The new Huawei Y9s is looking to be more than just your average mid-range smartphone in style.
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| 48MP triple-cam! |
Apart from its all-screen design with side-mounted fingerprint reader, respectable speed, and large battery capacity, it is armed with a promising triple-camera system, pop-up camera to make the all-screen design possible, and Huawei's famed camera tricks.
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| 16MP pop-up cam |
For the triple cameras, it highlights a 48MP f/1.8 primary camera paired with an 8MP f/2.4 ultra-wide secondary camera and a 2MP f/2.4 depth camera. On the pop-up cam, there's a 16MP f/2.2 snapper.
It has most of the Huawei camera features found on high-end devices such as AI scene recognition, AIS Super Night mode, Light painting modes, robust Pro camera mode, and more.
Here are some of our first few snaps!
Rear Camera Samples
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| Daylight 1 |
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| Daylight 2 |
As expected, both cameras performed well in daylight. Both can take images with a lot of details. There are just some inconsistencies with exposure. Sometimes it is accurate, sometimes you get a duller looking shot even if the scene is not against the light.
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| Daylight wide 1 |
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| Daylight wide 2 |
The thing that I like with most Huawei wide cams is they aren't that distorted. It is just wide and it is great that way. Again, white it is not as crisp as the main cam, it still produced shots with respectable details and punchy colors in daylight. This time, the exposure is more consistent using the secondary wide cam.
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| Ultra-wide, 6x zoom |
The other cool thing about this phone is it has a decent zoom range. It has up to 6x digital zoom if you want to take images from afar. At max 6x zoom, details are soft and artifacts are present. But the image it can produce is still usable somehow. Not that bad.
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| Close-up |
The cameras of this phone didn't arrive with a dedicated macro sensor. The nice thing is its primary cam can still take close-up images. It may not be as close as those macro sensors, but I'm sure that it packs better details and a more natural-looking background blur.
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| Depth effect (Normal and 100 percent crop) |
Speaking of background blur. The Y9s has a dedicated depth sensor to assist the primary camera for shots with a bokeh effect. You can either use the Portrait mode or the Aperture mode. From afar, it produces a DSLR-like shallow depth effect nicely. You will only notice that it is an artificial bokeh with not that clean edges if you will take at the full crop of the image.
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| Indoor |
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| Indoor wide |
This is where you will see the difference between the 48MP cam and the 8MP ultra-wide cam. Colors on the 48MP cam are more realistic and it has sharper details. The ultra-wide shot is serviceable, but it overexposed and soft.
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| Low light 1 |
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| Night mode 1 |
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| Low light wide 1 |
In low light, the primary camera takes one of the better point and shoot images in the dark. It is quite crisp with accurate colors. I also like that it isn't that noisy.
But, you can further enhance it by using Huawei's AI-assisted long exposure Night mode. It will make your images brighter while making your image even sharper with better dynamic range. It is one of the better Night modes for the price so far.
The wide cam is decent in low light. At least it is bright and not that noisy. But, it didn't have the exposure control of its main camera. Obviously, it'll produce softer shots as well.
It would be better if it has a Night mode for the ultra-wide cam.
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| Silky water in low light |
Oh, by the way, it has Huawei's Silky water mode from its high-end devices.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie well-lit normal vs bokeh |
It has one of the better selfie cams for the price. If you will nitpick, it has some artifacts. But, the selfie shot in daylight scenarios that you will get is very detailed. It has a respectable portrait mode with different beauty and blur effects as well.
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| Indoor well-lit |
For indoor selfies, as long as the lighting is okay, you won't have a problem. Also, notice in this shot that it has a pretty wide field of view. Meaning, it is decent for groufies as you can fit several people in one frame.
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| Normal low light selfie vs Night mode selfie |
In the dark, it is one of the few for the price with a Night mode for selfies. Combine that with its screen flash and you will get highly detailed selfies in low light. It will simply make your regular low light shots better.
Quick thoughts
For photography, the cameras of the Y9s is pretty impressive across different scenarios. It takes detailed images and it has plenty of camera modes to choose from. Even the selfie cam is quite nice.
The wide cam needs a bit of improvement, but I could be asking for too much considering its price tag.
So far, the cameras are the strongest point of this phone for me.
Stay tuned for our full review!
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