If you’re looking to enjoy the fabulous features of a flagship smartphone but not ready to spend a fortune, Honor 9 is surely a device that won’t dishearten you. And that too at a much lower price. Though it doesn’t boast of any unique feature, its awesome design, superb performance and finer touches make it a great and affordable phone. Let’s take a detailed view on the device below.
Design
On design front, it looks very much similar to Honor 8 and this sounds good. Its design makes it a premium phone in comparison to the price. The dual glass panel is something that gives it a high-end feel.
The front and rear 3D glass panels curve down to complement the sandblasted metal frame. Grabbing the phone is feasible if you get it through frame, however if you are using more on the back panel, then it can get a bit slippery. A plastic bumper/case is included in the box foran add on extra layer of protection.
Display
Honor 9 boasts of a full HD 5.15inch display and can easily accommodate the 1,920×1,080 resolution. With 454 nits if brightness, the device features great brightness that makes it easy to use in day light conditions.
You can also choose to modify the color temperature of the display in the Settings menu to be a little warmer or cooler to better suit your preferences, but the default settings were just enough.
However, a downside is that device doesn’t come with a toughened glass that may discourage some users.
Hardware and performance
The Honor 9 is powered by Kirin 960 SoC. It is the same SoC integrated in the Huawei Mate 9 and the Huawei P10. It is an octa-core CPU configuration with four Cortex-A73 cores, clocked at 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The chip also features a Mali-G71 MP8 GPU.
The device comes with internal storage options ranging from 64GB to 128GB.
In terms of performance, the Honor 9 bagged 1868 on Geekbench’s single-core test and 6392 for the multi-core test. Overall, its performance is satisfactory and outperforms many other devices in the same price bracket.
Software
The Honor 9 is driven by Android 7.0 out of the box, complete with Huawei’s Emotion UI 5.1. The overall look and feel is very much similar to Stock Android with Huawei’s own launcher and a revised settings page. Moreover, there are various other features available such as motion gestures, a floating dock, voice control, a one-handed mode and Huawei’s own take on the “do not disturb” mode.
Camera
It is surely one of the greatest features of the device. The camera comes with a dual sensor setup, with a 20 MP monochrome lens and a 12 MP RGB lens. This configuration makes it a winner in low light conditions. In fact, there is a night shot option, this is of great help if you wish to shoot during night.
By using light painting mode, one can easily capture light trails created by things such as moving cars, or the stars in the sky. The overall setting can be really impressive, but does require very stable hands, or a tripod mount, to get the shot to look the way you might want it.
