A Photographer’s Dream: Huawei P9 Comes With 12MP Dual Rear Camera And Manual Mode

For those of us who have welcomed April for tech reasons rather than spring temperatures, Huawei had a “reward” in store: the unveiling of P9 and P9 Plus. The dual rear cameras developed with Leica and the Manual Mode of shooting might just make them ideal smartphones for photographers.

After countless rumors, Huawei revealed its latest flagship phone, a direct contender to Samsung Galaxy S7. The P9 has a metal unibody of just 6.95mm, with curved edges and a 5.2 inches display with 1920×1080 resolution. Its bigger brother, the P9 Plus raises the bar with a few inches, showing off a 5.5 inch display and AMOLED panel capable of  500 nits peak brightness and 96% color saturation!

Its selling point is the dual rear camera system, that has been madly promoted in the past months. Leica has worked on the system to reveal a 12MP camera with two, slightly different sensors; one is monochrome and offers 300% better light capture and 50% more contrast, that can be later processed with the second, regular sensor, to improve the overall look of the image. The dual sensors also allow post-capture image refocusing and the technology comes with Manual Mode, that lets you control ISO, exposure and shutter speed like on a regular DSLR. Plus, you can save pictures in RAW format.

Other things to be noted about the camera that “changes the way you see the world” – a wide F/1.1 aperture, a laser focusing module on the back, OIS for video recording and dual-tone LED flash. The front camera for selfies packs just 8MP.

Where hardware is concerned, we’re noticing an octa-core CPU configuration with a blazing Mali-T880 MP4 GPU,  3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB (for another version of P9 and P9 Plus). Count on microSD slot, too, and 3,000mAh battery for P9 vs 3,400mAh for P9 Plus.

Later this year, Huawei will launch the smartphones in US. For now, the flagship phone is going on the market for €599 (32GB version), €649 (64GB version) with Plus reaching €749. It’s going to be available in 6 colors:  Ceramic White, Titanium Grey, Mystic Silver, Haze Gold, Prestige Gold, and Rose Gold.