Huawei reveals P9 and P9 Plus smartphones with innovative dual Leica cameras

The Huawei P9 and P9 Plus feature a dual-lens Leica rear camera Huawei

Huawei has announced a pair of new flagship Android smartphones called the P9 and P9 Plus. Announced at a media event in London, both phones have a trick rear camera produced by Leica and featuring two lenses.

An evolution of the duo camera used by the Huawei Honor 6 Plus, the dual rear camera has two 12-megapixel sensors each behind their own lens. One lens captures black and white, while the other captures colour.

Huawei and Leica claim the innovative new camera can capture 270% more light than the iPhone 6S and 90% more than the Samsung Galaxy S7. There are three types of focusing on the camera - laser, depth (using both lenses like human eyes) and contrast focusing.

As well as improved image quality, colours and low-light performance, the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus can also let the user adjust photos after they, such as isolating one image and making it black-and-white (or colour), or adjusting which part of the photo is in focus.

The regular Huawei P9 has a 5.2in screen, while the larger P9 Plus has a 5.5in display, the same as the iPhone 6S Plus. As Huawei continues to shy away from the Quad HD screens used by Samsung and LG, both handsets have Full HD screens, each with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Both handsets are powered by a new Kirin 955 processor; it's a 64-bit chip clocked to 2.5GHz. The battery capacity of the P9 is 3,000mAh - almost twice that of the iPhone 6S - and the larger P9 Plus gets 3,400mAh.. Rapid charging means a 10-minute charge can provide enough power for six hours of talk time. The phones both run Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the company's own Emotion UI over the top.

Huawei was keen to talk about the "jewel-like" design of the new phones, which have a tiny bezel - the gap between the edge of the screen and the edge of the phone itself - of less than 2mm. On the back of the aluminium body there's a fingerprint reader to unlock the phone.

Both phones come in six colours - ceramic white, haze gold, rose gold, titanium grey, 'Mystic' silver and 'Prestige' gold. However, only mystic silver and titanium grey will be coming to the UK.

"Huawei is excited to give P9 users the best smartphone photography experience by leveraging the unrivalled capabilities of Leica, the leader in the world of imaging for more than 100 years," said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group.

"The P9 users can now capture images with unmatched clarity, richness and authenticity, with a masterfully designed and powerful smartphone that looks and feels incredible."

Huawei P9 price and release date

The Huawei P9 will cost £449 when it goes on sale in the UK in early May. This model will have 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Meanwhile, the larger P9 Plus will cost £549, and for that the UK market will get 4GB of RAM and 74GB of storage.

Here is a breakdown of which colours will be available from each UK network and retailer: