400 mAh battery that can be charged to the quick and last for a day and some hours based on our typical usage. And, yes, it has that fingerprint sensor that figured in the company’s recent flagships, still located on the back and still as fast and as excellent as ever. A very welcome new addition is the Wi-Fi+ connection manager that, among other things, smartly determines the strength of various wireless sources when available and, if you allow it, automatically switches to the best one quickly and efficiently.
The P9 Plus has a lot more muscle to get the user through the day seamlessly and happily, which is detailed at goo.gl/w7Ma4W. Suffice it to say that this is yet another major triumph for Huawei.
