HONOR held a presentation to launch the HONOR 9X. Man, what a smartphone! A pop-up camera, 91% screen-to-body ratio, Android 9, and an all-day battery, all for a very reasonable price. This could very well be a smartphone that would make a lot of people happy with the performance. But how good is the HONOR 9X?

Introduction & Specifications

Laying my hands on the HONOR 9X was a great moment. This is my first smartphone with a pop-up camera and it feels great to have a full-screen display. There are a lot of outstanding features on this smartphone, besides the great price (just €229!). You get a pop-up camera, a wide-angle back camera + a 48MP main camera on the back, 91% screen-to-body ratio with full-screen display, and a 4000 mAh all-day battery life! This could very well be a killer smartphone, let’s have a look at the specifications and the performance of the hardware.

Specifications
Brand:	HONOR
Model:	9X
Colors:	Midnight Black, Sapphire Blue
Software:	EMUI 9.1 (Compatible with Android 9)
ROM:	64GB / 128GB
RAM:	4GB / 6GB
Expandable Storage:	Up to 512GB
Processor:	Kirin 710F
Charger:	Type-C
Battery:	4000 mAh
Display:	6,59" HONOR FullView Display (2340 x 1080P)
Screen-to-Body Ratio:	91%
Front Camera:	16MP Pop-up Camera
Rear Cameras:	48MP Main Camera, 8MP Super-Wide-Angle, 2MP Depth Assist Camera
GPS:	GPS/AGPS/GLONASS
Size (H x W x D):	163.5 x 77.3 x 8.8 mm
Weight:	196.8g

Unboxing

Unboxing the HONOR 9X is nothing special. The box looks a lot like the HONOR Band 5’s box. There is a big photo of the HONOR 9X on the front. On the back are no specs, it is mostly just white. On the sides, we find the same calm blue color which I really like.

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Inside the box, we first see a big HONOR 9X smartphone. Underneath the smartphone, we have a charger cable (USB-C) and a charger. Besides that, there is nothing! I like it but is minimalistic.

Hardware & Design

The price is great, the looks are amazing, but is the hardware too? The specifications of the HONOR 9X are impressive. It does not have the fastest available processor, instead, HONOR placed the Kirin 710F inside this smartphone. This processor should give you 2.2GHz of speed, which is not bad! Below, we will run some benchmarks and see how the hardware performs.

On the back, we find the fingerprint scanner and the three cameras. The back is made of plastic and it attracts fingerprints but it is not slippery. You are able to use the HONOR 9X without a case since you have a good grip on it. At the bottom of the smartphone, we find the USB-C charger port and a 3.5mm jack port! You can use wired headphones without a converter.

The display is a massive 6.59″ FullView (without a notch). This gives you a big display that needs a big battery like the 4000 mAh that is inside. You might need to get used to the size, but it is a good looking and sharp display. I’m happy with the looks and feel of the HONOR 9X. For this price, you get some premium looking features that work well.

Get your HONOR 9X during the flash sale for just €199! Click Here to go to HONOR’s website.

Fingerprint Scanner

On the HONOR 9X, we find the fingerprint scanner on the back. Some models have it behind the display, but that is not the case on the HONOR 9X. Is this a downside? Maybe, but this hardware fingerprint scanner is way faster than the ones behind the display. This fingerprint scanner feels snappy and reacts fast. Good choice the place it on the back of the smartphone.

Display

Big, bigger, biggest! The HONOR 9X has a big display of 6.59″ with FullView. Does that mean that the casing is big too? No, the casing is a little bit bigger than the Pocophone F1. With this massive screen, you get a resolution of 2340 x 1080P, which is good enough for me. Watching Netflix is high quality is no issue for this smartphone. In the menu, you can change some settings of the display to make it look better and more pleasant for your eyes. Change the text size or switch to a mode that filters out the BlueLight.

Battery Life

Running the PCMark Battery Life Benchmark, I’m again surprised by the battery life of the HONOR 9X. This smartphone keeps surprising me. During this battery test, the display is on and, processing data, editing photos, and manipulating data. That’s a lot, but can the HONOR 9X handle it well? Yes! Even with this high-intensity testing, the battery (which was charged 100%) lasted for around 15 hours! Imaging the battery life with normal usage?

Get your HONOR 9X during the flash sale for just €199! Click Here to go to HONOR’s website.

GSMArena also tested the battery. With a talk time of over 24 hours, I would be amazed if you are able to not make it to the end of the day. Here are the results below: (Here you can find more information on the battery test environment of GSMArena)

Hardware Tests

For this price, the quality must be bad, right? No way! HONOR did some thorough testing on the Honor 9X, and you can enjoy your well built, good quality smartphone. What tests did they do? Have a look below:

Quality Tests
Powerbutton	200,000 times
Volumebutton	50,000 times
USB Port	10,000 times
Touch Screen	800,000 times
Pressure Test with 25KG	2000 times
Maximum Pressure	70 KG
Safety and Temprature	55°C temperature / 95% humidity for 120 hours
Temprature Cycle	Between -20°C~55°C for 78 cycles

Camera

HONOR placed some great cameras on this smartphone. There are three cameras on the back and a pop-up selfie camera. There are some models with a pop-up camera and HONOR placed it on an affordable smartphone. Placing a 48MP main camera on the back is great, but how is the performance? Let’s have a look at the camera specifications first and then compare some shots taken on the HONOR 9X!

Front Camera

A unique feature on a smartphone in this price range. When you select the option to take a selfie, the camera will pop-up within a second. You will hear the camera going up and down, which might be annoying for you. Personally, I don’t mind it at all. I don’t know if other models have the same as this is my first pop-up camera smartphone.

When it comes up, you have a 16MP selfie camera ready, which works well if you ask me. Below is an example of two amazing selfies I took.

Rear Cameras

This is the real deal. A 48MP camera on the rear and primary camera. Besides that, we also have an 8MP super wide-angle lens, and a 2 MP depth assistant camera.

So the 48MP primary camera has a large sensor of 1/2″. There is also a wide aperture of F1.8. Good primary lens if you ask me. The wide-angle view has a 120° FOV (Field of View), which is good enough for me for a smartphone in this price range. The depth camera is mostly used for a portrait photo to create a bokeh effect.

Get your HONOR 9X during the flash sale for just €199! Click Here to go to HONOR’s website.

Photo Examples

A selfie is important of course! There is a great pop-up camera. Here I took two selfies on different days. Both are taken at night inside my house.

Wide-angle at work! The first shot is without wide-angle and the second shot is wide-angle enabled. See the difference? There will be a lot more inside the picture.

Here is an example of a photo focused on the subject in front and the second photo is focused on the air. See the difference in color and structure.

These two shots are made with a different app. The first one is made with the default camera app, the second one is made with Open Camera.

Here are some other examples: (some are made by HONOR)

Performance

How to test performance? I can play different games and tell you about it, or I can run some benchmarks. This way, we get a score that we can compare with different smartphones. Can the HONOR 9X be outstanding in performance too?

AnTuTu Benchmark

If we just look at the score, the processor is not the fastest around. Of course, this is not a Snapdragon 855+, but for the average, normal, or even slightly advanced user, this is more than enough. With the Honor 9X, you still defeat 13% of the AnTuTu users.

GeekBench Benchmark

Just another benchmark program with another score. Here are the results of the HONOR 9X:

3DMark Benchmark

With 3DMark, I run three different benchmarks tests. The first two are for high-end smartphones and the HONOR 9X struggled a little bit, but smooth enough for a reasonable score. The last smartphone is for mid-range smartphones and, as you can see, this smartphone is too powerful. Basically, the HONOR 9X jumps in between the high-end and mid-range smartphones.

Software

The HONOR 9X runs on Android 9 (Pie) with the EMUI 9.1.0 skin. This is a personal taste if you like it or not. When you buy a smartphone, you want new updates. HONOR confirmed to a different website that the HONOR 9X will get the update to Android 10, but when is not known yet. We need to see if this actually will happen, but I hope they do roll out the update.

There are some apps preinstalled, which I personally don’t like, but it is limited. For example, Booking.com is installed. Why? I have no idea! Just let the user decide what apps they want to install (besides the normal apps like a calculator or notes).

Get your HONOR 9X during the flash sale for just €199! Click Here to go to HONOR’s website.

Features

A great smartphone must come with some good features. Luckily HONOR thought so too, and they build several great features. We are just looking at the Signal Enhancer and the GPU Turbo 3.0 to game even better.

Signal Enhancer

Apple had an issue with, I think, the iPhone 6 that you could block the signal with your hand. This is, of course, a significant problem! You don’t want to block the signal when you are just using your smartphone. Honor made the 9X so that there are several points where the smartphone could receive its signal. This way, it doesn’t matter how you are holding your smartphone, you always get a good and stable signal.

GPU Turbo 3.0

Playing a game is fun, and you can do it while you are on the bus, on a plane, or just waiting for a friend. With the Honor 9X, you can now game even better with the GPU Turbo 3.0. This mode will enable you to enjoy faster and full-frame gaming to the best possible performance. No more lag, no more glitching in frame rates, just smooth and fast gaming experiences!

Conclusion

I still don’t know how HONOR made a smartphone like this for such a good price. For €299 you can buy one yourself, and when it is a flash sale, you can actually get it for €199! You get a good smartphone, but not the flagship-killer like some might expect. There is a mid-range processor inside, the Kirin 710F, which works great but is slower than the Snapdragon 855 for example. The display is huge and that is a thing I like about this smartphone. Also, the pop-up camera and the primary camera are working really well. I’m enjoying taking photo’s with this smartphone and view them on this big 6.59″ FullView screen.

Overall, I’m really happy with this smartphone and the performance of the HONOR 9X for this price. For normal users, this smartphone is more than enough, and that is the case with most users.