Huawei P10, P10 Plus to hit SA next month, pricing in tow

The Huawei P10 and P10 Plus will launch in South Africa next month, the manufacturer announced this week. The news comes after Huawei originally said that South Africa was one of the first-wave countries for the device.

“The Huawei P10 and P10 Plus smartphone will arrive on South Africa shores in May,” the company revealed, without giving a specific launch date for the new handsets. However, it noted that preorders start “early” this month.

In response to an email query from Gearburn, the company’s local representatives said the devices would cost R12 999 and R13 999 respectively.

Its latest phones feature powerful Kirin 960 chips, as well as a similar dual-camera setup to the well-received Mate 9 (review). So that means a 12MP colour camera with optical image stabilisation and a 20MP monochrome camera.

Much like the Mate 9, the P10 can spit out 20MP colour photos (despite the colour camera being 12MP), 4K video recording and 2x “hybrid zoom”.

The Huawei P10 and P10 Plus will launch locally next month, joining Samsung in having a May launch date

However, Huawei has also brought an Apple-inspired Portrait Mode to the P10 range, delivering portraits with a pleasant depth-of-field effect. Of course, Portrait Mode differs from the usual wide aperture mode in that you can’t adjust the depth of field effect. Additionally, the P10 uses 3D facial detection for its Portrait Mode shots.

But Huawei’s take differs from Apple’s by offering monochrome portrait shots as well as a Portrait Mode of sorts for the selfie camera.

Otherwise, you’ve got a 1080p display and 3200mAh battery on the P10, with the P10 Plus featuring a 2560×1440 display and 3750mAh battery. The P10 Plus also sees larger f/1.8 apertures on both cameras, as opposed to f/2.2 on the standard P10 — expect the larger model to do better in low light then.

The news comes as LG launches its G6 on 7 April, while Samsung’s Galaxy S8 sees a 5 May release date.

We’ve enquired about an exact release date, but Huawei’s local representatives told Gearburn that the devices would be launched in “early May”.