Honor 9 Review

• Overview
• Design and Build Quality
• Display
• Performance
• Software and User Interface
• Camera
• Battery Life
• Connectivity and Networking
• Additional Features
• Comparison with Other Related Phones
• Pros and Cons
• Conclusion

Overview

The Honor 9 is a sleek and stylish smartphone that offers high-end features at an affordable price. With its dual glass panel design and reflective patterns, it exudes a premium feel. The 5.15-inch Full HD display provides sharp and vibrant visuals, while the powerful Kirin 960 chipset and 6GB of RAM ensure smooth performance. The dual-lens camera system captures stunning photos with its 20MP + 20MP sensors, and the 3,200mAh battery keeps you going all day. Priced at £379.99, the Honor 9 is a great value for money option. With its impressive specifications and attractive design, it's definitely worth considering.

Design and Build Quality

The Honor 9 boasts a sleek and stylish design that gives it a premium look and feel. With its dual glass panel construction, the phone exudes elegance and sophistication. The rear glass panel features a unique light-refracting composition that creates eye-catching reflective patterns. While the glass back adds a touch of sophistication, it can be a fingerprint magnet.

The phone's form factor and dimensions make it comfortable to hold and easy to fit into a pocket. The weight of the device is well-balanced and provides a solid grip. The placement of the buttons and controls, such as the power and volume buttons, on the right edge of the phone, is convenient and easy to reach.

The Honor 9's construction and build quality are commendable, giving it a robust and sturdy feel. The frame and bezels surrounding the display are well-finished and add to the overall aesthetics of the phone. The inclusion of a plastic bumper/case in the package ensures added protection against accidental drops.

In terms of ergonomics, the Honor 9 excels in one-handed usability. The phone's sleek design and manageable size allow for comfortable navigation and operation with a single hand. The phone's design elements, such as the integrated fingerprint reader on the home button, further enhance the overall user experience.

Overall, the Honor 9's design and build showcase a combination of aesthetics, premium materials, and attention to detail. While the glass back may attract fingerprints, the phone's sleek design, robust construction, and ergonomic features make it a desirable choice for those seeking a stylish and functional device.

Display

The Honor 9 features a 5.15-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The LCD technology used in the screen provides good color accuracy and vibrancy, delivering sharp and vibrant visuals. The display offers decent brightness levels, making it suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, although it may struggle a bit in direct sunlight. The Honor 9 also supports Assertive Display, a feature that enhances viewability in bright light without increasing brightness. The screen has a pixel density of 428 pixels per inch, ensuring crisp and detailed images. The viewing angles are wide, allowing for comfortable viewing from different positions. While the Honor 9 lacks any specific display protection technology like Gorilla Glass, it is advisable to use a screen protector to prevent scratches. The device does not feature a notch design and has moderately sized bezels. Overall, the Honor 9's display offers a satisfying viewing experience with its vibrant colors, good brightness levels, and sharp resolution.

Performance

The performance of the Honor 9 is impressive, thanks to its powerful chipset and efficient GPU. The octa-core Kirin 960 chipset ensures smooth multitasking and lag-free performance. With its CPU benchmarks, the Honor 9 delivers excellent processing power, allowing for seamless app loading speeds and a smooth user experience. The GPU benchmarks also showcase the phone's gaming capabilities, providing high graphics scores and ensuring an immersive gaming experience.

The Honor 9's system optimization and thermal management contribute to its excellent performance. The phone efficiently manages its resources, resulting in efficient processor performance and GPU efficiency. This is evident in the benchmark tests, where the Honor 9 consistently delivers impressive benchmark scores.

The Honor 9's performance metrics highlight its processor efficiency and overall performance. Whether it's running multiple apps simultaneously or handling resource-intensive tasks, the phone handles them with ease. The Honor 9's smooth performance is further enhanced by its system optimization, ensuring a seamless user experience.

The gaming benchmarks of the Honor 9 demonstrate its gaming prowess. The phone can handle graphically demanding games with ease, providing a smooth gaming experience. The GPU efficiency of the Honor 9 ensures that games run flawlessly, with no lag or frame rate drops.

In conclusion, the Honor 9 excels in terms of performance. Its chipset performance, GPU benchmarks, and gaming capabilities make it a top choice for gamers and power users. The phone's smooth user experience, efficient processor performance, and impressive benchmark scores make it a reliable and high-performing device. Whether it's multitasking, gaming, or everyday usage, the Honor 9 delivers exceptional performance.

Software and User Interface

The Honor 9 runs on the Android operating system, specifically Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei's EMUI 5.1 interface on top. The EMUI interface offers a few customization options, allowing users to personalize their device according to their preferences. The software provides a smooth and user-friendly experience, with a clean interface and intuitive navigation.

The Honor 9 comes with a few pre-installed apps, including some from Huawei and Honor. While these apps may take up some storage space, they can be uninstalled or disabled if desired. Some users may find these pre-installed apps useful, while others may consider them bloatware. However, overall, the software on the Honor 9 is relatively lightweight and does not heavily impact the device's performance.

The EMUI interface provides additional features and optimizations, such as gesture controls and power-saving modes. These features enhance the overall user experience and allow for better control over the device's functionality.

In conclusion, the software on the Honor 9 offers a user-friendly interface with some customization options. While it comes with a few pre-installed apps, they can be easily removed or disabled. The EMUI interface provides additional features that enhance the device's functionality and performance. Overall, the software on the Honor 9 is reliable and offers a smooth user experience.

Camera

The Honor 9 boasts a dual-lens rear camera setup, featuring a 20MP monochrome sensor and a 12MP RGB sensor. This combination allows for impressive image quality, whether you're capturing photos in daylight or low-light conditions. The camera produces sharp and detailed images with good dynamic range and natural colors. In low-light situations, the Honor 9 performs well, thanks to its low-light sensitivity and noise reduction capabilities. The night mode further enhances low-light photography, allowing you to capture stunning shots even in dimly lit environments. With its wide aperture mode, you can create beautiful portraits with a blurred background effect, adding a professional touch to your photos. The camera also supports HDR and panorama modes, offering more versatility in capturing landscapes and scenes with high contrast. For those who enjoy video recording, the Honor 9 can shoot 4K videos with good stabilization. Additionally, it supports slow-motion video and time-lapse, allowing you to unleash your creativity. Overall, the camera features of the Honor 9 provide a satisfying photography experience, delivering high-quality images and videos in various settings.

Battery Life

The Honor 9 comes with a 3,200mAh battery, which is slightly larger than its predecessor, the Honor 8. The battery life of the Honor 9 is better than average and can easily last a full day with moderate usage. However, using the phone on full brightness can drain the battery quickly, so it is recommended to use the auto brightness mode to optimize battery usage. The Honor 9 supports fast charging, allowing the phone to be charged from zero to 100% in around two hours. Unfortunately, the phone does not support wireless charging, despite having a glass back. Overall, the Honor 9 offers decent battery performance and optimization features, making it a reliable choice for users who prioritize battery life.

Connectivity and Networking

The Honor 9 offers a wide range of connectivity options to keep you connected wherever you go. It supports 4G LTE network compatibility, allowing for fast data speeds and seamless browsing. With its dual SIM capability, you can easily switch between two different numbers or plans.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the Honor 9 features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. It supports the latest Wi-Fi standards, ensuring a stable and fast internet connection. The Bluetooth version is not specified, but it is expected to be a recent version, allowing for easy pairing with other devices.

The Honor 9 also includes NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, which enables quick and convenient wireless connections for tasks such as mobile payments or transferring files between devices.

For physical connectivity, the Honor 9 uses a USB-C port, which offers faster data transfer speeds and more convenience for charging and connecting to other devices. However, it is important to note that the Honor 9 does not support wireless charging.

In terms of navigation, the Honor 9 comes equipped with GPS, allowing for accurate positioning and location tracking. This is especially useful when using navigation apps or finding your way in unfamiliar places.

Overall, the Honor 9 provides a comprehensive range of connectivity options, ensuring that you can stay connected and enjoy a seamless mobile experience.

Additional Features

Comparison with Other Related Phones

In the highly competitive market of smartphones, the Honor 9 stands out as an affordable option that offers a range of features comparable to higher-end devices. Let's take a closer look at how it stacks up against some of its competitors.

In terms of design, the Honor 9 boasts a sleek dual-glass panel design, similar to the iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy S9. The glass back creates reflective patterns, giving it a premium feel. However, unlike its competitors, the Honor 9 lacks toughened glass for display protection.

When it comes to display, the Honor 9 sports a 5.15-inch Full HD screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, offering a decent 428 pixels per inch. While it may not compete with the edge-to-edge displays found on flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S9 or the iPhone X, it still provides a sharp and bright viewing experience.

In terms of performance, the Honor 9 is equipped with a HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor, which is comparable to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 found in phones like the Google Pixel 2. It also offers either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage, similar to other mid-range devices like the OnePlus 5T.

One area where the Honor 9 shines is its camera capabilities. With a dual-lens 20MP + 20MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera, it offers great image quality and various modes, such as wide aperture mode, for artistic shots. However, it lacks optical image stabilization found in higher-end devices, which may affect low-light photography.

When it comes to battery life, the Honor 9 features a 3,200mAh battery that can easily last a full day, similar to phones like the OnePlus 5. It also supports fast charging, allowing it to charge from zero to 100% in around two hours.

In terms of pricing, the Honor 9 is significantly cheaper than flagship phones from other brands, priced at around £379.99 in the UK. This makes it a compelling option for those looking for a budget-friendly device without compromising on performance and features.

Overall, the Honor 9 offers a compelling package with its sleek design, decent display, powerful performance, impressive camera capabilities, and affordable price. While it may not have the same level of innovation as higher-end devices, it provides excellent value for money in a highly competitive market.

Pros and Cons

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Honor 9 offers a solid package of features at an affordable price point. While it may not have any groundbreaking innovations, it delivers reliable performance, a sleek design, and a capable camera. The phone's battery life is above average, and it supports fast charging for convenient power-ups. The display provides sharp visuals, and the fingerprint sensor is quick and accurate. However, some drawbacks include the lack of optical image stabilization and the absence of toughened glass for display protection. Overall, the Honor 9 is a great option for those seeking a budget-friendly smartphone without compromising on performance or style.