Honor 9 review: Light catcher

07 July 2017
It's Honor's turn now - the time to wave Leica's license fees goodbye and welcome the annual Huawei P flagship on a bargain price. The Honor 9 is shinier, arguably more powerful, and above all - way more affordable. And Honor 9 is not just a P10 for the masses, it's also a OnePlus 5 killer. The bar is high, the expectations - big, and this review has just started.

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  • Lao
  • mAS
  • 12 Jul 2017

Incredibly low quality photos in the night. Of course, when you have a 2.2 main camera and 1.9 secondary camera. Why, why, why?!

    Anonymous, 11 Jul 2017nice phone, but that fingerprintscanner is horrid. Sam and ... moreI Feel You. I Really Hated That Kind of Home Button

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      • Anonymous
      • ibe
      • 11 Jul 2017

      Why not the dual camera design in the word "honor", I mean the double "o" can be the dual camera, otherwise dual camera is really ugly to me.

        Anonymous, 11 Jul 2017It will not take to long to be released. Is worth the wait.I guess it will be worth if they really put HiSilicon Kirin 970

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          • Anonymous
          • ncG
          • 11 Jul 2017

          xXENDER FREAKXx, 11 Jul 2017Its obvious u know that right? Thats why I never say the pr... moreIt will not take to long to be released. Is worth the wait.

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            • Anonymous
            • ncG
            • 11 Jul 2017

            xXENDER FREAKXx, 11 Jul 2017Its obvious u know that right? Thats why I never say the pr... moreWait for Mate 10 with Kirin 970 and your problem will be solved.

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              • ZloiYuri
              • Tmf
              • 11 Jul 2017

              Anonymous, 09 Jul 2017> Honor supports QuickCharge 2 It does not. Similar ... moreIt does. And partly - QC3.0. Take a time to google the reviews. Huawei is good in decision to support not only proprietary own technology.

                Anonymous, 11 Jul 2017The difference is in the PRICE, djeez.Its obvious u know that right? Thats why I never say the price because both are almost the same but cheaper with the HUAWEI HONOR 9. This is why HUAWEI suck. Release flagships almost same specs but just bring down the price. For me I don't care the price of a smartphone. I just buy any flagship mostly from the very high end premium price ones. I don't care. So HUAWEI shouldn't care for that. The price is already low, why not improve the hardware

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                  • Anonymous
                  • mTn
                  • 11 Jul 2017

                  Abhi D, 08 Jul 2017While this review tries hard to make Honor 9 sound like a b... moreHonor 8's gpu is faster than e.g. galaxy S5 which started this 5,x" trend. And that phone can still be used adequately today. The Honor 9's gpu is about 3 times faster so what's wrong with that?
                  The cpu's inside these Honor's is considerably faster then many if not most phones that cost a lot more.

                  Then these IPS screens used in these phones are really good. Why do you exaggerate the loss of 0.05 inch? You can't even see the difference IRL.

                  Then your remark about audio which contradict the review/test which literally states: "..All in all, the readings remain very good to excellent..." and as for the Honor 8 its review starts with "...Audio clarity is perfectly clear, nicely loud..." Sure we, end-users, would have liked a system wide equaliser on the Honor 8 but that is rectified with the Honor 9. Again why complain?

                  Also please stop exaggerating the importance of Android upgrades. The Honor 8 has Android 7 with Emui 5.0 while the new one has the same Android but with Emui 5.1. You can't even see the difference between the 2. In fact I still run the Honor 8's Android 6 with Emui 4.1 which looks the same apart from the app-drawer. Sure, the colours of the notification quick toggles is cyan instead of blue. So what? I couldn't care less for "app twin" and the main functionality between Android 6/Emui4.x is mostly the same. You can make a theme with blue toggles and stick Nova or any other launcher for an app drawer. Also the UI looks great, adheres to Material design (which I personally dislike) and can be customised completely with themes. So if you find Emui 4.x/5.x "old looking" then I wonder what you expect?

                  In fact I think both the Honor 8 and 9 are great devices with good specs and no misleading or false promises. It even has kept the audio-jack AND Ir-blaster which everybody was keen to add in the past but then took away after users got accustomed to it. And they both have a very reasonable retail price unlike everyone else whom charges near and sometimes even over 900 euro's. Which is completely ridiculous.

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                    • Anonymous
                    • mTn
                    • 11 Jul 2017

                    xXENDER FREAKXx, 08 Jul 2017I am still disappointed with HUAWEI even though I never use... moreThe difference is in the PRICE, djeez.

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                      • Anonymous
                      • mJs
                      • 11 Jul 2017

                      nice phone, but that fingerprintscanner is horrid. Sam and Apple remove it from the front just so huawei and oneplus bring it back to the front...that piggy nose I hate deeply.

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                        • Anonymous
                        • ncG
                        • 11 Jul 2017

                        Anonymous, 10 Jul 2017Funny how they're praising its power, even though flagships... moreThat power is gigaflops but in the reality the Adreno 530 has a weaker performance than the Mali-G71 MP8 at 1037MHz of frequency inside of Hisilicon Kirin 960. Remember that the Kirin 960 gpu has 282 GFlops which is better than the gpu inside of the Exynos 8890 which has a gpu with 265 GFlops.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • 0xM
                          • 10 Jul 2017

                          Funny how they're praising its power, even though flagships with S820 chips back from the previous year have twice as powerful GPUs.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • gxm
                            • 09 Jul 2017

                            ZloiYuri, 08 Jul 2017OP has just proprietary charging tech. You need to buy extr... more> Honor supports QuickCharge 2

                            It does not. Similar as OP - proprietary charger. Which is slower than OP's.

                              Anonymous, 09 Jul 2017Remember one thing, only the Mate line is that start the us... moreSince HUAWEI MATE 9, HUAWEI HONOR 8 PRO, HUAWEI P10 & HUAWEI HONOR 9 have been the same all along. Only till HUAWEI MATE 10 they will use the HiSilicon Kirin 970. And that is going to take some time just look, 4 flagships with the same chipsets

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                                • Anonymous
                                • ncG
                                • 09 Jul 2017

                                xXENDER FREAKXx, 09 Jul 2017They have been using this chipset for so many flagships. Wh... moreRemember one thing, only the Mate line is that start the use of new chipsets of Huawei and when the Mate 10 be released is when they put a new chipset, the Kirin 970.

                                  Anonymous, 08 Jul 2017What do you wanted? Isn't a good phone? Probably the Galaxy... moreThey have been using this chipset for so many flagships. What? u want it again?

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                                    • Anonymous
                                    • JT5
                                    • 08 Jul 2017

                                    I think honor should be only midranges, while high ends carry huawei's logo

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                                      • Flo
                                      • mhJ
                                      • 08 Jul 2017

                                      I was disappointed to see that that the screen to body ratio is even worse than that of the Honor 8. Battery life is great, as it already is on my Honor 8. Camera is exceptional. If you can neglect huge bezels and prefer Android over iOS, this phone is a great choice for its price.

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                                        • Hoffmann
                                        • gCh
                                        • 08 Jul 2017

                                        This phone anytime over the OnePlus 5.

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