Huawei P9 Plus Review

The P9 Plus will arrive later than the regular P9 on 20 May (compared to 16 April) and it will cost 749 Euro. We’re waiting for a UK price but this is going to be a pretty expensive smartphone so it really is taking on the likes of the Galaxy S7 edge and iPhone 6S Plus.

What Huawei has achieved this time around is the support of the UK networks, so the P9 Plus will be available from at least O2 and Vodafone. The likes of EE, Carphone Warehouse and Three have all mentioned the P9 but not the Plus model so far.

As with the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, the P9 Plus is the larger option here. So if a 5.2in screen is too small then you’ll be better off with 5.5in here. We’re glad Huawei hasn’t gone for anything bigger. What’s impressive here is that the P9 Plus is still very slender and lightweight – at 6.98mm and 162g. Thinner and lighter than the iPhone 6S and the impressive screen-to-body ratio means the P9 Plus isn’t an unwieldy handful. The bezels at the sides of the screen are just 1.7mm.

Looks-wise the Huawei P9 Plus resembles the Nexus 6P which Huawei made for Google. That’s no bad thing and this is mainly from the back. The two are different enough to tell the difference in general.

Starting with the screen, Huawei has opted for a 5.5in display size which isn’t much bigger than the P9’s 5.2in screen. That’s a good thing if you ask us following the mammoth 6.8in P8 Max – hence the Plus name instead of Max.

Although the resolution is still Full HD, the tech is SuperAMOLED (not IPS) and the phone support Press Touch which is essentially the same as Force Touch on the iPhone 6S. The P9 Plus can detect different levels of pressure when you press it. However, there are only 18 supported apps for Press Touch at launch. It has the same Kirin 955 processor (a 64-bit octa-core chip), but other upgrades compared to the regular P9 include 4GB or RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is double the lower spec P9. A 128GB model is for Asia only. Connectivity is top-notch with 11ac Wi-Fi, and infrared transmitter (or IR blaster which is not on the regular P9). Of course, the phone supports 4G LTE networks, too. Although there is a Dual-SIM model it's not what we're getting in the UK. You can still use the slot for a Micro-SD card of up to 128GB in capacity, though.