Better late than never, the Honor 9X has finally arrived in India. It is all set to compete with the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 8, Vivo Z1X and the Realme 5 Pro smartphones with all featuring a 48MP primary camera. To know more, here are our first impressions for the device.
Honor 9X Design
One of the first things that we look for in a smartphone is the design, and we also feel that a smartphone with good looks makes it look premium. Well, we feel that the Honor 9X is a phone which feels very premium to hold. It has a design similar to the Redmi Note 8 as it does have a triple camera design along with a back panel which is quite reflective. You get the traditional fingerprint sensor in the middle of the device’s rear panel.
Looking at the ports, Honor 9X does have a headphone jack, and it also comes with USB Type-C port which has now become standard on all smartphones. You get a single speaker vent at the bottom, and the display of is bezel-less without a notch because its front camera has a pop-up mechanism. You also get a front-firing speaker grill at the top which is a tiny one, but it does sound great for its size.
Specifications
Honor 9X comes with a 6.59-inch LCD FullView display and, thanks to its pop-up camera, it does not have a notch or hole-punch camera. Talking about the display, the colours look good, and the display is bright under direct sunlight, but since it is not an AMOLED panel, we do not get deep blacks that we see on OLED panels which is quite apparent as well, but still, the display looks quite good.
On the internals, the Honor 9X is powered by Kirin 710F chip coupled with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. At the moment, it is running on Android 9.0 Pie based on EMUI 9.1 but Honor says that Android 10 update with EMUI 10 should arrive soon on the device. We felt that the performance of this device is excellent, and you should not see any lags on the device in a typical day to day usage. However, we did not get the chance to check out Honor 9X’s gaming performance. Still, we believe that it should perform well in that department too as the Kirin 710F is a decent processor and it should perform well running high graphic intensive games like PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, Call of Duty and many more.
Honor 9X Camera
Talking about one of the essential parts of any device, which is the camera, we have already mentioned that the phone is quite powerful in this area. It comes with a 48MP primary camera, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens as well as 2MP depth sensor which should help you in taking bokeh shots.
In our brief testing of Honor 9X’s camera, we have seen that the camera performs quite well in normal lighting conditions. Still, it seemed to be a little overexposed while offering useful details and crispness. As for the pop-up selfie camera on the front, it is a 16MP sensor, and it performs quite well too.
Honor 9X battery
In terms of battery, Honor 9X comes with a 4000 mAh non-removable battery, and it also supports fast charging which is as expected in a smartphone in 2020. Also, the device can efficiently run for a full day on a single charge, and you can expect even more battery life for light usage. The EMUI also has some battery saving features built-in, this should too help you extend your battery life.
Indian pricing and availability
The Honor 9X will be launched in India on January 14, which is when we should expect the device to be made available in the country. Honor could make the device available in India by January 16.
As for the price, we feel that the device will be launched in the sub-Rs. 15,000 price segment, which is already quite crowded by the presence of Xiaomi and Realme’s devices. We feel that the device is quite similar to the offerings from Realme and Xiaomi but what sets the device apart is its pop-up selfie camera which also gives you the full-view display experience that no one currently offers in this price segment.
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