Huawei Y9S unboxing, initial impressions

Unveiled globally last November 2019, Huawei officially announces the Huawei Y9S to the Philippine market. The Y9S is the successor of the Huawei Y9 Prime, following its footsteps by offering irresistible value for the price.

What we have here is the Huawei Y9S in Breathing Crystal colorway. It is priced at PHP 13,990 and features 48MP triple cameras, a pop-up selfie shooter, and a large 6.59-inch display.

Moreover, the Y9S comes with Google Mobile Services, which means it has the Google Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, and more.

The handset is packaged in a simple white retail box with Huawei’s usual branding layout. Like most modern mid-range phones, it is packaged with a 5V 2A charger, a USB Type-C cable, a silicone case, a SIM eject tool, and the usual documentation.

At the front, the Huawei Y9S features a large 6.59-inch FHD FullView IPS display with a resolution of 2340 by 1080. It has a tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio. There are no notches or punch holes too, resulting in an expansive screen real estate with a 91% screen-to-body ratio. The display is protected by a pre-installed plastic screen protector.

At the back, you can see the nice Breathing Crystal gradient that transitions from purple to sky blue. The three rear cameras are arranged vertically, along with the LED flash and an upright Huawei logo on the other end.

Also Read: Huawei Y9S with triple rear cameras and pop-up selfie shooter coming to the PH

On the right side are the volume rockers and power button with an in-built fingerprint sensor. On top is the pop-up selfie camera module, the SIM tray, and mic hole. And at the bottom is the 3.5mm audio jack, the microphone, a USB Type-C port, and the mono loudspeaker.

When it comes to photography, the Huawei Y9S has three cameras at the back with the following sensors — 48MP f/1.8 main, 8MP f/2.4 ultra-wide, and 2MP f/2.4 depth. The selfie camera has a 16MP sensor with an f/2.2 lens on a pop-up module.

The pop-up camera comes with Smart Drop protection, which retracts the camera as quickly as possible when dropped, protecting it from damage.

Here are some initial test photos. So far, it looks promising. Images have been resized on Adobe Photoshop with quality set at 60.

As for the Y9S’s internals, the phone is powered by a 12nm 2.2GHz octa-core Kirin 710F processor with 6GB RAM, 128GB storage and a microSD card slot. It also features GPU Turbo 3.0 and their own proprietary EROFS file system, which greatly improves read speed and storage space.

That’s it for my initial hands-on review of the Huawei Y9S. The phone is available for pre-order with a price of PHP 13,990.

I’ll be posting the full review in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Huawei Y9S Specs

• 6.59-inch Full HD FullView IPS Display (2340 x 1080, 391 ppi), 19.5:9 Aspect Ratio
• 2.2GHz Octa-core Kirin 710F Processor
• Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
• 6GB RAM
• 128GB Storage, MicroSD up to 512GB
• 48MP f/1.8 (Main)+ 8MP f/2.4 (ultra-wide) + 2MP f/2.4 (Depth) Rear Cameras, PDAF, LED Flash
• 16MP f/2.2 Pop-up Selfie Camera
• Wi-Fi 802.11n
• Bluetooth 4.2
• GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• USB Type-C
• Fingerprint Scanner (Side)
• Android 9 Pie, EMUI 9.1
• 4,000mAh Battery