Huawei P9 review: Ascension

15 April, 2016
Huawei pulled the wraps on its next flagship in London in early April. But do you know what's better than London? Shooting London with the Huawei P9. The city looks magical throughout the P9's Leica lens and the phone feel fabulous throughout your eyes. Yes, the Huawei P9 has a lot going on and all of it seems promising.

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  • AnonD-488454
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  • 25 Apr 2016

AnonD-396766, 25 Apr 2016First video, from (4:11) to (4:25), P9 stutter a bit. Seco... moreI checked, I'm not sure I see any significant difference?

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    • AnonD-396766
    • 6uD
    • 25 Apr 2016

    AnonD-488454, 24 Apr 2016For anyone who's interested, here are two more video compar... moreFirst video, from (4:11) to (4:25), P9 stutter a bit.
    Second video, from (3:29) to (3:40), P9 running Real Racing 3 smoothly.

    The question is why??

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      • AnonD-488454
      • u}v
      • 24 Apr 2016

      For anyone who's interested, here are two more video comparisons to show performance in daily usage.

      P9 vs S7Edge (with 8890, not 820)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhylTQKRjCc
      You can see the P9 has an advantage in loading apps and games (especially games), but falls behind in retaining apps in the ram after opening a lot of large apps.

      The S7E also leads in scoring benchmarks and bootup/shutdown times but it's up to you how meaningful those things were (not that meaningful to me).

      P9 vs LG G5 (820)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpToDxHvbw0
      Here the P9 continues to show its advantage in loading apps and games, the G5 had to reload apps just like the P9 and therefore could not catch up with the score.

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        • Anonymous
        • YUf
        • 24 Apr 2016

        how come this phones battery life is worse than s7 which has a 2k display?

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          • AnonD-488454
          • u}v
          • 24 Apr 2016

          AnonD-100398, 24 Apr 2016& You are just like Huawei CEO Richard Yu A Hypocrite c... moreGreat, you just made another post full of words second guessing how I feel and who I am, but not a single evidence to support your claim about the supposedly "huge performance let down". I'm not surprised at all.

          (See? Now I can just copy from my previous reply, because you've got nothing new to show us)

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            • AnonD-100398
            • bJf
            • 24 Apr 2016

            AnonD-488454, 24 Apr 2016You still don't get it? Of course he can't tell you what ex... more& You are just like Huawei CEO Richard Yu A Hypocrite cause When you say you are not going to do something but end up having to do it.LOL

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              • AnonD-100398
              • bJg
              • 24 Apr 2016

              Arengium, 24 Apr 2016I know that. Just wanna make sure actually. And his reply c... moreYou p9 fanboys just wanna jump to conclusions like "No he does not agree with me so he is a troll" Wow Hypocrite much ...! Not everyone needs to agree to what you have to say or give you a proof of anything.LOL
              However I just wonder how bl!nd you fanboys have become to just ignore the traditional performance benchmark tests.
              Why do you even come here to read the reviews?
              If you dont even believe in what they have in reviews .All you guys are doing is just taking what ever you like from the reviews and giving excuses for the things that you dont like.Wow so dont be a hypocrite ...Grow up and also try to accept the weaknesess along with the strengths .that is a sign of a wise person.

                AnonD-488454, 24 Apr 2016You still don't get it? Of course he can't tell you what ex... moreI know that. Just wanna make sure actually. And his reply confirmed that.

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                  • AnonD-488454
                  • u}v
                  • 24 Apr 2016

                  Arengium, 23 Apr 2016And the reason I say it's useless because simply, there's n... moreYou still don't get it? Of course he can't tell you what exactly does he do with his phone where the P9 "will be a huge let down", because if he did, it could either be disproved or disregarded. But as long as he stays obscure about it, he could avoid dealing with facts and logical arguments, and you could never prove him wrong. That is the basic survival skill of a troll.

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                    • AnonD-488454
                    • u}v
                    • 24 Apr 2016

                    AnonD-213493, 23 Apr 2016HAHAHAHAHAHA! You just made me laugh .. zuk z2 pro? Lol! ... moreFor someone who sees nothing but minor sales number recovery in one quarter from a table on a gsma news, you can keep laughing. But Mr Yang Yuanqing (do you even know who he is?) was clearly nowhere near as optimistic as you were in his recent interview. I guess you also didn't know that their mobile department just went through major restructuring since August last year when they experienced dismal Moto sales and big overall losses? They are still in the process of recovering from that in 1Q16.

                    In other news, do you know that Xiaomi has to resort to adding ads (many of them cannot be turn off by users) into their phones and other hardware products to keep revenue numbers? This has already caused major user uproars in China but I guess you also have no idea. They run on very thin margins regarding their hardware which means they could become desperate despite still having seemingly large sales numbers.

                    Stay ignorant, and you can keep laughing.

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                      • awi11
                      • vfj
                      • 24 Apr 2016

                      DonAlduck, 17 Apr 2016Yep, you're absolutely right! I mean, i already knew that b... moreIts true, if you compare lg g5 with p9, which is qhd and fhd, you wont see the difference. If yiu compare g5 and s7, both are qhd, you will only see that the s7 has a more saturated look due to oled buy pixel wise its gonna be the same...

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                        • AnonD-100398
                        • KFN
                        • 24 Apr 2016

                        Arengium, 23 Apr 2016And the reason I say it's useless because simply, there's n... moreI have been doing and will do everything one normally does with his or her smartphone plus as a power user i do much more than that.

                        But I guess gaming is the only power use for you LOL

                        See I know you really wanna know what all I do with my smartphones ,However no one here needs to tell anyone what all they do on there smartphones to make a simple comment on a underpowered performance of p9.

                        If You still cant understand a simple word called "power user" you are free to google it up to know what it is .LOL
                        Its quite visible from the tests that p9 lacks behind the compitition..but yes i understand you just wanna feel good abt P9 which is "ok" for me .But you can expect everyone else to feel the same.

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                          • AnonD-213493
                          • 6P}
                          • 23 Apr 2016

                          AnonD-488454, 18 Apr 2016Sorry but you obviously didn't read industry reports. Xiaom... moreHAHAHAHAHAHA! You just made me laugh ..
                          zuk z2 pro? Lol!
                          And go check first quarter sales where xiaomi and lenovo rising while huawei shares decreased.. :)
                          http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_ships_double_the_smartphones_as_apple_in_q1-news-17876.php
                          See this link.. I just feel bad for you bro
                          Specially, the invalid usless long paragraph you just wrote ..

                            AnonD-100398, 23 Apr 2016Again a useless comment by you! See Its very easy for anyon... moreAnd the reason I say it's useless because simply, there's no fact to back up your claims. You keep telling me you're a power user and you have a lot of experience when it comes to handling flagship phones. Yet, you still haven't provide me with your experience so how would I believe you. And personally what I experienced from my phone already convinced me that benchmark scores don't really reflect real life experiences. Don't need to find reviews and such on the internet, which so far, all of I've watched shows that the performance is on par with S7 an G5.

                              AnonD-100398, 23 Apr 2016Again a useless comment by you! See Its very easy for anyon... moreWell sir, if you could tell me all your experiences and how you use the smartphone beside gaming, it would be very helpful for me to understand your claims

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                                • AnonD-100398
                                • bJi
                                • 23 Apr 2016

                                Arengium, 23 Apr 2016Again with useless comment. Care to explain how you use you... moreAgain a useless comment by you! See Its very easy for anyone to call anything useless !
                                Btw most people do this to ignore simple facts so you are doing a good job at ignoring reality!

                                Grow up before its too late...& Again Games is not the only thing which people do on there smartphone.

                                  AnonD-100398, 23 Apr 2016Here you go! that "low" thing you refered to is a huge let ... moreAgain with useless comment. Care to explain how you use your phone as a power user and your experience with many flagship phones. To be honest with you I'm not a phone gamer myself so the performance doesn't really bother me. But out of curiosity, I just downloaded Real Racing 3 on my Honor 7, which uses the Kirin 935 and Mali T628 MP4 for the GPU and it played smoothly. Honestly I didn't expect it to be that smooth.

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                                    • AnonD-100398
                                    • bJi
                                    • 23 Apr 2016

                                    Arengium, 23 Apr 2016This proves how narrow minded you are. Unlike beachletter, ... moreYou are talking as if I have started using smartphones today only! LOL
                                    Dude I know its always better to verify anything But performance benchmarks is a firm confirmation of power,capability etc usefull things of any smartphones or most other computing and gpu device & Performance benchmarks is a reliable source from a very long time ...its almost like a tradition of every tech site to run performance benchmarks from a long time..
                                    I know that i am not telling you all anything new and this info is quite old but you guys are behaving like school kids here and making me tell you the basic things you all should know LOL.Grow up.

                                    This company is just giving you excuses just like there was a nice excuse for not having the QHD screen & Now all of a sudden QHD screen is IN ...so.Dont fall in the cost cutting traps of these companies use your brains.

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                                      • AnonD-100398
                                      • bJi
                                      • 23 Apr 2016

                                      Here you go! that "low" thing you refered to is a huge let down for someone like me who is a power user of smartphones.may be not for you ..
                                      & Power user does not always mean a person who plays games on his smartphone all day and all night Lol
                                      Power use cud also go much more beyond playing games on a smartphone.Think Big.

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                                        • AnonD-488454
                                        • u}v
                                        • 23 Apr 2016

                                        Arengium, 23 Apr 2016This proves how narrow minded you are. Unlike beachletter, ... moreActually Gsmarena's review didn't say anything that contradicts my findings, it basically reflects that the GPU benchmarks are low (for flagships) but all games run fine. What I pointed out was that the P9 actually performs BETTER in some games compared to other flagship competitors like the galaxy S7E, despite having lower GPU benchmarks.

                                        That PARAG guy was just trying to be misleading because he got nothing better to show.