Huawei Partners with Leica on Dual Lens Smartphones

It looks like the upcoming iPhone 7 Plus from Apple won’t be the only smartphone to boast a dual lens camera setup. In fact, Apple has already been beaten to the punch, because Huawei has announced a pair of flagship smartphones — the 5.2-inch Huawei P9 and the 5.5-inch Huawei P9 Plus — that both come equipped with dual lenses on the back. And they’ve “co-engineered” this feature with Leica. Yes, that Leica.

This isn’t to say that you are necessarily getting Leica optics and glass on the back of these Huawei smartphones. The language they use has been very carefully chosen and given just how expensive Leica gear for “regular” cameras normally is, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Huawei only asked for Leica’s engineering expertise and not necessarily actual Leica product.

Unlike the 3D effects from LG’s dual lens smartphones from a few years back, the Huawei dual lens smartphones are designed to provide enhanced photography performance. You get the different Leica film modes, which are basically filter effects. You can refocus after the fact, similar to the RealSense Snapshot Depth Camera on the Dell Venue 8 7000 series. You can have your fun with “professional bokeh” through the dual 12-megapixel shooters.

Huawei goes on to say how this setup will allow for a wider aperture mode for more light, which would allow for better low-light performance. And then there’s Leica Classic Colours on the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus to “capture lifelike and warmer colours.” The long and the short of it is that your smartphone pictures will be better.

Beyond the camera tricks, the new smartphones get USB-C, fingerprint readers, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 64GB of storage, and a sizable 3,000 mAh battery. Pricing ranges from 599 Euro for the 32GB/3GB Huawei P9 up to 749 Euro for the 64GB/4GB Huawei P9 Plus.

Via TC