Honor 9i/Mate 10 Lite hands-on review

Introduction

The Honor 9i is the latest phone to be launched under Huawei's online-online brand in India. Also known as the Huawei Mate 10 Lite, Nova 2i and Maigmang 6 in other countries, it is Huawei's first phone with not two or three but four on-board cameras.

The 9i/Mate 10 Lite also capitalizes on another trend in the smartphone market - that of taller displays. Featuring an 18:9 aspect ratio display, the Honor 9i is one of the few phones on the market to feature a taller display in its price range.

Honor 9i key features

• Body: Unibody aluminum
• Display: 5.9-inch, 2160x1080px IPS LCD
• Chipset: Kirin 659 SoC, 4x Cortex-A53 @ 2.36GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.7GHz, Mali-T830 MP2
• Memory: 64GB storage (expandable up to 128GB), 4GB RAM
• Rear camera: 16 megapixel primary + 2 megapixel depth sensor, LED flash, 4K video
• Front camera: 13 megapixel primary + 2 megapixel depth sensor, LED flash, 1080p video
• OS: Android 7.0 + EMUI 5.1
• Connectivity: 4G VoLTE, dual SIM, single-band Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/GLONASS, microUSB. 3.5mm headphone jack
• Battery: 3340mAh internal

Main shortcomings

• No USB-C
• No NFC
• No fast charging

Being a budget phone, the 9i is a bit underwhelming in terms of pure specs on paper.

Honor 9i official images

However, we did get to spend some time with the device and see how those specs translated to real world performance and how the phone stacks up against the competition.