Nice smartphone, nevertheless it fails to impress

The HONOR X9 5G is sort of an identical to the HONOR Magic 4 Lite and HONOR X30 gadgets, they usually all characteristic nearly an identical specs. All of them have the identical 6.81-inch IPS LCD 120Hz show, Snapdragon 695 5G, and 8GB reminiscence with 128GB storage configurations. All of them characteristic the identical digital camera setup, the identical battery capability, and even the identical charging speeds.

I nonetheless can’t fairly get my head round why that is needed, however advertising most likely is aware of finest, however that is at the price of complicated their prospects and even us, reviewers. Releasing the identical machine with slight modifications doesn’t add up, particularly because the solely distinction between the three gadgets are the CPU speeds, and screen-to-body ratios.

HONOR is simply making it much more complicated to know its gadgets. If a mean person goes on the web to seek out details about one in all these gadgets, there’ll seemingly be one other paragraph explaining that they’re all principally the identical, however barely totally different, including to the confusion. With that small rant out of the best way, this assessment is in regards to the HONOR X9 5G smartphone.

Honor X9 5G

The HONOR X9 5G has a ravishing design, 5G, and respectable specs for the worth. It packs a wonderful two-day battery, and it additionally comes with a super-fast 66W quick charger. Nonetheless, that is nearly the place all the nice issues finish because it fails to impress with the show, digital camera, and speaker high quality.

Professionals

• 6.8-inch excessive refresh charge 120Hz show
• Skinny, gentle, and nice construct high quality
• Glorious two-day battery life
• 66W quick charging
• Nice efficiency

Cons

• LCD show is just not colour correct and brilliant sufficient
• Digital camera is unimpressive
• Disappointing speaker efficiency
• Nonetheless ships with Android 11

HONOR X9 Value & Availability

The HONOR X9 5G retails for round €240, or 1,099 RM. It’s additionally out there in different areas, nevertheless it’s typically bought because the HONOR Magic 4 Lite. The HONOR X9 5G is presently out there in two areas.

It’s out there within the following Asia Pacific nations:

Europe:

• Bulgaria
• Czech
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• Italy
• Romania
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• Spain

What’s within the field

The HONOR X9 5G comes with normal packaging. The entrance of the field homes an image of the machine itself, though the colour is totally different from the bodily machine – this can be as a result of it’s a assessment unit. Apart from that, the remainder of the field contents are pretty minimal and simple, like most different smartphones.

Opening the field reveals the telephone and one other package deal that comprises the included clear silicone telephone case. Provided that the machine prices lower than €300, it’s actually nice to see an adjunct included by default, particularly in a world the place chargers are now not bundled.

Talking of the charger, digging deeper within the field, we discover a USB-C to USB-A cable and a 66W quick charger. HONOR not solely features a clear case however a quick wall adapter with a tool that prices a 3rd of thousand-dollar flagship gadgets. Shade me impressed and happy.

HONOR X9: Design

• Seems premium
• No digital camera wobble
• Slim and light-weight

The HONOR X9 5G is paying homage to the HONOR Magic 4 sequence and the HUAWEI Mate 40 lineup resulting from its rear round digital camera setup. The machine appears to be like premium, and I’m pleased to let you know that the machine doesn’t wobble on a desk with the massive digital camera island on the again.

It’s a big machine by all means, however I discovered it straightforward to handle and attain the edges with none important drawback, even whereas I used to be utilizing the included clear telephone case. Talking of the case, you’ll seemingly need to use it as I managed to scratch the slippery again panel within the first few days of utilizing the telephone. HONOR shipped us the Midnight Black variant, which is susceptible to fingerprints, so when you’re like me, and your OCD will get simply triggered, I’d strongly suggest utilizing the supplied case. As soon as I put in the case, I by no means regarded again, and it by no means wished to slide out of my fingers once more.

The button placement was just a little inconvenient at first, particularly the fingerprint sensor. The side-mounted sensor didn’t require the facility button to be pressed, which prompted the sensor to scan even whereas I put my fingers in my pocket. This typically locked up the telephone, forcing me to enter my pin. The amount rocker is positioned simply above the fingerprint sensor, and it took greater than every week to get used to it. I nonetheless discover it too excessive to simply and comfortably attain it whereas utilizing the telephone.

HONOR X9: Specs

The HONOR X9 5G comes with the mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset. Our assessment unit packs 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The machine helps 5G, and the chip is constructed on the 6nm course of, making it extra environment friendly than different chips in the identical class.

The specs are nothing to brag about, nevertheless it demonstrates you could get actually good {hardware} at very inexpensive costs that seemingly packs all the things a mean person would ask for and want.

HONOR X9: Show

• 6.8-inch show with 120Hz refresh charge
• Colours aren’t correct
• Show may very well be brighter in direct daylight

In relation to the decision and refresh charge, the show was spot on and gratifying to make use of all through the day. The 120Hz refresh charge was good to see at this value level, and though I might’ve most well-liked an AMOLED panel, the IPS LCD show was acceptable. Given the worth, I lowered my expectations, however movies on YouTube and films on Disney had been nonetheless greater than gratifying. It’s value noting that numerous price range gadgets on this value class now include AMOLED panels, and that might’ve been welcome right here.

Nonetheless, my predominant concern wasn’t the show high quality and the deep blacks, however the colours. The show prompted just a little little bit of headache resulting from its inaccurate colours. The Regular mode felt nice more often than not, however turned the whites right into a pink-ish tone colour, that felt unusable when watching movies on YouTube or enjoying video games. Altering the colour temperature in settings didn’t ease my ache, and I switched to the Vivid mode for the remainder of the assessment interval, which was oversaturated and an excessive amount of to my liking.

The brightness was additionally not the brightest, and I discovered it difficult to make use of it in direct daylight on a stunning sunny day. I typically needed to discover some shades to cover from the solar simply to have the ability to have a look at the contents on the display screen. Even after I used this methodology, the contents would typically be exhausting to see. Studying content material additionally gave the impression to be a tough process in direct daylight, nevertheless it will get lots darkish in low-light circumstances.

HONOR X9: Cameras

• Unimpressive digital camera high quality
• Selfie digital camera is nice in well-lit environments
• Low-light pictures needs to be averted

HUAWEI is thought to be probably the greatest producers with a number of the finest digital camera smartphones, so it’s truthful to imagine that I anticipated the HONOR X9’s digital camera to be considerably spectacular. In any case, HONOR hasn’t been on the solo mission for that lengthy.

The pictures through the daytime had been unimpressive, and the colours had been washed out. The photographs have loads of element, however they lack dynamic vary, and the perimeters are too gentle. I additionally seen some bizarre vignette results on some pictures, regardless that they had been shot on a brilliant, sunny day.

I attempted enabling the AI toggle that lives on the highest of the digital camera format, nevertheless it didn’t have an effect on how the picture appears to be like. The characteristic confirmed the scenes and objects it might detect, nevertheless it didn’t enhance, nor did it worsen the picture high quality primarily based on the setting.

The selfie pictures turned out to be greater than usable, however this requires you to be in well-lit environments; in any other case, it should end in poor photographs. The picture appears to be like a bit too gentle to my liking, however some tweaking could make this social media prepared in only a few minutes.

The macro pictures had been simply as unimpressive as the first digital camera. It lacks element because of the 2MP sensor; the colours are washed out, the highlights are blown out, the distinction is low, and there’s additionally numerous noise.

The low-light pictures ended up blurry and washed out. There may be numerous noise in dim environments. The story adjustments when you allow the devoted night time mode. The characteristic improves the digital camera efficiency by rather a lot, and it ends in first rate nighttime pictures with loads of element and sharpness.

HONOR X9: Digital camera samples

Daytime

Selfie

Portrait & Macro

HONOR X9: Software program

• Outdated software program
• Glorious efficiency whereas multitasking and gaming

The HONOR X9 is operating Magic UI 4.2, primarily based on Android 11. It’s Might when publishing this assessment, and the telephone comes with February 1 safety patch, which is at the very least three months outdated. It’s worrying to see a telephone launch with Android 11 in 2022, particularly since Android 13 is predicted to be formally introduced someday in August or September.Android model and help apart, the telephone is lightning quick and clean. I’ve solely ever skilled throttling and sluggish habits after I tried to replace a number of apps on the Google Play Retailer. It doesn’t deal with downloading a number of objects effectively, however when you give it a couple of minutes to do its factor, it’ll come again and be snappy once more.

I used Chrome to browse the online, a number of social media apps, and even did some gentle gaming, and I by no means as soon as had any interruption by uneven habits. The machine’s gaming and multitasking efficiency was glorious, and I by no means as soon as skilled any delay or unresponsiveness. The 120Hz refresh charge dramatically improved the responsiveness, particularly when looking the online, or endlessly scrolling by means of Twitter and Instagram.

I drastically lowered my expectations in the beginning of this assessment, provided that it prices a fraction of my flagship gadgets that I exploit day by day, nevertheless it managed to shock me. The animations had been clean, and I’m severely impressed with how effectively it managed to carry out and meet my forever-increasing calls for. I’m not essentially the most demanding telephone person on the planet, however I like to make use of a number of apps concurrently and go the time with some graphics-intensive video games, and this HONOR X9 5G will get the job performed.

Magic UI 4.2 has some cartoon-ish appears to be like, nevertheless it doesn’t really feel too unhealthy, and it doesn’t attempt to push its design language on you, not like another OEMs. The remainder of the person interface feels and works like inventory Android.

I additionally need to level out that whereas HONOR is superb at optimizing its gadgets, it’s manner too aggressive at turning off pointless functions that try to run within the background. The telephone barely drained at night time, and it has a wonderful standby time, however I typically acquired notifications and emails a couple of minutes later than on my different gadgets. On multiple event, I wanted I might flip this characteristic off, however there are not any choices to customise the sensitivity of the power-saving modes.

Haptics

Telephones at this value level often don’t have an amazing haptics engine, and that is additionally the case for the HONOR X9 5G. It’s ok to offer suggestions whereas navigating the machine, or typing on the on-screen keyboard, however it may possibly simply go unnoticed when receiving a name.

Audio system

There’s a single bottom-firing speaker on the machine. There aren’t many gadgets at this price ticket with a stereo speaker setup, so I gained’t complain an excessive amount of in regards to the single loudspeaker. Alternatively, the speaker high quality lacks bass, the highs aren’t gratifying, and it’s not loud sufficient. The audio system are sufficient to listen to media, however I like to recommend utilizing headphones and earbuds to play video games, watch films, and hearken to music.

HONOR X9: Battery life

• You may simply go for 2 days on a single cost
• 66W quick charging is handy and quick
• Going from 0-80% takes solely half-hour

The HONOR X9 5G’s 4,800 mAh battery is pretty giant for its dimension, and it proved to be giant sufficient to offer a snug two days’ value of battery life, that’s, when you use it for social media and a few gentle multi-tasking. You may actually kill it in a single day when you enhance the brightness to 80% or extra, play some video games, and use it greater than an everyday person to browse the online, sustain with pals, and speak to your colleagues.

The battery life, in my case, lasted a great day, and I by no means managed to empty it beneath 25%. Even after I did handle to go beneath that degree, I used to be capable of shortly juice it again up utilizing the included 66W quick charger. HONOR guarantees {that a} fast 15-minute cost can present as much as 50% of cost, and I discovered that it may possibly go from flat to about 80% in simply half-hour. A full cost takes about an hour to forestall quick battery degradation. The X9 modified my behavior of charging solely within the morning.

I want the X9 had wi-fi charging, even when it was a measly 5W primary one. It might’ve made it extra handy to maintain it charged throughout working hours and whereas touring within the automotive, however given the wonderful battery life and price ticket, it’s one thing that I can reside with out.

HONOR X9: Ought to I purchase it?

Purchase it if…

• You desire a slim, and light-weight machine with a big 6.81-inch show with 120Hz
• Lengthy battery life and quick charging are what you’re on the lookout for
• Efficiency and gaming are vital, and also you need to multitask

Do not buy it if…

• You need to take numerous photographs/movies, and the ultrawide sensor is vital to you
• A brilliant and color-accurate show is a precedence
• You need to eat numerous media, because the loudspeaker high quality is disappointing

The underside line is that this. Should you’re on the lookout for a price range smartphone between $250 and $350, the HONOR X9 5G nails the basics with a big and excessive refresh charge show, glorious general efficiency, and an extended battery life with quick charging. Nonetheless, the disappointing digital camera high quality, lackluster speaker, and previous software program make us query whether or not that is value selecting over different gadgets.

The Samsung Galaxy A53 prices $350, and though it doesn’t help 66W quick charging, it has a Tremendous AMOLED show, nice digital camera efficiency, and a equally glorious battery life. Samsung has additionally been probably the greatest OEMs previously few years when it will get to software program updates and help, and it could be a greater possibility.

Now, do you have to spend $100 extra for the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G? It relies on your necessities, however when you don’t plan to take many photographs, and listening to music isn’t a precedence, the HONOR X9 5G will serve you effectively. It has loads of energy for your entire gaming and multitasking wants, and it’ll simply final you a full day of cost, or two days, relying on how closely you utilize it.

Honor X9 5G

The HONOR X9 5G has a ravishing design, 5G, and respectable specs for the worth. It packs a wonderful two-day battery, and it additionally comes with a super-fast 66W quick charger. Nonetheless, that is nearly the place all the nice issues finish because it fails to impress with the show, digital camera, and speaker high quality.