When was the last time you saw someone in this real world completely mesmerised by a gift? Most probably it was when a girl received a completely out of the world marriage proposal, or when a kid was bought a pair of new shoes. I personally saw the mesmerisation in my son four years ago when I bought him a car toy – and it was the same mesmerisation I saw in my brother a week ago when he laid his hands on the newly launched Huawei Y9 2019. That is the same feeling you should expect to have immediately you lay your hands on the new mid range but completely affordable smartphone by Huawei.
According to my brother, the most mesmerising feature of Huawei Y9 2019 is the battery. Being a person who makes and receives hundreds of calls per day, he needed a phone that can withstand such a battery demand for more than 12 hours – such that if he left the house in the morning he could be able to come back late at night without having to have been mteja. Not only did Huawei Y9 2019 offer him this ability, but the phone was still boasting of 30% battery even after he had been away with the device from 3 AM to 11 PM. Mind you, he didn’t pick the device at full charge, but when the battery was at 72%. Huawei Y9 2019 is able to provide these many hours of battery power due to its high capacity 4000 mAh battery.
Then my brother, just like me, is not a selfie person. I was however surprised to see hundreds of selfies he had taken with the phone, and this he did because he couldn’t stop admiring the beautiful faces of himself he saw every time he took a selfie. I wish I was allowed to post even one, but being a private person that he is, I am only allowed to mention that Huawei Y9 2019 enabled him to move from taking close to zero selfies per day, to taking over 100 of them – at least on the day that he had the device. Of course I know that if he had more days with the phone, he could have become bored of taking selfies.
The reason everyone can be absolutely confident in taking selfies with the Huawei AI camera is because of the #4AICamera feature fully understands photography. The 4AICamera allows the phone to know that your face ought to be naturally beautified when taken a picture of. The 4AICamera, alongside automatically adjusting the camera settings given a scene and ambient lighting, also incorporates 22 pre-tailered scenes like portrait, food, flower and many more. The 16 MP camera, supported by a 2 MP secondary camera, makes the selfie cameras work magic.
Photography on Huawei Y9 2019 isn’t left for the front facing dual cameras alone. At the back we have a 13 MP sensor also supported by a 2 MP, and just like the front facing cameras, also take advantage of the 4AICamera feature. With the rear camera, one can opt to try out professional photography, and after testing it a few times, I can attest that doing product photography with this phone feels really natural, and great. Have a look at the image I quickly took with the phone this morning in direct sunlight.
Non-edited image taken by Huawei Y9 2019 rear camera. Cropped to 3:2 aspect ratio. Direct sunlight photography.
One thing you realise from that portrait mode photography is that the Huawei Y9 2019 is capable of perfect edge detection, to thereafter smoothly blur the background, something that is a problem even in a number of high end smartphones. With this camera therefore, I can say that only the creativity in set design, subject composition and other artistic styles will define professional photography going forward, and nothing to do with camera choice.
The third beauty of the Huawei Y9 2019 device is the screen. Boasting of a 19.5:9 aspect ratio for a resolution of 2340 by 1080 pixels, the Full HD+ screen offers amazing sharpness on images and videos. Then it doesn’t drain the battery – not if you don’t want it to. This is because in addition to being able to automatically adjust the brightness of the screen, you can also lower the resolution from Full HD+ to Standard HD of 1560 by 720 pixels. See the screenshot below.
Lastly, the reason people are in love with the camera is because it has this metallic feeling plastic cover. The plastic cover is meant to make the phone affordable, but it has been made such that it doesn’t feel plastic at all. Actually unless you knock it you can’t tell it apart from a smooth metallic finish – or even a glass finish that is typical of high end devices nowadays. Then the phone comes in two colours, at least in Kenya. The Blue Swarovsk and the Midnight Black colours give the phone an irresistible aesthetic feel. My review copy is the midnight black as can be seen from the top image.
At launch the device was only available in Jumia, but as at now you can get it any any phone shop near you. The retail price is officially Kshs 24,990, but you need to be aware of a possibility of a price difference from store to store, as each store serves a different type of clientele. One thing I can assure you, if you settle for Huawei Y9 2019, there will be little regret room left.
For other information on the device, check our pre-review article Why everyone is talking about Huawei Y9 2019.
