Chinese mobile manufacturer Huawei unveiled its latest flagship device, the P9, at an event at the Sandton Convention Centre last night.
South African consumers will be able to purchase the device, as well as the larger phablet P9 Plus and mid-range P9 Lite from operators today.
The much-touted P9 feature is the dual-camera co-engineered by Leica. The device has two lenses: one colour and one monochrome. They are used in combination to create more contrast in colour photos, or the monochrome on its own for textured black and white photographs.
"We are excited to give our users the ultimate smartphone photography experience. Consumers around the world use their smartphones to take billions of pictures each year, making photography critical to their everyday lives," says Charlene Munilall, GM at Huawei Consumer Business Group.
The device was first launched in the UK in April. Munilall says the company releases smartphones in waves for production purposes and SA is usually part of the second wave, explaining why the devices are only available in the country now.
"This made sense for us, as its predecessor, the Huawei P8, was launched here in June last year."
Munilall says Huawei has 34% market share in the high-end tier smartphones in SA and 10% overall.
The 5.2-inch 1080p display P9 has the new Kirin 955 2.5GHz 64-bit ARM-based processor for fast performance. It has a 3 000mAh high-density battery, which the company claims will last a day-and-a-half during normal usage. The P9 comes in 32GB while the P9 Plus is available in 64GB.
The recommended retail price of the P9 is from R11 999 and from R13 499 for the P9 Plus.
Huawei also announced last night it would offer a free after-care service to all customers in the case of accidental damage. Once the smartphone is purchased, customers need to register the device online, and then take it to the place of purchase if there is a problem.
Munilall says the phone will be repaired free-of-charge. Each customer can replace a cracked screen twice, or the chip board twice, or once each.
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