Big screens tend to feature a frame with a camera, impeding on the screen space, but Huawei’s latest take on the mid-range pops the camera somewhere else.
Even though there’s a bit of a question mark hanging over Huawei’s head for new products, including the upcoming Huawei Mate 30 range set to launch this week, devices already on the way are all set.
At least one of those is already included, and it’s slated for the budget to mid-range part of the market, built to offer a big screen without a big price tag.
It’s coming in the $399 Huawei Y9 Prime 2019, a continuation of the Huawei Y series, which Huawei has been using in budget to mid-range devices for a couple of years now. While the name is a little crazy and could probably be rethought, the approach is to deliver a big screen experience without having to fork out big dollars.
New to the Y series is a big screen with minimal bezels, something Huawei has achieved by adopting a similar approach to Oppo’s Reno series, with a front-facing camera that isn’t on the front, but rather comes from the top. The pop-up camera uses a small motor to come out, and means that the big 6.59 inch screen used in the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 can take up around 91 percent of the body, without a hole or notch.
On the back, there’s also a three camera system, though only two really get used, offering a 16 megapixel standard wide camera alongside an ultra-wide 8 megapixel camera. That third camera is for background de-focus shots, and is set at 2 megapixels, meaning you’ll only really use it if you’re capturing portraits.
However it seems like the Y9 Prime 2019 does adopt some of the features from its big brothers in the Mate series, thanks to a low-light mode in “Super Night” that can capture in darkness, alongside an AI mode that aims to improve images through scene recognition, similar to what kicked off in the P20 range last year.
There’s also a 4000mAh battery and a mid-range Huawei-made Kirin professor, the Kirin 710F, plus Huawei’s take on Android 9, all sitting in a body with a fingerprint scanner on the back where you typically hold the phone and put your finger.
You’ll find the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 in stores now for $399, including JB HiFi, available in black and blue.
