Huawei P9 and P9 Plus Debuted with Leica-Engineered Dual-lens Camera

Huawei has officially launched the much-hyped flagship P9 smartphone, the successor to the last year's P8. The P9 is Huawei's first smartphone that created in collaboration with Leica, sporting two rear cameras setup.

The P9 is yet another handsome beast from the Chinese smartphone manufacturer. It's crafted with 2.5D glass and an aerospace-grade aluminum with diamond-cut edges. The P9 is a hair thicker than its predecessor at 6.95 mm (versus 6.4 mm), but packed with a larger 3,000 mAh battery.

Under the hood, the device is powered by Huawei's latest Kirin 955 64-bit Octa-core processor (4 x 2.5 GHz + 4 x 1.8 GHz cores) paired with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. There's also a 64 GB version with 4 GB of RAM, and both model supports microSD cards up to 128 GB. 

The main selling point of the P9 is none other than the "Leica-approved" dual-lens rear camera. The dual 12 MP f/2.2 camera sensors consist of one monochrome and one colour sensor with 1.25 µm pixel size. The monochrome sensor capture black and white images with superior detail and combined with the colours taken by the RGB sensor to produced sharper images as well as better low-light performance.

Other features included a 5.2-inch 1080p IPS display, an 8 MP selfie camera with f/2.4 aperture, the dual-camera setup is supported by a dual-tone LED flash and laser autofocus, 4G LTE, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C connector, stereo speakers and runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1.

On the other hand, there's also a P9 Plus edition. The P9 Plus has identical internals and the same dual-lens camera setup. It features a larger 5.5-inch Super AMOLED 1080p Press Touch (pressure-sensitive) display, a bigger 3,400 mAh battery, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of expandable storage. 

The Huawei P9 will be available in six colours: Haze Gold, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Titanium Grey, Mystic Silver and Ceramic White. The 3GB/32GB model priced at €599 (around RM2,675) and €649 (around RM2,900) for the 4GB/64GB variant. It will be available from 16 April in 29 countries in Europe and Asia.

The P9 Plus will comes in four colours: Rose Gold, Haze Gold, Quartz Gray and Ceramic White. It will cost you €749 (around RM3,345) and will be released in May 2016.

UPDATE: Huawei P9 and P9 Plus are now available in Malaysia. The P9 launched in Malaysia is the 3GB/32GB model, priced at RM2,099; while the P9 Plus is retail at RM2,599.