There has been speculation in the past that the Huawei P9 would be the first Huawei device to sport glass made by one of the legendary camera makers, Leica. This came shortly after the two companies announced a collaboration to reinvent smartphone photography.
Now, it seems we do have some concrete evidence that the P9 would indeed sport the twin Leica lenses as was foretold.
In previous leaks and iterations of the Huawei P9 — including those from serial leakster @evleaks — the smartphone was devoid of any branding, not even Huawei’s, which left many wondering about the validity of the Leica smartphone camera claims.
In new pictures and renders by both @evleaks and @stagueve, the Huawei P9 is now proudly displaying it’s Leica branding. What’s a little disappointing to me though is that Leica didn’t go for the “red dot” branding, instead opting to just print their name on the back of the familiar P9.
That said, the typeface used for the branding is consistent with those found on Leica’s own camera lenses so this lends some credibility to the images. From the pictures, the camera is bearing Leica’s Summarit badge with what looks like an aperture of f/2.2 and an equivalent focal length of 27mm. The lens array could also feature an aspherical element as denoted by the “ASPH” markings (though do correct me if I’m wrong).
Besides the Leica glass, the Huawei P9 is rumoured to feature a dual camera setup on the back with each sensor featuring 12-megapixels. Said to be an evolution of the one on the honor 6 Plus, the P9’s dual snappers should sport much of the features found on the 6 Plus including post-capture refocus and simulated aperture adjustments.
This is exciting stuff. If I’m being honest, one of my biggest qualms with any of the Huawei devices I’ve used was the rather lackluster camera performance. Now with the German camera maker’s help, Huawei could very well have shored up one of their big weaknesses.
Huawei’s P9 is set to be launched on the 6th of April — and rumoured to come in four variants — so we’ll get confirmation of this and everything else then. For now, these are still just rumours so do take it with a grain of salt.
What do you guys think of the P9? Would Leica glass be good enough to tempt you into picking one up?