Comparison Review: TECNO Phantom 9 vs Huawei Y9 Prime 2019

The under 25K price category for smartphones is a very competitive slot that the TECNO Phantom 9 and the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 are fighting for but which device brings more value for your money?

In this comparison review, we pitted these two phones against each other, one TECNO’s latest flagship and the other, Huawei’s latest device in the Y Series.

Here’s what they pack respectively:

TECNO Phantom 9 vs Huawei Y9 Prime 2019

Design

Both phones pack interesting designs, especially at their price points. The TECNO Phantom 9 comes in Lapland Aurora that boasts a purple-blue colour gradient while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 comes in various colours such as Midnight Black, Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green. The back rocks a dual-tone finish. 

Both will attract attention wherever you go especially if you prefer going without a case. The back slippery and a magnet for fingerprint smudges and the occasional hairline scratches.

In terms of usage and feel in the hand, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is much slimmer and thus more comfortable to use despite its relatively tall size when compared to the Phantom 9. However, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is a little heavier.

The TECNO Phantom 9 packs an in-display fingerprint scanner and being first-gen like other in-display fingerprint scanners, it gets finicky sometimes and I prefered the rear fingerprint scanner on the Y9 that was relatively faster.

Both phones win at design and you won’t be disappointed with either.

Display

The TECNO Phantom 9 comes with a 6.4″ HD(2340 x 1080) AMOLED display while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 features a 6.59″ HD(2340 x 1080) LCD display. You get view display with the latter as there are no notches unlike the Phantom 9 that features a teardrop notch that houses 32MP selfie camera. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 rocks 16MP selfie camera that uses a pop-up mechanism to give you a relatively larger screen real estate.

Both displays deliver in terms of viewing multimedia content from binging Movies, TV Shows, YouTube Videos, scrolling through Instagram, Twitter or Facebook to browsing the web. Colours are relatively more vibrant on the TECNO Phantom 9 display when compared to the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019.

Each display has its own strengths and weaknesses. With the Phantom 9, you get better viewing angles and deeper blacks while with the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019, you get very high colour accuracy.

You won’t go wrong with any phone in terms of display but that notch-less display on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is one I preferred. You are going to spend a lot of your time on your phone using that screen and that uninterrupted viewing is nice to look at.

Software Performance

This is where paths start to diverge. TECNO Phantom 9 comes with HiOS v5.0 on top of Android 9.0 (Pie) while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 comes with EMUI 9.1 on top of Android 9 Pie. Under the hood, you get a MediaTek MT6765 Helio P35 processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage on the Phantom 9 while the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 features a Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. You can expand the storage on both phones.

In terms of performance, both phones held their own but the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 did way better from light, moderate and heavy usage which sometimes left the Phantom 9 behind. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 uses the same processor like the one found on the Huawei P30 lite while the Phantom 9 uses a relatively older processor that slags behind especially when you start gaming on both phones. Some games you could only play on low and medium settings on the Phantom 9 whereas you could play games on higher settings on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019.

With the Phantom 9, I could only play Asphalt 9: Legends on lower frame rates while the Huawei handled the game pretty well on high frame rates. The same results are replicated on PUBG Mobile.

The experience on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is much better as you can use the phone without a third-party launcher as there’s minimum bloatware. On the Phantom 9, expect to see pop up ads from bloatware apps on the phone. Luckily, you can choose to uninstall them.

Both phones will handle day to day tasks well but if you are a heavy multitasker and keep switching between five or more apps, you are better suited to pick the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 – that assurance of not having to worry of apps restarting when you go back to use them will give you peace of mind.

Camera

Both phones rock AI-powered triple rear cameras and selfie camera. The TECNO Phantom 9 features an f/1.8 16MP primary sensor with night algorithm 2.0, an 8MP ultrawide(120 degrees) f/2.4 sensor and a 2MP depth sensor with Super Quad Flash. On the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019, you get 16MP(f/1.8) main, an 8MP(f/2.4) wide-angle shooter with 120 degrees FOV and 2MP(f/2.4) depth sensor units.

For the front-facing cameras, the Phantom 9 rocks a 32MP selfie camera housed at the notch. At the top bezel, there are two soft LED flashes on both the left and right sides of the camera to take selfies in lowlight. the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has a pop-up selfie camera that is motorized and features a 16MP lens. Huawei assures users that they’ve tested the motorized system and put it over 100,000 repeated pop-ups.

Here are some shots taken on the phones put against each other in various modes. Click to expand.

Selfies

On the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019, beauty mode comes by default

Selfie Portraits

Generally the TECNO Phantom 9 wins at selfies including portraits, so if you into selfies, the TECNO Phantom 9 is the best choice of the phone to go with.

Regular shots

Most of these photos were shot on an overcast day and turned out pretty well.

Wide-angle shots

Portraits

Low Light Shots

Both phones struggle with low light settings. However, in some shots, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 does a little better and with the added night mode, shots turn out amazing.

Low light selfies

Both phones struggle with selfies on lowlight settings.

Generally, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is more adaptable to whatever light setting you put it up against. Also, the colours are more accurate.

Battery Life

The TECNO Phantom 9 and the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 pack huge batteries – 3500mAh and 4000mAh respectively. Both will serve you well and give a full day of battery life.

It is worth noting that the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 charges via a Type C USB port while the TECNO Phantom 9 charges using a micro-USB port.

However, having a bigger battery is always better as you don’t have to worry about whether your phone will die on you even after heavy usage. Both phones come with battery management options to make them last longer but I would pick the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 over the TECNO Phantom 9.

Connectivity

The TECNO Phantom 9 and the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 are both dual SIM and support 4G VoLTE but only the former supports Faiba 4G Network.

So which should you pick?

The TECNO Phantom 9 and the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 are both competitively priced devices but when it comes to picking your next device, it all comes down to what device offers me the most value for the money I’m willing to pay. The TECNO Phantom 9 puts up a good fight but there are way too many features the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 gives you from that full view display, excellent overall camera performance, software experience, battery life and general day to day usage.

Both the TECNO Phantom 9 and the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 start selling at Ksh 23,499 online and in TECNO’s and Huawei’s branded retail shops respectively.

LipaLater offers financing options for the TECNO Phantom 9 that start from as low as Ksh. 2,730 per month. They also allow you to trade-in either a Tecno Camon, Spark or your previous Phantom phone to get the New Tecno Phantom 9.

LipaLater also offers financing options for the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 too.