The Huawei P9 Plus is powered by the latest in-house developed Kirin 955 chipset, the same one behind the Huawei P9.
The Kirin 955 employs an octa-core processor with four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at up to 2.5GHz and four A53 cores ticking at up to 1.8GHz. The GPU is again a quad-core Mali-T880 MP4.
The P9 Plus model comes with 4GB of RAM by default, unlike the Huawei P9 where you had to pay extra for more storage and RAM.
We already know what to expect from the Kirin 955, but we are always in for surprise, if they are good ones. So, shall we start?
We kick off our benchmark routine with the GeekBench CPU test. The performance of a single A72 core is rather uninspiring compared to the Snapdragon 820's Kryo within the OnePlus 3 and the LG G5, nor does it come close to the Apple's Twister CPU.
Higher is better
But don't forget we have four of those A72 cores, and another quartet of lesser A53, but they are the ones to eventually make the difference. And they did - the Huawei P9 Plus outed the best score so far in the multi-core chart. The P9 Plus CPU is about as capable as the Galaxy S7 edge' Exynos.
Higher is better
The compound AnTuTu 6 test ended up with a rather mediocre score despite of the fat processor and 4 gigs of RAM. That's probably due to the lower-grade GPU, but we'll talk about that in a minute.
Higher is better
The BaseMark OS 2.0 test paints a slightly different picture, because in addition to CPU, GPU, RAM, and UX, it also gauges web and storage performance, plus overall OS behavior. Here the Huawei P9 Plus scored an excellent mark and is on par with the Galaxy S7 edge and very close to the iPhone 6s Plus.
Higher is better
It's the graphics department where Kirins are often not quite up to par, and seeing that nothing's changed over the Mate 8 and P9 in this respect, benchmark results are very much the same. While the Kirin 955, same as Helio X25 (Meizu Pro 6), uses Mali-T880 MP4 (4-core) graphics, the flagship Galaxy S7's Exynos utilizes Mali-T880 MP12 (12-core graphics), hence the big difference.
Qualcomm's Adreno 530 within the OnePlus 3 and Vivo Xplay5 Elite are the best, though.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Huawei P9 Plus runs on 1080p resolution, which gives it an edge over the Quad HD Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, which cuts the gap short and makes more sense for Huawei not to opt for the best GPU on the market. The Adreno 530, Quad HD (Vivo) or not (OnePlus 3), is still on top.
Higher is better
Higher is better
BaseMark X GPU test clearly shows the superiority of Galaxy S7 edge and OnePlus 3.
Higher is better
The newest Kirin SoC won't be catching up with Qualcomm and Samsung anytime soon, as this is not its purpose. Huawei has always pursued consistent performance over chart-topping benchmark results, and there is nothing bad with that.
But the facts can't be ignored - the Huawei P9 Plus, just like the P9, begins to experience tiny, but noticeable lag once you fill its homescreens with apps. App switching isn't smooth either, especially if you are swapping heavy apps. There are also some unexplained stutters which occur in both light and heavy-duty games. It might be the GPU, or may be poor handling of resources.
Anyway, as a flagship-priced smartphone the Huawei P9 Plus has to be judged as such. And its performance is not a flagship one. Yes, it's smooth most of the time and handles things properly, but some lag here and there, and mysterious stutter in apps, even though rare, will ruin the flagship feeling quite fast. The P9 Plus definitely deserved better.
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