Until now, Huawei has always been a bit of a budget brand. Its devices provided decent bang for buck, but nothing that could compare to high-end phones from Apple or Samsung . The Huawei P9 is trying to change that – it's the first phone from Huawei that feels genuinely premium and built without...

Exceptional camera with plenty of shooting modes; great design; expandable storage

Android skin is slightly frustrating; awkwardly located fingerprint scanner; touchscreen responsiveness could be better

Huawei has been chipping away at the flagship smartphone block for years now, gradually adding appeal to its seemingly desired western audience with each iteration. But while last year's P8 lost its way with sloppy software and knuckle-based nonsense, this year's P9 - which mimics the same handset...

Best fingerprint scanner on the market; slender design; dual camera solution is fun; microSD card expansion; ample power for all tasks

Some questionable software points; battery life not standout (as 3,000mAh would suggest); camera software (defocus) glitchy

Huawei wants to play with the big boys. The Chinese company wants to be taken seriously as a competitor to Apple and Samsung, but right now it's rooted firmly among the second tier of Android manufacturers, competing with the likes of Sony, LG, HTC and Motorola in western markets.

An innovative camera, plenty of power and lovely build aren't quite enough to add up to overall perfection

High-quality build; Much improved DoF camera effects; Bright; colourful screen

Disappointing low-light camera performance; Software messes with Android a lot

The announcement of the Huawei P9 was met with much fanfare surrounding the inclusion of Leica branding. The Huawei P9 features a dual camera set-up, which was claimed to have been designed in conjunction with the historic camera manufacturer.

Since the arrival of the Nokia 808 PureView manufacturers have been battling ever harder to create the very finest phone camera. We've seen everything from mainstream adoption of optical image stabilisation to custom technologies like LG's laser autofocus and HTC's Ultrapixels – which reappeared on...

Dual lens tech is great; Solid performance; Decent battery life; Super fast fingerprint scanner

EMUI skin is heavy; Camera software can be fidlly

When comparing the P9 to other flagships, it's important to remember the ￡449 price which makes it considerably cheaper than many of its rivals (but not the identically priced Nexus 6P that's also made by Huawei). Overall, we're impressed with the phone: it's well built, feels good and looks good.

A classy and desirable phone let down by some surprising and not so surprising problems

Sleek and classy casing; Lengthy battery life; High quality screen; Generally excellent camera

Camera issues; Annoying interface overlay

The Chinese company has cleverly partnered with Leica – a company with more than 100 years of experience in photography – to create the impressive dual lens camera on the P9. It is fair to say that smartphones are judged by customers more on the merits of the camera than on their ability to make...

Though we've not had as much time as we'd like with the phone to really get to know it, an afternoon with the P9 allowed us to explore some of our local surrounds and see how the much talked about camera stacked up next to one of the higher rated Android cameras already on the market, in the form of...