Honor 9X A Stylish Walk Down the Middle Path

Introduced in India about two months ago, the Honor 9X is wooing the premium mid-segment as an all-rounder. K Madhavan Pillai puts it to the test.

- K Madhavan Pillai

Huawei’s relatively young sub-brand, Honor, has done extremely well in the past couple of years, with some excellent products that were very well-positioned. In particular, the camera-centric, high-end Honor View series has been extremely well-received. However, with American companies like Google and Microsoft withdrawing support to Huawei (even PlayStore access), it remains to be seen how customers take to newly developed systems by the company. For now, the good news is that the Honor 9X and its recently unveiled sibling (the 9X Pro) are possibly the last two Honor phones with Google and Microsoft support all through. I recently upgraded the phone to EMUI /Android 10.

To get down to it, the Honor 9X has a big 6.6-inch LCD display (not OLED), with a 91% screen to body ratio (excellent, but still a little on the large side for the user with small hands). The resolution is a fairly sharp 1080 x 2340, and overall, despite the slightly lower black levels (as compared to OLED), the quality is excellent.

In terms of both processor (Huawei Kirin 710F) and battery (4000mAh), there is nothing really to write home about, but it does the job adequately well. In a charge that comfortably lasts a day of almost constant use, the Honor 9X manages to handle most tasks, and also multitask, without any lags or heating issues. The version of the Honor 9X with Better Photography is with 6GB / 128GB of memory. A 4GB / 64GB variant is available as well, consistent with this segment. The construction seems to be of Gorilla glass, front and back, so covers are a must. And this comes included, along with a pre-installed screen guard.