This year, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is one of the most impressive smartphones that we’ve played around with. Having trendy features and competitive offerings, we can expect that the device can still do well in the market in 2020 – most especially now that it received a price drop.
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| Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 Review: A Trendy Smartphone for the Youth |
Now more affordable, can you still consider getting it over other smartphones? Let’s find out!
PHYSICAL:
At first glance, one can easily tell that the Y9 Prime 2019 comes with a simpler physique than other Huawei devices. Unlike those we’ve already tried, the phone ditches the brand’s famous gradient color design, as it settles for a two-toned colorway. The phone is housed with polycarbonate and glass-like body, as well, helping it to have a more premium-looking appearance than its actual price.
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| Two-toned Design |
Huawei made the Y9 Prime 2019 special, too, as it’s the company’s first-ever smartphone to sport a pop-up camera. It still has slim bezels and chin, though. We’ll talk more about its display later.
Its right side accommodates its power button and volume keys, while its left portion is unoccupied. On top, you’d see its pop-up camera mechanism, SIM card tray, and mic. On the other hand, its 3.5mm audio jack, USB-C port, microphone, and speakers are located at the bottom of the device.
Meanwhile, flip the phone on its back to reveal its triple-rear camera setup along with the LED light, and fingerprint scanner. It has the Huawei branding on the lower left part portion of the device, too.
DISPLAY:
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| Pop-up Camera Mechanism |
The Y9 Prime 2019 sports a 6.59-inch screen with an FHD+ 2340 x 1080 resolution. Since it has a pop-up camera mechanism, users can expect that it has an immersive viewing experience. It has accurate colors, good viewing angles, and decent brightness level, making it a great phone for watching videos and playing games.
SOFTWARE:
The Y9 Prime 2019 runs on Android 9 Pie OS with EMUI 9 skin on top. Its interface looks very familiar, as it shares the same appearance as other Huawei devices. Out of the box, the phone is easy to navigate, but you can still choose from other navigation options in Settings to make your experience more comfortable.
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| Powered by Android 9 Pie OS with EMUI 9 |
The phone comes with numbers of pre-installed apps, including Google native apps, Facebook, Netflix, Agoda, Camera360, and more. Good thing, Huawei packed it with a large 128GB storage, allowing users to enjoy at least 110GB out of the box. Meanwhile, you can easily uninstall these apps, if you think that you won’t need it.
See Also: Huawei Nova 5T Review: A Flagship in Disguise
PERFORMANCE:
This year’s Y9 Prime is powered by a Kirin 710F octa-core processor, paired with Mali-G51 MP4 GPU. It has 4GB RAM and 128GB storage, too, making sure that it can handle heavy mobile activities such as gaming and multitasking.
We ran it on various benchmark apps. Here are the results:
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| Benchmark Scores |
Tapped as our main driver, the device can accompany us throughout the day, and it didn’t disappoint us. We can multitask using the Y9 Prime, as switching from one app to another was never an issue. It didn’t lag when we’re playing games with heavy graphics, although we never put it at its highest setting to prevent frame drops.
CAMERA:
The Y9 Prime 2019 is banked with a triple-rear camera setup, consisting of a 16-megapixel f/1.8 main shooter, 8-megapixel f/2.4 120-degree ultra-wide-angle lens, and 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor. For selfies, it is mounted with a 16-megapixel f/2.2 pop-up camera.
Sample Photos:
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| Outdoor |
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| Outdoor |
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| Indoor |
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| Lowlight |
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| Selfie |
Its main camera performed great in places with good lighting. It can produce decent photos most of the time, however, some images have underwhelming colors most especially in lowlight settings. It has inaccurate bokeh effect when using its Portrait mode, too. Nevertheless, the phone can still give you photos that are social media ready.
Meanwhile, its front camera can produce fine selfies without over enhancing your facial features. Like its main shooters, it can’t accurately separate the subject and the background.
CONNECTIVITY:
The Y9 Prime 2019 is armed with basic connectivity features, including LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC. All functioned well during our tests, considering that we have good signal reception, too.
Meanwhile, it also has a USB Type-C, and 3.5mm audio jack for an enhanced smartphone experience.
BATTERY:
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| Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 |
For its price, it’s impressive that the Y9 Prime 2019 is loaded with a large 4,000mAh battery that supports 10W fast charging. Our actual usage suggests that it can last for almost 17 hours. Our daily mobile activities include social media browsing, casual gaming, and basic communications.
Meanwhile, when we’re continuously using it, the phone can last up to 11 hours.
VERDICT:
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| Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 Review |
Huawei allows the Y9 Prime 2019 to standout through its well-thought features and offerings. Despite its shortcomings, the device was still able to impress us, considering that it has low asking price.
If you’re looking for a new Huawei smartphone but you’re on a budget, the Y9 Prime 2019 is really worth considering. However, keep in mind that there are other devices from other brands with a lower price tag, and can rival the Y9 Prime 2019.
Currently, consumers can get the Y9 Prime 2019 for only Php10,990.
So, what can you say? Let us know what you think in the comment section below!
Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 Specs (Philippines):
- Dual SIM, dual standby, supports LTE connectivity
- 6.59-inch IPS FHD+ (2340 x 1080) capacitive touchscreen
- Dimensions: 163.5 x 77.3 x 8.8mm
- Weight: 197 grams
- Android 9.0 Pie with EMUI 9.0
- 2.2GHz 64-bit octa-core processor, ARM Mali-G51 MP4 with GPU Turbo, HiSilicon Kirin 710F chipset
- 4GB RAM
- 128GB storage, expandable up to 400GB via microSD card
- 16MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.4 120-degree ultra-wide-angle lens + 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor
- 16MP f/2.2 pop-up camera
- Multimedia Player
- FM Radio
- WiFi
- Bluetooth 4.2
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou
- USB Type-C
- NFC
- Sensors: accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
- Others: fingerprint scanner, face unlock
- Battery: 4000mAh with 10W fast charging
- Colors: midnight black, sapphire blue, aurora purple
- Price: Php12,990 (original SRO); Php10,990 (new)