I'm really quite an idiot sometimes.
For me, the moment of photographic singularity happened in 2013 when my phone's pictures of Disneyland turned out way better than the ones I was taking with the stupid standalone camera. I think that camera's been sitting on a top shelf gathering dust ever since.
Of course, these days unless at least one of your phone's cameras is providing images into the double-digit megapixel range, you're basically living in the dark ages and you should take a good hard look at yourself and start questioning why so much of the 21st century has passed you by.
Decent photo quality has become the minimum expectation from any phone, in any price range - but Huawei's latest partnership with Leica has taken things to a whole new level.
The P9 features an innovative dual-lens camera, one RGB, one monochrome. Apparently this allows you to capture more light and detail than ever before with every shot. The P9 has a very quick brain, which then stitches together the information from both lenses to create the perfect pic.
That's the theory.
The Leica photo technology in the P9 is unquestionably the most advanced I've ever encountered in a phone. In fact, it's so advanced, many of my first attempts were worthless flops. I soon realised how dependent I'd become on "auto-mode" and I was actually a little nervous about accessing the many different settings and effects available.
In fact, it was a very similar experience to my first fumblings with an Android phone after being bossed around by Windows and Apple all my life. Suddenly I had a phone that would work the way I wanted it to instead of the other way around. Initially that kind of freedom can be intimidating and terrifying. But once you stop limiting your expectations and actually take the plunge, technical liberation is only a few failed experiments away.
Like an Android phone, the Leica camera on the P9 doesn't tell you how to use it, it waits for you to decide what you want to do, then supplies the tools to make that a possibility. Obviously there are the usual automatic options too, but that seems like a waste given the long list of enhancements Huawei now puts at your disposal.
Why add effects after you take the shot, when you can frame the shot with the effects. White balance, selective focus, aperture settings are all just a swipe away. Even features like time-lapse, slow-mo, audio notes and document scanning are standard, not an extra suite of apps you have to download.
When set to its default settings, in Huawei's usual style I found the colours to be a bit too colourful and the light slightly too bright. But these are minor adjustments, now easily corrected.
I was also extremely impressed by the clarity of the video footage, even when using the selfie camera. (Although, no amount of "Beauty Mode" ever really seems to save my mug - that would be miracle technology)
Obviously, having the dedicated monochrome lens means you can now shoot in genuine black and white, this is no longer just an effect. Some shots looked so sharp I almost felt like a real photographer, not just an idiot with a phone.
There's more to the P9 than a fancy camera, although surprisingly, just like the P8, the lenses and flash still sit completely flush with the rear casing, once again creating a minimalist, sleek, modern effect. The P9 is so slim and smooth, it reminds me of one of those pieces of glass you see people using as phones in sci-fi movies. Huawei is getting scarily close to making that a reality.
Unfortunately, sleek, slim and smooth does mean slippery and I found this phone to be disturbingly droppable in my clumsy mitts.
Speaking of fat fingers, while it's nice to have those dual camera lenses tucked away so subtly on top left corner, they're so close to the edge I occasionally had to re-shoot my pics when I discovered my fingers had spilled into the shot. This thing is a delicate piece of tech and needs to be held gently.
Maybe that's why I also struggled with the motion sensors. Given the incredible speed of Huawei's Kirin CPU, (which impressed me so much in the Mate 8) I was constantly frustrated with the lag in changing profiles from portrait to landscape. In fact, sometimes I had to tap or shake the phone to get the display to respond - a bit of a letdown when everything else works so fast.
As we've come to expect from most flagship phones, a fast charger is included and the battery life is excellent. For the P9, Huawei have moved to a Type-C charging cable which means less fiddling around but of course I'd still prefer wireless.
Like the Huawei-manufactured Nexus from last year, and this year's Mate 8, they've stuck with the fingerprint sensor on the rear casing, which is definitely more ergonomic than under the home key... especially since the P9 doesn't have a physical home key. The fingerprint sensor can also be used to take photos, answer calls, stop alarms, browse photos and even show the notification panel with a downwards swipe. Tricky.
Unfortunately, Huawei seems to have done nothing to improve its stock email and messaging apps (both boring and basic) or its functional-but-that's-all EMUI interface, which is really just window after window of all your apps. I imagine if you're anything like me, you'll replace all these things with your preferred apps as soon as possible.
Those are just niggles though and even if the Leica camera technology wasn't a genuine point of difference, the P9 would still sit proudly amongst the hottest phones on the market today. Therefore if pictures are your priority, you need to take the Huawei P9 into serious consideration.
Click here for more information on the Huawei P9
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