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128GB storage out of the box USB-C charging Comes with a protective case and wired headphones Available in Sapphire Blue and Midnight Black
Wait, WAIT. You mean to tell me, the smartphone I’ve been thoroughly enjoying over the past week costs $329? Get this trash tier phone out of my sight, I say to my personal assistant. But seriously folks. We like to have fun here but the Y9 Prime’s generous price is no laughing matter. I was genuinely surprised when I realised how far down the mid-range scale the Y9 Prime was. The Samsung Galaxy A70 I recently reviewed is a killer handset for the price but $699 can’t really be considered a “budget” price tag. In fact, some retailers are slinging this budget beast for far lower than the $399 RRP. Check out the prices below. That’s not the case with the Y9 Prime. This is a case of bigger battery, better battery life. My first attempt to run the battery dry was a long and patient process. It was the Betty White of smartphone batteries, it just wouldn’t die. I left my apartment on Sunday morning at 9:30 am with a full charge. I hit up a new cafe for breakfast, then headed for the Sunday markets; giving the Y9 Prime’s camera a real workout for most of the day. I used the Y9 Prime a lot that Sunday and I fully expected to return home that night with the battery a small red sliver from death. That was far from the case, the Y9 Prime’s battery indicator was a fat slab of white (about 80%). Okay, I thought, this going to be one of those phones that pretends like its all good under the hood only to absolutely lose it when it gets below 50%. Not true, either. On that single charge, I went almost three days without running out of battery. On Wednesday morning (3 days later) I woke to a dead Huawei Y9 Prime. It had gone peacefully during the wee hours of Tuesday night (it’s worth noting I went to bed with about 5%). Nearly 3 days without a top-up or any kind of battery saving feature activated. This was on above-average usage for me, so needless to say, I was blown away by the Y9 Prime’s battery life. It’s a very novel feature - like a little robot buddy whose one and only purpose is to take glamorous photographs of your massive noggin. The main advantage of the pop-up camera is, as mentioned, it negates the need for an intrusive camera notch. It’s a fun idea that pays off in our experience so far. If the sight of an exposed, mechanical camera sends a shiver down your spine, Huawei has assured us that the selfie camera has survived 100,000 pops during internal testing and can withstand up to 15kg of pressure (if you’re worried about breaking it off). There’s also some clever AI running in the background when the selfie-camera is popped that tells the Y9 Prime if the handset has been dropped. If it detects that the user has dropped the phone, the pop-up camera will quickly retreat into its shell. We couldn’t test out the 100,000 pops claim, but we did try dropping it with the camera popped. I dropped the Y9 Prime to the floor from a standing position and, true to the claim, the Y9 Prime’s camera was tucked away by the time the phone hit the ground. I really like the notch-less display. Unfortunately, there’s a fairly obnoxious bezel on the bottom of the display that looks a little asymmetrical and a little cheap. The bottom bezel and the rounded edges of the Y9 Prime’s body are really the only two things that cheapen its appearance. Otherwise, it’s a stylish phone that kicked off the two-tone finish that the new P30 Pros are sporting. Operating advanced camera functions and toying around with the camera app’s quirky AR feature is perfectly responsive with no input lag to report. With that said, most of the filters and advanced shooting modes are post-processed, meaning you don’t get a good idea of how the photo will turn out until you’ve taken it. It takes the Y9 Prime roughly 30 seconds to power on, which is on par for the course and switching between apps is just as smooth as it is with my personal Google Pixel 3. From a purely technical perspective, the Kirin 710F processor found in the Y9 Prime is a far-cry from the top-of-the-line Kirin 980 chipset found in Huawei’s premium range but most casual users won’t notice the difference. Other than those few hangups, the camera takes a stunning shot in auto mode and the ultra-wide-angle is killer. The TikTok-inspired shooting modes are also straight-up bonkers. There are three particular themes that animate your video and provide backing music on the fly. It’s fun to screw around with and I even found myself wanting the option to download more songs and themes to film my cats with. Here’s a sample showing the difference between a standard and a wide angle camera shot on the Y9 Prime. Hey, if you’re a little uppity about sharing your biometric data or you’re the type to cover your phone camera with tape, this could actually be a selling point. Otherwise, if you’ve grown comfortable to the quick access provided by facial recognition, the Huawei Y9 Prime might not be for you. I’ve given the Huawei Y9 Prime top marks for its battery performance but when it does (eventually) come time to charge, it isn’t going to juice up as fast as what you’re used to with premium phones. The Huawei Y9 Prime doesn’t have fast-charge so you will have to allow for a little more time once you’ve completely run the battery dry. Most people charge their smartphones overnight so it won’t be an issue in most cases but for those frightful mornings where you realise the charger wasn’t even plugged in, it can be a bit of a hassle. Lastly, there’s the lack of NFC. This is the one feature missing that really threw me for a loop. If you’ve become attached to contactless payment (e.g. paying with your phone), you’re going to miss that convenience if you switch over to the Y9 Prime. Most notable is the complete lack of dust and water resistance. Huawei’s flagship P30 and P30 Pro smartphones have an IP68 rating; that means these handsets can cop a fair bit of dust, sand and moisture before it becomes an issue. They can also take a bit of a dip; both phones will survive a dunk down to 1.5 metres deep. That’s super reassuring for swimmers and folks who work around a lot of dust and water. So while you save a motza when you opt for a Huawei Y9 Prime, you also give up a few creature comforts you might have become used with a more premium handset.
