Hardware

You can usually tell at a glance when a smartphone is of flagship lineage. By that I mean: iPhones look like iPhones, the Galaxy S series hasn't changed all that much in recent years, and so on. Huawei, too, has settled on a common design language for its top-end P line. Put the P9, P8 and Ascend P7 side by side and you'll notice more iterative changes than considerable transformations.

As the years have passed, Huawei has veered further toward an angular, clean-cut design for its P series. There's no doubt the P9 is the best-looking of the bunch so far, and yet I can't help but feel that it's rather ... indistinctive.

That said, the P9 has all the characteristics you'd expect of a £450 (or roughly $650) smartphone. It's thin, light and wrapped in aluminum, and the build quality is impeccable. The unibody has a strange tacky texture to it, feeling more like plastic than "aerospace-class" metal, though this does help with grip. Then there are the soft corners, the thin chamfered edges and the slight curvature of the glass borders: all the little details that mellow an otherwise sharp form.

The only edge that perhaps hasn't been buffed enough is the elevated rim around the fingerprint sensor. It can feel a bit scratchy under your fingertip, and, speaking of the sensor, it's the first time Huawei has included one on a P series device. It registers contact as quickly as any fingerprint sensor I've used, and sits in a convenient position high on the back of the device (where your forefinger naturally rests).

Everything else is pretty much where it should be, and I'm thankful for the tiny, multicolor notification LED hiding behind the earpiece. The volume rocker and power key (which has a nice bumpy texture to it) lie on the right-hand edge, with the micro-SIM/microSD tray on the left and a loudspeaker grille, headphone socket and USB Type-C port on the bottom.

Personally, I wish Huawei hadn't bothered with Type-C. It doesn't charge the device any quicker than regular micro-USB would -- the company never promised any kind of fast charging, to be fair -- and it means the absurd number of live cables I have scattered around my house for tablets, Kindles, phones, Bluetooth speakers and console controllers are useless. Instead, I have just one lonely wire I basically need to carry around with me.

The P9's pièce de résistance is undoubtedly its Leica-endorsed, dual rear camera system. Just like the entire front of the device, the panel of glass that protects the two cameras is made of Gorilla Glass 4, and sits atop a black background with a subtle gray pinstripe effect. As you'd expect, Leica's name is visible, alongside a mix of numbers and letters I assume to be specs of some kind. Using a slab of glass seems a bit lazy to me; I feel that machining out individual holes for the lenses and flash might've made for more elegant and striking unibody design.

I have my hands on the titanium gray model, which pairs almost purplish aluminum with a black underlay wherever there's glass. Plenty of other color configurations are out there if you can find them: two with similar gold finishes, ceramic white, mystic silver and, of course, rose gold. Their availability varies based on the market and model, however, including whether the P9 in question is a single- or dual-SIM variant, and whether it's kitted out with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, or 4GB/64GB. In the UK, for example, I can find only the titanium gray and mystic silver options (3GB/32GB) for sale.

In all, the P9 is by no means an ugly device, but it's not particularly exciting either. And that sentiment doesn't just apply to its looks.

Huawei P9 Dimensions 145 x 70.9 x 6.95mm (5.7 x 2.8 x 0.27 inches) Weight 144g (5.1 ounces) Display 5.2-inch IPS LCD (1,920 x 1,080) Pixel Density 424 ppi Glass Gorilla Glass 4 Processor Octa-core Kirin 955 (4 x 2.5GHz, 4 x 1.8GHz) RAM 3GB Storage 32GB (expandable) Primary camera 2 x 12-megapixel BSI (one monochrome, one color) Secondary camera 8-megapixel Battery 3,000mAh OS Emotion UI 4.1 (Android 6.0 Marshmallow) Cellular Cat 6 LTE WiFi Dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.2 NFC Yes

Display and sound

On paper, there's nothing about the P9's display that's going to make your mouth water. Huawei has opted for a 5.2-inch, full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS LCD panel -- the same one you'll find on the year-old P8. While I think 1080p is a perfectly acceptable resolution for a 5.2-inch device, I can't ignore the trend toward denser displays, particularly on Android flagships. Quad HD screens are almost the norm now, and top-tier devices from LG and Samsung haven't dipped below this spec for some time. Even the Nexus 6P has one of these 2,560 x 1,440 panels, leaving the P9 feeling a bit behind the times.

Nevertheless, you do get a great 1080p panel. Colors are vivid, blacks are as deep as I've ever seen on an LCD display, and whites are the perfect temperature (you can tinker with this in the settings if your eyes don't agree). There's also plenty of power behind those pixels, making the display easy to read on the brightest of days. Glare isn't entirely eliminated under direct sunlight, so you may not want to head to the park to stream a movie on your phone, but the screen is bright enough for every other outdoor-use scenario. The auto-brightness setting is usually pretty accurate, but it can falter in strong sunlight, meaning I've found myself turning it off in certain situations to get the most out of the display.

Considering how small the P9's speaker grille is, I'm surprised by the volume and quality of the audio that comes out of it. Not exactly built for lighting up a party, given it's lacking in the bass range, but perfect for some crisp and clear hands-free calls. At a push, you can get away with watching an episode of Family Guy or a succession of YouTube clips if you've forgotten to bring your headphones to bed with you, but it's not really cut out for enjoying a feature film. I have discovered that, for whatever reason, the P9 doesn't support AC3 audio, which is a common enough format for videos. Pick the right files, though, and this shouldn't cause too many problems.

Headphone audio quality is something of a mixed bag: The P9 isn't the best phone I've rocked out with, but it's not the worst either. You get a decent amount of clarity and bass coming through, especially when the DTS audio setting is switched on, but things can start to get raspy and abrasive at the high end. Volume is something of an issue too. I can still hear myself think at maximum power, and if you tend to use leaky in-ears like I do, then the P9 won't do a great job of cutting through the ambience of a noisy train.

Software

The P9 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, not that you'd really know without checking the phone's settings menu. That's because of Huawei's Emotion UI (EMUI) overlay, now at version 4.1. While it's a major re-skinning of stock Android, it's at least free of unnecessary animations that slow the device down to any degree. Compared with vanilla Android, EMUI is a bit cartoony, with flat, basic icons that make the skin look a bit antiquated.

EMUI does serve as a platform for third-party skins, though, giving you a high level of customization. Jump into the Themes app and you'll find plenty of different veneers to download to your device -- some more comprehensive than others -- from clean to wacky and everything in between.

Actually poking around EMUI isn't all that different from stock Android, but there are a couple of obvious differences. Everything happens on the home-screen carousel, for example; there's no separate app drawer. Also, the notification pull-down splits quick settings into its own little tab, and you can access music player controls, the calculator, the flashlight and a few more bits and pieces from the lock screen (like the Control Center on iOS).

There are a bunch of quirks to like about Huawei's version of Android. I particularly dig that you can swipe downward on the fingerprint sensor to bring up the notification drawer, that you can double-tap the volume-down key to instantly take a picture when the handset is locked, and even some of the cringe-worthy pre-installed ringtones. But there are some things that might annoy.

Maybe a minor point for some, but I can't find a way to hide contacts that don't have a phone number in my Google-imported list, which is insanely frustrating. A couple of apps that duplicate the functionality of Google's also needn't exist, like an email client and calendar.

Pre-installed bloatware is relatively minimal: some random games, a PDF reader, the Booking.com app and a couple more. Thankfully, all of these can be purged at your whim, and I can salute the P9 for introducing me to Todoist, which I'm really getting on with. A few of Huawei's apps are neat enough. "HiCare" is a handy kind of on-device manual and serves as a conduit for customer service and support; "Phone Manager" lets you optimize performance and save a few minutes of battery life by identifying and closing down power-hungry background apps; and "Health" is a basic pedometer app that tells you how far you've walked as well as estimating the number of calories you've burned on your travels.

Would I prefer stock Android? Yes, I would. Am I unduly offended by EMUI? Not by a long shot, and as I've said, there are several enjoyable little features that Google doesn't offer as standard.

Camera

On to the main event: the P9's dual rear cameras. Before that, though, a quick note on the 8-megapixel front-facer. The number alone should tell you that it takes some really sharp, and fairly wide-angle, shots. Selfies and video calls certainly aren't an afterthought on the P9, and Huawei's beauty slider will smooth away those blemishes (or make you look like a stubbly child) if you're having a bad-skin day. Taking a page out of Apple's book -- and when does Huawei not look at what others are throwing at the wall -- the P9's display will serve as a makeshift flash if you need dat club 'gram.