The Huawei P9 was an excellent performer in our review of the device, especially for a RM2,099 smartphone. However, Huawei is recently under fire for implying that the picture above was taken with the Huawei P9. Unfortunately for the Chinese company, this simply isn’t true.
This blunder was first spotted by the folks over at Android Police. Apparently, the particularly impressive-looking image above was posted on Huawei’s Google+ page, and unlike other social media sites such as Facebook, Google+ retains the EXIF metadata of images posted onto the site. Basically, it’s entirely possible – and relatively painless – to figure out the exact camera that took a particular photo if its EXIF metadata is available.
Image source: The Verge
The result? Well, not only was the picture not taken with a Huawei P9, it wasn’t even shot with a smartphone: it was snapped with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, which goes for RM12,099 in Malaysia – that’s only for the body of the camera. The lens that was used with the camera – an EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens – costs an additional RM10,199. All in all, the image was shot with a RM22,298 setup.
While Huawei did not exactly claim that the image was taken with the Huawei P9, the implied message was definitely clear. Here is Huawei’s caption of the image, which has since been taken down from Google+:
“We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The #HuaweiP9’s dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photography and share your sunrise pictures with us. #OO”
Naturally, Huawei has responded to this issue. According to the company, the photo “was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert.” Huawei also mentioned that it should have been clearer with the caption for the image. “It was never our intention to mislead. We apologise for this and we have removed the image,” Huawei added.
This isn’t the first time a company has done something similar. Back in 2012, Nokia was called out for posting a misleading video demonstrating the video recording capability of the Lumia 920; even the authenticity of the device’s still images was questioned, which was unfortunate.
The Huawei P9 is most definitely a capable shooter, but it goes without saying it won’t match a DSLR camera – no smartphone can, and down to the laws of physics that no software can overcome (yet).
(Source: Android Police)
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