There’s been a swirl of rumors going on about the Huawei P9 and its reported dual camera setup co-developed with Leica. It’s now official and boy is it even better than I expected. The Leica dual camera system on the P9 works differently than setups from other dual camera smartphones, and it’s a pretty awesome smartphones in itself as well.
The Huawei P9 features dual 12mp cameras on the back. However, one actually uses an RGB sensor, while the other captures in monochrome. Why? So the color sensor can work to improve color depth while the monochromatic sensor helps to increase contrast and details. The resulting images are theoretically better than anything you can find on the market right now, and there’s the added benefit of being able to refocus the images even after they’ve been captured.
As for the smartphone side of things, there are actually three P9 variants to choose from. There’s the regular-sized P9 that comes in two RAM/ROM configurations: 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB. Then there’s the larger Huawei P9 Plus, which comes in one 4GB/64GB configuration. Both use the company’s home-baked HiSilicon Kirin 955 octa-core processor.
There isn’t much else that differentiates the P9 and P9 Plus aside from a couple of key differences. The P9 features a 5.2 inch Full HD IPS display while the P9 Plus rocks a 5.5 inch Full HD Super AMOLED display. Also, the P9 comes with a 3,000mAh battery while the P9 Plus is powered by a higher capacity 3,400mAh battery.
The Huawei P9 family starts rolling out in Asia on April 16 with a starting price tag of 599 Euros (Php31.4k) for the 3GB/32GB P9 variant. The 4GB/64GB P9 variant and the P9 Plus will retail for 649 and 749 Euros respectively (Php34.1k and Php39.1k).