Honor 9 review: Light catcher
Light catcher
Telephony
The EMUI dialer shares a common interface with the contacts app. There are no groundbreaking features here, and nothing missing.
Smart dialing • Contacts • A single contact
The dual-SIM settings menu lets you rename cards, disable them from software, and select which one does calls or data by default. The interface leads us to believe that while 4G may be limited to just one card, both get 3G connectivity in addition to 2G, which the specs don't indicate.
The interface is not ideal in that dual SIM settings are in one menu, while the mobile networks are in a different one. You may need to do a little bit of back-and-forth to set things up precisely to your liking - say, to limit the primary card to 3G. 'Primary' as in the default card that gets 4G connectivity - you choose that in dual SIM settings. Then in the mobile networks section you get to pick the preferred network type, but only for this primary card - the other one makes do with the rest of the available radios.
Loudspeaker
Just like the P10, P9, and Honor 8, the Honor 9 has a bottom-mounted speaker at its disposal. It turned out to be the quite powerful and produced a Very Good score in our loudspeaker test. It has a clean and rich sound output, and we give Huawei credit where it's due.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overall score | |
| 63.9 | 66.7 | 66.8 | Below Average | |
| 66.4 | 71.5 | 65.0 | Average | |
| 61.7 | 69.7 | 71.8 | Average | |
| 61.0 | 69.3 | 78.3 | Good | |
| 66.8 | 68.8 | 74.5 | Good | |
| 72.1 | 66.6 | 75.6 | Good | |
| 67.1 | 66.2 | 82.6 | Good | |
| 67.6 | 73.2 | 75.7 | Good | |
| 66.1 | 69.0 | 84.1 | Very Good | |
| 69.2 | 72.9 | 77.5 | Very Good | |
| 68.5 | 71.7 | 80.3 | Very Good | |
| 67.7 | 70.0 | 83.6 | Very Good | |
| 64.0 | 71.4 | 87.8 | Very Good | |
| 83.1 | 74.5 | 85.0 | Excellent |
Pre-installed apps
Huawei offers a pretty rich default app package. The Health app is pretty great. It tracks steps and calculates calories burnt, but can also supposedly count the number of floors you've climbed.
Health
Smart Controller and Compass are another pair of generic, yet hardware-specific apps. It's a good thing Huawei was nice enough to throw in its own IR controller app. The application itself also looks good and offers a surprisingly rich database of device remote control codes.
Smart Controller • Adding appliances • Compass
You also have a ton of basic tools preloaded, including a proper file manager, calendar app, notes, weather, sound recorder, and flashlight.
File manager • Clock • Calculator • Recorder • Flashlight
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 08 Jul 2023
- uZH
Battery timing is too short
- K.
- 27 Feb 2023
- gDL
I found it on ifixit, but they only ship to certain EU countries.
- preizeinguna
- 21 Dec 2022
- 0Bk
Can anyone recommend where to buy a battery for this phone at a reasonable price? I've had this phone since 2017 and I'm still using it just having problems with the battery life.