rubber_otter
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Techies around the world, rejoice. The Huawei - Google ban has been lifted. Samsung can continue to get it's ass handed to it on a silver platter, and the world will again be happy.
Before me I have a Huawei Y9 Prime 2019. A mid-tier screen with a phone attached to it.
Design
The device is plastic, but you might be fooled. But at first you may think this is a glass phone. It is made from a rigid poly-carbonate that makes it feel more like a high end device. It has a lekker weight to it, and the 19.5:9 ratio gives you something proper to hold on to.
The front houses a full screen display with no notch in sight. Sporting a 6.59", 1080 x 2340 and a pixel density of 391 ppi. With an 84.3% screen-to-body ratio, this is placed in the upper echelons of it's class. This screen is, as our favorite toupee wearing NikNak would say, YUGE! Arguably one of the main selling points of this device.
This is accomplished by a pop-up selfie camera up top. Yes, you have to stare at a 16MP Diglett every time you wanna take a selfie, but this is a serious party trick. Long gone are the days when phones had moving parts and no-one really cared for them, but this little guy is cool. That, and should you accidentally drop the phone while attempting to take a selfie, the camera will retract within one second.
Yes, this begs the question, how long will it last? Well Huawei claim it is good for 100'000 cycles. That is 30 times a day, for 9 years. Also, there are talks to include one free camera replacement with the warranty of the phone, but there has been no confirmation about that yet.
Hardware
HiSilicon Kirin 710F (12nm)
Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
The 4GB RAM, 128GB Storage version will be available locally. I should also mention that it does come with a dual sim card slot. You can also use one of the slots to insert a MicroSD card up to a size of 512GB. Packing a 4000mAh battery it is easily a full-day device with heavy usage. One drawback is that it does not support fast charging, and only comes boxed with a standard 10W charger.
A rear mounted fingerprint scanner makes unlocking the device faster than any in-display fingerprint scanner in any flagship. It is blazingly fast when compared to any in-screen sensors like on the Mate 20 Pro or P30 Pro.
Software
Android 9 Pie is loaded right out of the box with EMUI 9.0.1 on top. If you are familiar with EMUI, this is nothing fancy. It is functional, and it isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Cameras
Yes, we see it again, the 3 camera line-up on the back. With a 16MP main shooter, a 8MP ultra wide and a 2MP depth camera. On the front is the sneaky 16MP pop-up camera. While the main selling point are not the cameras, they are good enough to live with. The selfie camera is good, but not great. The tripple cameras on the back are acceptable. Even more than you'd expect. Colours are sharp, HDR is good, the wide angle lens is a nice to have.
Conclusion:
For the price of R5399, this is a great mid-tier device that doesn't leave a lot to be desired. Yes, I would have loved quick charging, yes, I would have liked a notification LED, yes, the screen is not an OLED.
But that price, tho. There won't be many devices has what this device has to offer.
I give the Y9 Prime 2019 an 8/10.
Some sample pics off the camera, unedited:
Before me I have a Huawei Y9 Prime 2019. A mid-tier screen with a phone attached to it.
Design
The device is plastic, but you might be fooled. But at first you may think this is a glass phone. It is made from a rigid poly-carbonate that makes it feel more like a high end device. It has a lekker weight to it, and the 19.5:9 ratio gives you something proper to hold on to.
The front houses a full screen display with no notch in sight. Sporting a 6.59", 1080 x 2340 and a pixel density of 391 ppi. With an 84.3% screen-to-body ratio, this is placed in the upper echelons of it's class. This screen is, as our favorite toupee wearing NikNak would say, YUGE! Arguably one of the main selling points of this device.
This is accomplished by a pop-up selfie camera up top. Yes, you have to stare at a 16MP Diglett every time you wanna take a selfie, but this is a serious party trick. Long gone are the days when phones had moving parts and no-one really cared for them, but this little guy is cool. That, and should you accidentally drop the phone while attempting to take a selfie, the camera will retract within one second.
Yes, this begs the question, how long will it last? Well Huawei claim it is good for 100'000 cycles. That is 30 times a day, for 9 years. Also, there are talks to include one free camera replacement with the warranty of the phone, but there has been no confirmation about that yet.
Hardware
HiSilicon Kirin 710F (12nm)
Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
The 4GB RAM, 128GB Storage version will be available locally. I should also mention that it does come with a dual sim card slot. You can also use one of the slots to insert a MicroSD card up to a size of 512GB. Packing a 4000mAh battery it is easily a full-day device with heavy usage. One drawback is that it does not support fast charging, and only comes boxed with a standard 10W charger.
A rear mounted fingerprint scanner makes unlocking the device faster than any in-display fingerprint scanner in any flagship. It is blazingly fast when compared to any in-screen sensors like on the Mate 20 Pro or P30 Pro.
Software
Android 9 Pie is loaded right out of the box with EMUI 9.0.1 on top. If you are familiar with EMUI, this is nothing fancy. It is functional, and it isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Cameras
Yes, we see it again, the 3 camera line-up on the back. With a 16MP main shooter, a 8MP ultra wide and a 2MP depth camera. On the front is the sneaky 16MP pop-up camera. While the main selling point are not the cameras, they are good enough to live with. The selfie camera is good, but not great. The tripple cameras on the back are acceptable. Even more than you'd expect. Colours are sharp, HDR is good, the wide angle lens is a nice to have.
Conclusion:
For the price of R5399, this is a great mid-tier device that doesn't leave a lot to be desired. Yes, I would have loved quick charging, yes, I would have liked a notification LED, yes, the screen is not an OLED.
But that price, tho. There won't be many devices has what this device has to offer.
I give the Y9 Prime 2019 an 8/10.
Some sample pics off the camera, unedited:
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