Everyone loves a deal, and the Honor 9 smartphone is exactly that. It does everything phones costing $150 more can do, while looking as good, if not better than most. The Honor 9 is Honor outdoing OnePlus, a company that’s a master in offering an affordable phone with high-end specifications. In our Honor 9 review, we explain how it manages this feat.
Design
It’s the wonderfully crafted 3D glass rear that defines the Honor 9’s look. Created using 15 layers of glass, a thermal bending process, and intricate nano textures in a mold that’s replaced every 500 uses; the glassy, reflective panel captures light in a magnificent eye-catching way you’ll never get bored of seeing. Yes, it attracts fingerprints in the same way it catches light, and it’s sure to smash if you drop it on a hard surface. But it doesn’t matter, it’s beautiful.
The 7.5mm thick body holds a 5.1-inch screen, and weighs 155 grams, making it compact and comfortable to hold in one hand. The fingerprint sensor is below the screen, and it’s the worst part of the design as you have to shift the phone’s position to use it, not good with a slippery phone. We would have preferred a rear sensor. On the back are two camera lenses, which have the Gorilla Glass 3 panel, just like on the Honor 9’s close cousin, the Huawei P10. It’s neat and attractive.
A 3.5mm headphone jack is on the phone’s base, along with a speaker and the USB Type-C charging port. On the side is the sleep/wake key and volume controls. It’s here where you see the differences between the Honor 9 and more expensive devices. The OnePlus 5 and the Huawei P10 have textured sleep/wake keys to make them easier to find without looking; but it’s smooth on the Honor 9. Not a big deal, but the differences are there. It’s also a bit heavier and thicker than the P10, but not by margins you’d really notice.
The Honor 9 is phone design done right, except for one thing. It has a mind of its own, and will for seemingly no reason slide off even the flattest, most level surfaces. Please, put the Honor 9 in a case, otherwise its slippery nature will see it crash to the floor when you least expect it.
Camera
The Honor 9 has a dual-lens camera similar in ability to the one on Huawei phones and the Nokia 8, with a 12-megapixel color lens and a 20-megapixel monochrome lens. Used together they create detailed images, letting you access 2x optical zoom for close up shots, and they can produce a blurred background for portraits (like on the iPhone 8 Plus). The difference between the Honor 9 and the Huawei P10 is the lack of Leica lenses and camera tuning.
We like the Huawei P10’s camera, and feel the same about the Honor 9. It’s a camera you’ll want to use, and it takes fabulous pictures. The interface is fast, the shutter release acts instantly, and the software suite for editing is comprehensive and easy to use. Slide in the menu tray from the side and there are various modes to select, including a manual mode, panorama, HDR, night shot, light painting, and our personal favourite: Monochrome.
If all you’ve used are monochrome filters, then the dedicated monochrome lens will be a revelation. The detail it reproduces is stunning, adding mood and drama to otherwise normal pictures. The wide aperture mode to blur out backgrounds is also effective, and the focal point can be changed after you’ve taken the picture. It’s good at recognizing edges, and isolating what you want to focus on from the background, but not perfect. The images it creates are great for sharing online.
Portrait mode, used for taking great pictures of people, is excellent. It goes a step beyond a beauty mode by adding a bokeh effect to pictures of people, enhancing them with a beauty effect. It operates on both the front and the rear camera, so it’s perfect for selfie fans. The Beauty mode can look a bit weird though, as it really changes the way you look, from smoothing out skin to brightening and enlarging eyes.
Put all these things together, and you’ve got a camera you want to use. The Honor 9 encourages you to go out and experiment with photography. This is a great camera, with a coherent interface, and sensibly thought out features. Downsides? There’s no optical image stabilization, which makes low-light shots look poor unless you use a tripod.
Specs
Inside the Honor 9 you can find a Kirin 960 octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM, which is the same setup as the Huawei P10. The operating system is Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei’s EMUI 5.1 interface over the top. Huawei and Honor both share certain technology, like the processor and software, but as mentioned earlier Honor is a subsidiary of Huawei, and it should be treated as a separate company targeting younger, tech-savvy buyers.
The EMUI 5.1 interface is different to stock Android. You can add an app drawer, but it’s disabled as standard, there are alterations to app icons and the notification shade, plus a few tweaks to the settings menu. A selection of pre-installed apps are there, but can be deleted. It’s way better than it used to be, and Huawei has made a concerted effort to speed things up, not just in the amount of taps it takes to reach a function, but also in the way the operating system optimizes itself over time. In other words, it’ll remain speedy even after many months of use.
The battery has a 3,200mAh capacity and supports fast charging, adding 40-percent in just 30 minutes. To get this performance, you will have to use the included Honor charger. The battery can last well enough a day, but not two, unfortunately. You’ll have to charge the phone daily if you want it to last continuously.
The 5.1-inch LCD screen has a 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution. It’s bright, sharp, and videos look excellent. The standard speaker is good too, and we enjoyed watching several TV show episodes on the phone, despite its small size. Don’t be angry because the Honor 9 doesn’t have a higher resolution, it wouldn’t make much difference on a screen this size.
All in all, the phone is worth buying… if you live in Europe. If you are in U.S. we don’t think is worth importing one because it only supports 3G. For a conclusion, the Honor 9 might be better than devices more expensive than this one, with the added bonus of being really good-looking, and pleasurable to use.
