Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 First Impressions: New Rival To Realme X And OPPO K3

Design- Plastic Build, Type-C Port, Hybrid SIM Card Slot

Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 will be available in Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green color options. The smartphone is made out of plastic but manages to give a premium look and feel. The front is mostly occupied by a big edge-to-edge display, which is surrounded by thin bezels. The chin is quite noticeable though as it houses an Ambient light sensor and other important parts.

The rear panel has been given a dual-tone finish with two different shades of the same color scheme. A vertically stacked triple-lens camera sits at the top left corner along with LED flash light. The smartphone comes with a conventional rear-mounted fingerprint scanner unlike Realme X and OPPO K3 that offers in-screen fingerprint scanners.

This is the first budget Huawei device with a Type-C port; however the underlying chipset- Kirin 710 does not offer support for fast-charging. A hybrid SIM card slot is placed at top, next to pop-up camera assembly. You can use two nano SIM cards or one nano SIM with a microSD card at the same time.

The support for microSD card gives Huawei Y9 Prime a slight edge over its closest rivals- Realme X and OPPO K3 as these two handsets do not support microsSD card expansion.

6.59” Full HD+ IPS LCD Display

Huawei Y9 Prime sports a 6.59" Full HD+ display. The FHD+ LCD screen offers a screen resolution of 1080x2340 pixels and come in an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The handset offers over 91% screen-to-body ratio as there's no notch and the selfie camera is placed on pop-up slider. The display has good peak brightness levels but it fails to match the vividness and deeper blacks of AMOLED displays offered by the rival devices- Realme X and OPPO K3.

Importantly, these two smartphones come with Gorilla Glass 5 protection, whereas Huawei Y9 Prime's LCD screen only gets the company's in-house protective glass. The protective glass on Huawei Y9 Prime might not be as tough as the Gorilla Glass 5 in protecting the screen from scratches and other damages.

16MP Pop-up Selfie Camera

For selfies, the Y9 Prime features a 16MP front-facing shooter which is placed on a retractable slider. The 16MP sensor works on F/2.0 aperture and takes around a second to pop-up from the assembly. The 16MP sensor gets real-time image optimization and can recognize 8 different scenes to apply AI to enhance image output.

The front-facing camera also offers AI selfie and all sorts of modes and filters to step up your selfie game. The selfie output seemed decent and the single lens camera was also able to create pleasing software-driven Bokeh effect during our brief testing.

Triple-Lens Rear Camera Setup

Huawei Y9 Prime sports a triple-lens camera setup. The three-lens camera offers a 16MP primary lens, 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP depth sensor. The 16MP primary lens uses a 6P lens and works on F/1.8 aperture.

Compared to other pop-up selfie camera smartphones in the same price bracket, the Y9 Prime offers an extra sensor that allows you to capture wide-angle shots. The wide-angle lens gives Y9 Prime 2019 a definite edge over its competitors; however, the overall camera output on the Y9 Prime 2019 does not seem as impressive as Realme X. The Realme's handset captures stunning shots and is undeniably the best camera handset in sub 20K price segment.

As far as other camera features are concerned, the cameras on Huawei Y9 Prime are supported by AI algorithm and can recognize 22 categories and 500+ scenes in real time to enhance the image output. You also get 3D portrait-lighting with studio light effects. The camera can shoot 480fps slow-motion videos, whereas Realme X can touch 960fps slwo-motion, thanks to Snapdragon 710 chipset.

Kirin 710 CPU, 4GB RAM + 128GB ROM, Android Pie

Huawei Y9 Prime is powered by the company's in-house Kirin 710 chipset. The 12nm octa-core chipset features four Cortex-A73 cores clocking at 2.2GHz and another four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz. Realme X and OPPO K3 runs on Snapdragon 710 SoC which is built on 10nm fabrication process and also offers support for 4K video recording at 30fps, whereas Kirin 710 maxes out at 1080p @ 60fps.

Another important factor to consider here is the GPU unit. Kirin 710 uses an old ARM Mali-G51 MP4 GPU, whereas SD710 features Adreno 616 GPU with Vulkan API support to offer better graphical performance. However, Y9 Prime comes integrated with Huawei's Game Turbo technology which accelerates GPU hardware to deliver lag-free gaming experience. Does it improve the gameplay on Y9 Prime? We will find this out in our comprehensive review of the smartphone.

As far as multitasking and storage is concerned, the Y9 Prime gets 4GB and 128GB internal memory, which can be expanded to up to 512GB via microSD card. The company hasn't announced 6GB variant of the handset. Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 runs on EMUI 9.1 based on Android Pie.

Battery Life And Connectivity

Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery unit. The company claims 22 hrs video playback on one full charge. Sadly, the smartphone fails to offer fast-charging as the Kirin 710 does not offer support for quick charging.

Verdict

Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 offers some key trending features like pop-up camera, no-notch edge-to-edge screen and triple-lens camera setup at 16K price. However, there are better handsets available in the sub 20K price bracket. For instance, Realme X offers a better design, vivid AMOLED display with in-screen fingerprint scanner, much better camera performance and Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

Vivo Z1 Pro is another solid offering with snappier Snapdragon 712 chipset and fluid gaming performance. The Y9 Prime 2019 only makes sense for consumers who fancy a wide-angle lens, pop-up selfie camera and microSD card support along with a big battery unit.

However, it is too early to pass a verdict on the handset's overall performance. That's why we recommend you to wait for our comprehensive review of the Y9 Prime 2019 on Gizbot.com.