One of the keystone features of Huawei’s P9 smartphone is its dual-camera system. Huawei pushed hard to market the photography aspect of the camera, claiming it was going to “change smartphone photography forever.”
In our own experience with the P9, Digital Trends writer Andy Boxall said the cameras inside the P9 — which were co-developed with Leica — were some of the “finest we’ve used on any smartphone.” And the photos he shared backed up this statement.
So you would think that Huawei would have no need to falsify information and inaccurately portray the capabilities of the P9’s camera system. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Back on March 8, 2016, Huawei shared a post on its Google Plus page that has since been deleted. In it, the Chinese manufacturer shared an example photo with text that implied the image was captured with the P9 smartphone.
As inspiring as the text might have sounded, the data behind the image didn’t seem to line up with it. As the EXIF data tools built into Google Plus showed, the photograph was instead taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera with an EF 70–200mm f/2.8L IS II lens attached; a $4,500 setup that’s a far cry from the P9 and its Leica-branded camera system.
Technically, Huawei never explicitly stated that the image was captured with its P9 smartphone. But it does seem highly irresponsible to word the caption in a manner that implied it was.
In speaking to Android Police, Huawei admitted to the misrepresentation and apologized, saying, “The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image.”
We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this was an honest mistake or deceptive marketing.
