The trade war between the US and China largely affects technology companies. Huawei, one of the biggest Chinese firms, has been in the center of the trade war and is banned from using U.S. technologies, including Google's apps and services, which are always a part of any Android smartphone. Honor, the sub-brand of Huawei is also inevitably involved. Honor 9X was one of the few smartphones that weren’t affected by the ban and still came with Google apps and services. 

With a listed price of Rs. 13,999, Honor 9X will be under no small pressure when this segment has many strong competitors. Will the strengths of Honor 9X help this product attract users’ attention? Check out our Honor 9X review for more details.

Display

The Honor 9X sports a 6.6-inch LTPS IPS LCD panel, featuring Full HD + resolution (1080 x 2340 pixels), 19.5: 9 aspect ratio and has a pixel density of 391 ppi. In addition to the full-screen design that provides spacious display space, the quality of the on-screen display of Honor 9X has also improved significantly compared to Honor 8X. 

Colors on the screen look much more vivid than that of its predecessor. The viewing angle of the screen is wide, almost no color changes when viewed from different angles. However, the maximum brightness on the Honor 9X's screen is not really high, so the device is only sufficient to see clearly when used outdoors in the shade or at times when there is not much sunlight. And of course, if you use the phone in direct sunlight, it might be harder to see the content.

Performance

Honor 9X uses Huawei's in-house Kirin 710F chipset. The version on the Indian market has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal memory with an external memory card slot. The Kirin 710F chipset basically has the same configuration specifications as the Kirin 710: 12nm process, 8 processing cores (4 high-performance Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.2Ghz and 4 Cortex power-saving cores -A53 clocked at 1.7GHz) and the GPU is Mali G51 MP4. So the actual performance of the Kirin 710F and the Kirin 710 are basically the same. According to Huawei, the F in the Kirin 710F version refers to the way the chip is differently packaged from the Kirin 710.

Testing the phone using our usual benchmarking software apps, AnTuTu Benchmark and GeekBench, Antutu is currently in the V8 version, while Geekbench is in the fifth version. In the Geekbench test, the device scored 320 points in the single-core test and 1,331 points in the multi-core test.

In practical use, there is nothing wrong with the Honor 9X. It is powerful enough for common tasks and 6GB of RAM is also enough for multitasking needs. For gaming, the device meets the requirements for the medium-spec games. With Dead Trigger 2, this phone easily reaches a frame rate of 60 fps with fairly high stability, up to 90%.

However, with heavy graphics games such as PUGB Mobile, Honor 9X is locked at 30 fps, not 60 fps like other more powerful smartphones. At this frame rate, the phone plays both games with very high stability, up to 96%. When gaming continuously for a long time, the device will heat up, slightly affecting performance and frame stability, but the temperature drops quite quickly after we stop playing.

Software is the biggest concern of users before the launch of Honor 9X. Will this device be able to use Google apps and services? Will there be updates for the new Android operating system in the future? It is known that the license to use Google’s apps and services between Honor and Google for Honor 9X takes place before the US government ban takes effect, so Google is still responsible for providing and updating apps and OS for Honor 9X.

The handset is preinstalled with Android 9 Pie-based EMUI 9.1 interface. The biggest highlight of this operating system version is obviously the GPU Turbo 3.0 technology, that supports 50 more new games.

Battery

Honor 9X is equipped with a 4,000 mAh battery, which is pretty the standard for mid-range smartphones in 2019. The Kirin 710F chip is relatively power efficient, I can use it comfortably for a day, even up to 2 days if I spend only a little time on playing games. Compared to the Honor 8X, the Honor 9X has slightly more battery life and overall is quite good compared to other phones in the price point.

Unfortunately, the device doesn’t support fast charging technology even though it has been updated to the USB Type-C port. With the included 10W charger, the time to fully charge a 4,000 mAh battery takes nearly 2 hours. This is significantly longer than the 1.5 hours charging time on phones that support fast charging.

Camera

The camera on Honor 9X is significantly upgraded compared to its predecessor. Not only does it upgrade the main camera resolution to 48MP with Sony's IMX586 sensor like the Honor 20 Pro and View 20 Pro in the higher price segment, but Honor also adds an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera along with a 2MP depth-sensing camera for portrait shots.

In most cases, the Honor 9X's triple-camera setup performs well. Photos have a wide dynamic range, high detail, bright colors, fast focusing speed when taking close-up photos. The scene optimization feature by AI works well, recognizes the right subject and automatically adjusts the color gamut accordingly. Colors are boosted to make the images more visually appealing, but in some cases, the color is boosted a bit too brightly, especially the pink color. The main camera of this phone also has 48MP mode for a bit more detailed images but the difference between 48MP and 12MP photos in the default mode is not much.

In low light, the Honor 9X retains good color saturation, well-balanced brightness, decent detail, and low level of noise except in high low-light scenes. Night mode makes a noticeable difference in really low-light situations, making images look more balanced, more detailed, and less noise. However, the night mode has a rather slow shutter speed and exposure, up to a few seconds, making it suitable for capturing stationary, less-moving subjects.

In low light, the Honor 9X retains good color saturation, well-balanced brightness, decent detail, and controlled noise except in low-light scenes. Night mode makes a noticeable difference in really low-light situations, making images look more balanced, more detailed, darker areas clearer and less noise. However, the night mode has a rather slow shutter speed and exposure, with a few seconds, making it suitable for capturing stationary, less-moving subjects.