Pic me up!

New Huawei flagship puts professional camera on phone

Cameras on phone have become more powerful and versatile than the phones that house them. Huawei’s new dual-camera flagship makes professional photography look ridiculously easy. When a new-age smart-phone manufacturer ties up with a 100-year-old camera and optics company to enhance a device’s imaging capabilities, it is quite clear how customer priorities are moving from a phone that takes pictures to a professional camera which incidentally makes calls.

The Huawei P9 is the only smartphone that features a dual camera from Leica, a legendary German name in rangefinder cameras. It also features some Indian innovation that ensure that the device doesn’t slow down after months of heavy usage.

The P9 comes with two 12-megapixel back cameras, side by side, each with a 27 mm Leica optics lens. Every time you click an image with the P9, both the lenses get fired, one that produces professional-quality colour images, and the other lens that merges this with the same image in monochrome. This combination results in better quality pictures, especially in low-light. Users can choose between three film modes: standard, vivid colors and smooth colors. You can also select monochrome-only mode, to capture powerful black and white images. The P9 achieves focusing based on three criteria — laser, depth calculation and contrast. It automatically selects the one that yields the best result in any given environment. The in-build image processor gives you manual control of the shutter for long exposure shots, and options to choose from multiple shooting modes like tail light trails, light graffiti, silky water, and regulars like pro camera, beauty mode and ultra snapshot among others. You can adjust the camera aperture to create aesthetic blur, also called bokeh. The device also sports an 8 megapixel front camera that can capture wide-angle selfies. The 5.2 inches device with 1080p full HD display comes with a high-density 3000 mAh battery which ensures longer battery life.

Powered by Huawei’s own Kirin 955 octa-core processor, the P9 comes with enhanced security at the silicon-chip level, that ensures superior security such as fingerprint scans. Thanks to innovation from the Bangalore R&D centre of Huawei, the P9 features new file system optimisation that educes file fragmentation and claims a 20 per cent improvement in response speed.

While most mid and high-end devices come with two in-built batteries, the P9 is the world’s first device that comes with a virtual triple antenna, for enhanced signal quality. Even if you were to unknowingly block the antenna region of your phone, or in areas that have erratic connectivity the in-built RF system automatically switches to the antenna with the best signal to reduce call drops.

All of these packed in a 6.9mm shell makes it a slim and light device that is handy to hold, especially while taking photographs. The single nano SIM P9 is powered by Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with 3GB RAM and 32 GB memory. Priced at Rs 39,999, the P9 is currently available at Flipkart in three colours.