A great phone that didn’t get that much attention – Huawei Honor 9

Honor is a smartphone sub-brand of the giant phone manufacturer Huawei. The Honor brand wants to bring a lot of value to the smartphone market but at affordable prices.

The Honor 9 is the replacement for last year’s Honor 8 and it’s trying to find a spot in the already crowded mid-range smartphone market.

Build Quality

Juat like the Honor 8 the 9 is made out of glass on the front and on the back and it has a thin aluminium frame in the middle. The rear glass looks very different than any other phone on the market. It reflects light in a different way and makes the phone look absolutely gorgeous.

The two rear cameras are also flush with the body and they make the phone look very slick.As beautiful as the Honor 9 looks with that shiny glass on the front and back it is very slippery and prone to getting scratched.

Luckily there is a case that comes in the box with it but as soon as you cover it up it doesn’t look that nice anymore.

On the front there is a 5.15″ LTPS IPS screen with a 1080P resolution that has great and vibrant colours and excellent viewing angles.

The screen’s maximum brightness is good as well and it allows for the screen to be seen in direct sunlight.

I am not a big fan of the bezels around the screen and i would have preferred to see something a bit different and on par with a lot other phones from 2017 where the bezels have somewhat shrunk.

The home button acts as a fingerprint scanner as well and it’s extremely quick. It’s possible that it is the quickest fingerprint scanner that i tried in the past year.

On top of having all that the phone has a built in IR Blaster as well. The phone can be easily turn into a remote control and it can control your TV or any IR enabled device in your home.

You can find the Honor 9 at the following retailers:

Geekbuying: http://geni.us/EK4fla

Gearbest: http://bit.ly/2yOuz1M

Amazon: http://geni.us/r0qO

Battery Life

First of all the phone has a USB C port and it supports fast charging. A fast charger is provided in the box and it takes about an hour and a half to fully charge it.

The 3200mAh battery will make it through an entire day easily and it will get somewhere around 7 hours of screen on time.

Like any gadget out there that will depend how exactly it’s being used and some may be able to get even more than 7 hours.

Specs & Performance

The Honor 9 is powered by a somewhat older Octa-core CPU, the Kirin 960. That CPU is paired with 4 or 6GB of Ram and 64 or 128GB of internal storage. The internal storage can also be expanded with an SD card. The phone can take either two sim cards or a sim card and an SD card.

Even though that isn’t the newest CPU out there it easily outperforms the Snapdragon 821. On the Antutu Benchmark it scores over 140000 and that is an exceptional score.

No matter what you throw at it it will perform well. From games to listening to music and to just browsing the Internet it just works without any lag at all. That hs to do with the great software optimization and of course with the fluid and light Android 7.0 that’s running on it.

Cameras

The front facing camera is a 8MP F2.0 sensor that performs decent even in low light. There is also a software generated portrait mode but the edge detection isn’t the greatest.

I have included sample pictures in the full review video and you can find that below.

On the back of the Honor 9 there is a 12MP F2.2 wide angle lens and a 20MP monochrome sensor.

That means that you can take monochrome pictures and also those cool bokeh effect pictures that can be achieved with any DSLR camera.

95% of the pictures that you will take with the rear cameras will turn out great no matter if you have plenty of light or just a bit of light. Once again i have included a lot of sample pictures in the video review that is posted below.

The Honor 9 can also record video in 4K but unfortunately there is no image stabilization at that resolution. The image stabilization works only for 1080P at 30fps and below. With that being said, your videos may look a bit shaky if you choose to record in 4K.

Overall the camera experience offered by this phone is equal with what you would get from a much more expensive device like the Samsung Galaxy S8 or LG G6.

Software

On top of Android 7.0 we hve Huawei’s own skin called EMUI and personally i am not a big fan of it. Of course it offers a lot of customization but i feel that the skin doesn’t exactly match the beauty of the phone.

Something closer to stock Android would have been much more appropriate in my opinion. That can be achieved by installing a different launcher like Nova Launcher.

With that installed you will rapidly forget about EMUI. On the other side, if you are a fan of the iPhone you may find that EMUI is like a combination between Android and iOS and you may actually like it.

You know how it is, there is always something for everyone.

Conclusion

The Huawei Honor 9 is a great phone that isn’t going to break the bank and it offers 95% of the features and performance of a flagship device that costs twice as much. It has great cameras and great overall performance.

In my opinion you will not be disappointed by the Honor 9.

Check out the full video review below for more detailed information.

*Affiliate Disclosure
Some of the links used in the description will direct you to Amazon, as an Amazon Associate I earn commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.