Huawei has launched their latest mid-range smartphone in India, the Y9 (2019) variant. The device was first announced in China back in 2018 and it has made it’s the way to India. This is probably the cheapest Huawei phone launched in India. The device packs a large 6.5-inch Full HD+ display and is powered by Kirin 710 Octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage. The device also packs a dual camera set up for the rear and for selfies. It is priced Rs 15,999 and available exclusively on Amazon. So how does the device perform in this segment? Let’s find out in the detailed Huawei Y9 2019 Review.
Design and Build:
When you hold the Huawei Y9 (2019), you get a good feel with the stylish looks offered. Even with 6.5 inches screen size, the device feels pretty good in hands. It has a high gloss plastic finish on the back panel which mimics the glass and feels premium. But at the same time, it attracts a lot of smudges. The edges of the device are curved to give a good in-hand feel. It is offered in two colors- Midnight Black and Sapphire Blue. We tested the blue variant and looks good.
The back panel has a dual camera, AI branding and the fingerprint scanner along with LED flash. There is also Huawei branding at the bottom. The bottom panel has a micro USB charging slot, 3.5mm audio jack, and the speaker unit. The power and volume keys are on the right side, while the left side has a SIM tray with a dedicated SD card slot.
Display:
Huawei Y9 (2019) comes with a 6.5-inch Full HD+ resolution display with a notch and 1080 x 2340 pixels resolution and 19.5:9 ratio. The display quality is pretty good and has good viewing angles and touch response. The colors also look good. The display brightness is also acceptable at this price segment. There is no display protection offered on the device.
The notch on the display is quite small, but it is not a waterdrop notch as it has to accommodate a dual selfie camera.
Software:
Similar to any Honor or Huawei smartphones, the Huawei Y9 (2019) comes with EMUI 8.2 along with Android Oreo (8.1) out of the box. This is quite disappointing that the first device launched in 2019 is still on Oreo and company has not mentioned anything about Android Pie. EMUI is one of the highly customizable UI available and offers tons of features and tools to make your experience better. The settings panel and notification toggles are customized.
Since the navigational keys are on screen, you also get the option to customize the layout from the settings. You also get dual apps feature. With dual apps, you can run two instances of an app, which means you can run two instances of social apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. There is also App Twin feature which allows you to run two instances of the same app.
Other additional features include motion control, floating dock, voice control and also gloves mode. It also features the themes app. The software also comes bundled with some Huawei apps like Torch, sound recorder, phone manager, etc. The fingerprint scanner supports a lot of functions including locking apps and gestures for viewing the gallery. Another interesting option in the UI is File Safe which is security options and works with pin and fingerprint.
Performance:
The Huawei Y9(2019) runs on a Kirin 710 Octa-core processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB Storage. This is the same processor we have seen on Honor 8X. It is a good powerful processor for this price segment and does quite well in day to day performance. Huawei Y9 (2019) does a really good job in the day to day performance and it was responsive to almost all tasks it was put to and the app performance with EMUI 8.2 was really good. The memory management of the device was quite decent while there is room for improvement.
The speaker performance of the device is quite decent and the phone comes with dual SIM card and dedicated SD card slot with 4G LTE and VoLTE support. The call quality is also very good on the device.
Camera- AI Quad Cameras
Huawei Y9 (2019) comes with quad cameras, dual cameras for the rear and front and comes with the AI algorithm. The rear camera is a 13MP + 2MP set up with f/1.8 aperture while the selfie camera is a 16MP + 2MP f/2.0 camera. The camera interface is largely unchanged and quite similar to any Honor or Huawei phone and it comes with portrait mode, aperture and also night mode. The photos taken in daylight conditions had decent details and color quality, but when you turn on the AI mode, the images do get saturated with vibrant colors. The sharpness levels are decent and not great for this segment. The low light photos were pretty average with noise and when you turn on the night mode, you get better results with sharp images and details but again not class leading.
The phone is focusing on selfies with dual camera and here it does a pretty good job with good colors and skin tones. The portrait mode in selfies is also good. The phone has 1080p video recording and misses out on EIS and 4K which are available in this segment. Here are some samples taken with the device.
Battery:
The Huawei Y9 (2019) comes with 4000mAh battery and the battery performance is really good. With the large capacity battery, you can easily last more than a day in normal usage. The battery performance would have been even better if it came with Android 9.0 out of the box.
Verdict:
Huawei Y9 (2019) is priced Rs 15,999 and probably the cheapest device from Huawei at launch in India. Huawei Y9 (2019) has good design and looks, good performance, decent cameras, and great battery life and provides decent value for money as well. But the biggest let down for the Y9 is the lack of Android 9.0 at launch. If Huawei had provided EMUI 9.0 with Android Pie, it would have made it a great value for money offering at this price segment. The device is available in two colors, black and blue and available exclusively on Amazon.
