The New Huawei P10 is just a replica of the previous P9

At MWC Huawei unveiled their new flagship device, the Huawei P10 and the bigger P10 Plus.

Though the two phones share common specs, the P10 plus comes with a bigger 5.5 inch QHD display and a bigger 3,750mAH battery. What worries me is that the two phones are like a re-branded Huawei P9 from late last year.

Well, in Huawei’s defense, the P10 is advancement over the P9, but not in many areas, I guess the best way to describe the P10 over the P9 is an “incremental update”.

Everything about the two phones is the same apart from the location of the network antennas, the camera and the slight chipset upgrade. Can you spot the difference from the two phones below?

The P10 comes with a 5.1 inch IPS NEO display, which is 0.1 mm smaller than the P9 has. The same Full HD resolution stays.  IPS NEO is different from standard IPS screens in that this tech makes the colours richer than the limits of an IPS; blacks are deep like in OLED displays. In other words, the phone gets AMOLED colours without utilizing the expensive OLED panels. Speaking of color, the P10 comes in an array of them.

Powering the device is the Kirin 960, the same one that was on the Mate 9 last year, accompanied by 4 GB RAM and a 32 GB expandable storage.

The camera rear is a dual 20MP + 12MP Leica optics system. The 20MP is a monochrome sensor that doesn’t have the colour pigments, this kind of setup works together with the 12MP to produce better low light pictures than other Dual camera systems. The P10 camera shares the same aperture size as the P9 from last year. The new changes comes in the 8MP selfie camera, same resolution with the P9, but is now co-engineered with Leica with goodies such as automatic wide angle shots when the phone realizes that more subjects have joined in on the photo. It also comes with a wider aperture to bring in more light in the selfies.

The USB- Type C port returns, with fast charge on board too, the only difference is that the battery has been slightly bumped from 3,000mAH to 3,200mAH. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is still intact.

With 2017 smartphones coming with 4K display resolution, HDR screens, water and dust resistance bodies, quad DAC for next level audio and much more, the Huawei P10 seems like a lazy effort from Huawei. Maybe it has started to get comfortable after achieving the title of “the number 3 top smartphone manufacturer in the world.”

The many similarities with the previous Huawei P9, with marginal advancements only in the chipset and camera, make me recommend that one year old phone over this new one. The Huawei P9 from 2016 has now become much cheaper and yet offers almost 80% of the features the new Huawei P10 has.

The Huawei P10 will go on sale towards the end of March at the cost of KES 70,500 (€650). In contrast, the Huawei P9 from last year goes for KES 46,550 at Jumia, and it is even cheaper at Avechi, KES 42,000, that is over 40% savings for over 80% of the tech.