Introduction
Its Honors turn now - the time to wave Leicas 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, its also a OnePlus 5 killer. The bar is high, the expectations - big, and this review has just started.
Huawei has never needed any of the Snapdragon chipsets for its phones to sell. Or even to achieve a flagship status. Thats where HiSilicon has always helped - Huaweis subsidiary chip maker - and its latest Kirin 960 has already proved to be tough to beat. Now the Honor 9 not only borrows this chip from the P10, but also pairs it with 6 gigabytes of RAM.
The highlight of the Honor 9 is the dual-camera setup, which is the same tech behind the P10, sans the Leica branding. The 12MP color and 20M P monochrome snappers offer the same modes such as Portrait, Variable Aperture, 2x lossless zoom, and now you can even shoot 4K videos with bokeh effects! The 8MP selfie shooter does bokeh shots, too.
Huawei is all in with the Honor 9. Giving more for less is what a flagship killer used to mean and what OnePlus once stood for. Could the Honor 9 claim this title? Lets find out!
Honor 9 at a glance:
- Body: Dual glass body with aluminum frame, 3D Gorilla Glass 3 back
- Screen: 5.15" LTPS IPS LCD with 1,080 x 1,920 px resolution (428ppi)
- Camera: Dual Camera: 20MP monochrome/12MP color sensors, f2.2, 27mm equiv. focal length, 4-in-1 hybrid autofocus (phase/laser/contrast/depth sensing); dual-LED, dual-tone flash; 2x hybrid zoom; 2160p and 1080p @ 30/60fps video capture;
- Selfie cam: 8MP f/1.9; 26mm lens; simulated bokeh eff ect; 1080p @ 30fps video capture;
- OS: Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei EMUI 5.1 overlay;
- Chipset: Kirin 960 chipset: Octa-core CPU (4xCortex-A73@2.4GHz + 4xCortex-A53@1.8GHz), i6 co-processor, octa-core Mali-G71 GPU
- Memory: 4/6GB of RAM; 64/128GB storage; microSD slot
- Sound: Huawei Histen 3D sound
- Battery: 3,200mAh Li-Po (sealed); Fast charging
- Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A (Cat. 12 600/150Mbps); USB-C; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo; Bluetooth 4.2; NFC; IR blaster
- Misc: Fingerprint reader
Main shortcomings:
- No Leica branding and filters
- No dust or water resistance
- No stereo speakers
- No FM radio
We demanded ingress protection for the Huawei P10 given it social status and price tag. And while we would have loved water resistance for the Honor 9, we can easily forgive this omission. Even though it is stepping on plenty of flagship toes, the Honor 9 still counts as a top-tier mid-ranger. How can you not love these classes, right?
The Honor 9 is keeping it premium though with an all-metal frame, 3D curved design, always-on fingerprint sensor, and high-end sound. There is also a fast-charging-enabled battery, latest Android OS with EMUI 5.1 all over it. But before we learn its software tricks, lets check what the Honor 9 was made of on the next page.
The Honor 9 retail box
Honor 9 comes in one of those Huawei boxes where the phone is tucked sideways. The accessory box contains an 18W charger, a regular USB Type-C cable, and a transparent plastic case. There are no headphones inside, but we sure appreciate the protective case.
The retail box of Honor 9 • the contents • the plastic case
Design
Though beautiful, the Honor 9s glass-sandwich design is hardly innovative. Two pieces of glass and a metal frame were very cool seven years ago on the iPhone 4, but those are not just enough for a premium feel or look nowadays. Luckily the Honor 9 puts a twist on the familiar shape for a unique design once more.
Glacier Grey, Sapphire Blue, or Midnight Black - the Honor 9 is seamlessly painted in the respective hue with the paint layer sitting under the glass panel s.
Honor 9 next to the Huawei P10
The front glass is business as usual - a 2.5D-shaped piece, reportedly a Gorilla Glass 3, shielding the 5.15" display from scratches.
The metal frame is sandblasted and has a matte finish. It ends with a chamfer on both the front and back where it meets the glass. The chamfers are glossy and serve as a great visual transition from the metal frame to the glass panels.
The 3D curved glass on the back is one of the Honor 9s key design features and perhaps even the highlight here. The fingerprint-like texture carved into the glass via a photo etching process is what makes the Honor 9 a standout from the rest of the glass-sandwich group of phones.
The frame maybe helping the grip, but its not enough. The Honor 9 is slippery in hand and you have to be careful. Sure, its feels premium, high-end, well-crafted, and with solid build - props for those. But the Honor 9 is one of the most slippery devices we have ever handled - it will slide and fall from any surface thats not perfectly flat (this has happened twice already). We suggest snapping the provided case to avoid falls from places (yes, even desks!) where any other phone would stay still.
Handling the Honor 9
Device overview
The earpiece, the 8MP selfie snapper and a couple of sensors are all above the 5.15" IPS display. There is a tiny notification light underneath the earpieces grille.
Whats above the screen
The touch-sensitive Home key is below the screen and it doubles as an always-on fingerprint scanner. The sensor is one of the fastest and most accurate weve worked with and thats what we have always liked in the Huaweis smartphones.
The keys below the display
There are two unmarked capacitive keys flanking the Home one - they light up only when touched. You can assign the Back and Tasks function to those however you see fit, or you can disable them for a multi-function Home key - tap for Back, hold for Home, swipe for tasks.
The only thing of interest on the left is the hybrid SIM slot, while the volume rocker and the power key are on the right.
The right side • the SIM bed • the left side • the hardware keys
The secondary mic and the IR blaster are on the top of the Honor 9. The bottom side has the USB port, the audio jack, and a grille covering the loudspeaker and the mouthpiece.
The top of the Honor 9 • another look at the top • the bottom • the grille
The dual-camera is on the back - each lens highlighted by a tiny glossy rim. The dual-tone flash is around, too.
The dual-camera on the back of the Honor 9
Display
The Honor 9 employs a 5.15" LPTS IPS LCD screen - a notch bigger than the 5.1" IPS-NEO unit on the P10, but keeping the same 1080p resolution. There are 428 pixels per inch on this particular screen and they are compiled from the familiar RGB subpixels.
Our measurements on the Honor 9s screen revealed deep black levels and high maximum brightness of 522 nits. Those excellent stats made for a great contrast ratio of 1479:1. This is a good improvement over the 5.2" screen on the Honor 8.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.353 | 522 | 1479 | |
| 0.37 | 460 | 1243 | |
| 0.399 | 560 | 1404 | |
| 0.416 | 592 | 1423 | |
| 0.46 | 500 | 1094 | |
| 0 | 447 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 435 | ∞ | |
| 0.02 | 417 | 20850 | |
| 0.462 | 603 | 1305 | |
| 0.228 | 468 | 2053 | |
| 0.512 | 537 | 1049 | |
Regarding color reproduction accuracy, the Honor 9 screen is less than stellar with an average deviation (DeltaE) of 5.6. Some of the colors are a bit colder (blueish) than they should be, but you can achieve excellent color accuracy (DeltaE of 3.7) by just opting for the Warm color tone from the Settings menu.
The Honor 9 screen demonstrated great potential for outdoor use in our sunlight legibility test. A score of 3.289 is a very good achievement for an LCD panel and means the screen will do great even in the brightest of days.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Samsung Galaxy S8
4.768 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
4.658 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
4.615 - Oppo R11
4.454 - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
4.439 - OnePlus 3
4.424 - Samsung Galaxy S7
4.376 - HTC One A9
4.274 - Samsung Galaxy Note7
4.247 - Samsung Galaxy A3
4.241 - OnePlus 3T
4.232 - Google Pixel XL
4.164 - ZTE Axon 7
4.154 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
4.09 - Huawei Nexus 6P
4.019 - Vivo Xplay5 Elite
3.983 - OnePlus X
3.983 - Oppo R7s
3.964 - Apple iPhone 7
3.964 - Huawei P9 Plus
3.956 - Meizu Pro 6 Plus
3.935 - Lenovo Moto Z
3.931 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
3.918 - OnePlus 5
3.914 - Samsung Galaxy C5
3.911 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.896 - Samsung Galaxy A5
3.895 - Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
3.879 - Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
3.873 - Samsung Galaxy A8
3.859 - Sony Xperia XZs
3.818 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
3.817 - Motorola Moto X (2014)
3.816 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
3.804 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
3.802 - Xiaomi Redmi Pro
3.798 - LG V20 Max auto
3.798 - Sony Xperia XZ
3.795 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
3.789 - Apple iPhone 6s
3.783 - Meizu Pro 5
3.781 - Microsoft Lumia 650
3.772 - Xiaomi Mi 6
3.767 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
3.756 - Oppo F1 Plus
3.709 - Vivo X5Pro
3.706 - Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
3.688 - Apple iPhone SE
3.681 - Huawei Mate 9
3.68 - Samsung Galaxy A7
3.679 - Meizu PRO 6
3.659 - BlackBerry Priv
3.645 - Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
3.597 - Apple iPhone 7 Plus
3.588 - LG G6
3.556 - Apple iPhone 6s Plus
3.53 - Motorola Moto Z Play
3.526 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) outdoor mode
3.523 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
3.523 - Acer Jade Primo
3.521 - Microsoft Lumia 950
3.512 - Oppo R7 Plus
3.499 - nubia Z11
3.466 - Huawei P10 Plus
3.456 - HTC U Ultra
3.453 - Samsung Galaxy J7
3.422 - Meizu MX5
3.416 - LG V20
3.402 - Huawei P10
3.379 - Oppo R9s
3.352 - Honor 8 Pro
3.341 - Oppo R7
3.32 - Lenovo P2
3.316 - Honor 9
3.289 - Xiaomi Mi 5s
3.276 - Nokia 6 (Chinese version)
3.244 - Samsung Galaxy J2
3.235< /li> - Sony Xperia X Performance
3.234 - Xiaomi Mi Note 2
3.228 - Motorola Moto X Play
3.222 - Oppo F3 Plus
3.218 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
3.206 - Huawei P9
3.195 - Lenovo Vibe Shot
3.113 - Motorola Moto X Force
3.105 - LG Nexus 5X
3.092 - HTC U11
3.089 - Huawei Mate S
3.073 - Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
3.065 - Sony Xperia XA1
3.012 - Sony Xperia L1
2.994 - Sony Xperia X
2.989 - Huawei P10 Lite
2.974 - Samsung Galaxy Note
2.97 - Huawei Mate 8
2.949 - Xiaomi Redmi 4
2.92 - Xiaomi Redmi 3S
2.913 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.906 - LG G5
2.905 - HTC One S
2.901 - Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
2.893 - Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
2.884 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium
2.877 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium (sRGB)
2.877 - Sony Xperia Z5
2.876 - Nokia 3
2.871 - Microsoft Lumia 550
2.851 - Lenovo Moto M
2.813 - Xiaomi R edmi 3 Pro
2.803 - Sony Xperia Z5 compact
2.784 - Meizu MX6
2.751 - LG V10
2.744 - Xiaomi Redmi 3
2.735 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
2.714 - Meizu M5
2.71 - Sony Xperia M5
2.69 - Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
2.679 - Huawei P9 Lite
2.679 - Vivo V3Max
2.659 - Xiaomi Mi Mix
2.658 - Xiaomi Mi 4i
2.641 - Xiaomi Redmi 4a
2.635 - Sony Xperia XA
2.609 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus (max auto)
2.582 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus
2.582 - Meizu M5s
2.58 - Xiaomi Mi 4c
2.574 - LeEco Le Max 2
2.567 - Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
2.563 - Microsoft Lumia 640
2.563 - Lenovo Moto G4
2.544 - Lenovo K6 Note
2.544 - Oppo F1
2.528 - Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
2.525 - Huawei Honor 7 Lite / Honor 5c
2.506 - Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
2.503 - Oppo F1s
2.481 - Motorola Moto G
2.477 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
2.473 - Huawei G8
2.471 - Huawei nova
2.467 - Sony Xperia Z
2.462 - Lenovo Vibe K5
2.459 - Meizu m3 max
2.447 - HTC 10 evo
2.407 - Huawei Honor 7< /span>
2.406 - Sony Xperia E5
2.386 - ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
2.382 - HTC 10
2.378 - Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
2.378 - Oppo F3
2.376 - vivo V5 Plus
2.371 - Meizu m1 note
2.362 - Huawei nova plus
2.329 - HTC One E9+
2.305 - Alcatel One Touch Hero
2.272 - Lenovo Vibe K4 Note
2.254 - Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
2.253 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (MediaTek)
2.249 - Sony Xperia C4 Dual
2.235 - Xiaomi Mi Note
2.234 - Motorola Moto G (2014)
2.233 - Huawei P8
2.196 - Meizu M5 Note
2.189 - Huawei Honor 6
2.169 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
2.166 - OnePlus Two
2.165 - HTC One X
2.158 - LG Aka
2.145 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (X20)
2.145 - Archos 50 Diamond
2.134 - Xiaomi Redmi Note
2.119 - Xiaomi Mi 4S
2.095 - Acer Liquid X2
2.084 - Huawei P8lite
2.078 - vivo V5
2.059 - Moto G 3rd gen max manual
2.026 - Xiaomi Mi Max
1.996 - Sony Xperia E4g
1.972 - OnePlus One
1.961 - Meizu m3 note
1.923 - Meizu m2 note
1.892 - BlackBerry Leap
1.892 - HTC Butterfly
1.873 - ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
1.759 - Sony Xperia U
1.758 - Asus Zenfone Selfie
1.68 - Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
1.675 - ZTE Nubia Z9
1.659 - Jolla Jolla
1.605 - Motorola Moto E
1.545 - Sony Xperia M
1.473 - Sony Xperia L
1.351 - Xiaomi Redmi 2
1.311 - HTC Desire C
1.3 - Meizu MX
1.221 - Sony Xperia E
1.215
Battery life
The Honor 9 is powered by a 3,200 mAh battery, sealed as expected. The phone ships with a charger capable of outputting 5V/2A and 9V/2A, with the maximum power of 18W. It will replenish 33% of a depleted battery in 30 minutes, while a full charge takes just a few minutes north of two hours.
The Honor 9 posted a very good score of 77h, and it performed admirably across all of our test routines - video, call, web, and standby. The Kirin 960 coupled with the EMUI 5.1 once again turned out a very good combo.
Our endurance rating denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Honor 9 for an hour e ach of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. Weve established this usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case youre interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones weve tested will compare under your own typical use.
Connectivity
The Honor 9 supports LTE-Advanced with 3-carrier aggregation, Cat.12 LTE for theoretical speeds up to 600Mbps down and 150Mbps up, 9 LTE bands, four 3G bands, and the usual quad-band 2G.
Theres full-fledged Wi-Fi support - a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, with Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot support. You also get Bluetooth v4.2 for peripherals, A-GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou for positioning, and NFC for, well, near field communication, right.
The Type-C USB port only adheres to the USB 2.0 spec (480Mbps theoretical) an d not USB 3.0 or 3.1.
Theres also an analog 3.5mm headphone jack, and an IR blaster to take control of your home appliances. What the Honor 9 lacks is FM radio support.
Nougat with EMUI 5.1
The Honor 9 runs on the latest EMUI ROM. It is now up to version 5.1, groomed to accompany Huaweis new lineup. The OS is based on Android 7 Nougat, and has been refreshed in a number of ways.
Most of the Emotion UI 5.1 upgrades reside under the hood and offer boosts in various performance aspects. There are some relatively simple things, like improved miss-touch detection and higher touch accuracy, better RAM management, better dictation algorithms, and Moments, for more convenient photo organizing. There are a few major new background systems put in place.
The Magazine unlock style for the lockscreen is here to stay. I t greets you with a different wallpaper every time you wake up the device, with new ones being downloaded when you connect to Wi-Fi and an option to delete the ones, which are older than three months. You can quickly start the camera by a double press of the Volume Down button with the option to take a snap right away.
Functional lockscreen
If you opt for a fingerprint unlock method, you probably wont be seeing much of the lockscreen anyway. Almost a sh ame, considering all the effort that Huawei has put into making it unique. Still, the reader is blazing fast and using it is a no-brainer.
On top of the usual all-apps-on-the-homescreens approach EMUI 5.1 gives you the option to pick the standard Android two-tiered interface with homescreens for your most-used apps and an app drawer for all of them.
No app drawer by default • Layout settings • but you can opt for one • app drawer shortcut • app drawer
A pp twins for multiple instances of a single application is available on the Honor 9, but in its current state the feature only works with Facebook and WhatsApp.
EMUI 5.1 has Theme support, of course. The theme store offers a wide selection and some really artsy options that fit in well with the general high-design image of the Honor 9. Of course, you can always keep things simple and only customize the wallpaper and possibly transition animations.
Powerful Theme engine
The notification area is a 50/50 mix between stock Nougat and Emotion. Huawei has tweaked the look of the quick toggles and added the auto-brightness switch, which Google so stubbornly refuses to keep in plain sight. The notifications themselves look just like the Pixels.
The task switcher is rather straightforward, but again with added functionality over Googles own - apps in the rolodex can be locked by tapping on the padlock icon, so killing all apps will spare the locked ones. The End all button is readily available too, not up in the right corner as Google does it.
There are a few other interesting tweaks you can apply to the status bar. For example, notification icons can be replaced by a simple numerical counter. You also have control over whether the notification LED and display should react to a new notification.
Notification shade • step 1 • step 2 with more toggles • task switcher • Status bar tweaks
The Honor 9 features granular notifications control - Huawei had that even before it was a part of Android itself. You can control which apps can send you the three types of available notifications - the shade notifications, the lockscreen notifications and the banner style notifications.
Last, but not least, there is a dedicated menu for controlling crucial permission on a per-app basis. Its a great addition, since you dont want a random app ignoring the systems attempts to optimize its power c onsumption, or drawing over other applications.
Notification management • Notification permissions • Facebook notifications • App permissions
While these are options accessible from the settings menu, most of them are also featured in the Phone Manager app. There youll also find a one-touch optimization button. A virus scanner powered by Avast is on board as well. There are power-saving modes with granular settings, too.
Power manager
You can also enable the so-called Floating dock - its a virtual key you can move anywhere on the screen, allowing you to expand it to the primary Android keys - Back, Home, Task Switcher, Lock and Close all running apps. It will help you control your phone with just one hand. There are other interesting alternative controls as well, like the ability to map the buttons on your headphones to various actions.
Smart assistance • One-handed UI • Floating dock
Motion control also plays a significant role on the Honor 9 as it did on previous Huawei models. There are flip gestures, as well as picking up, tilting and even things like knuckle detection and drawing. All of those are extensively customizable to your liking.
You can start recording a video of your interaction with the UI by the intuitive double knock with two knuckles while drawing an S with a single knuckle launches the scrolling screenshot. The latter is available from the regular Power/Volume down shortcut.
Finally, there is a Voice Control option - the device is always listening for a trigger word when locked and then you can control it with voice commands.
Motion and knuckle gestures
For certain scenarios, like in-car use, you can enable a Simple homescreen mode, which features large tiles for easy tapping. Its not particularly consistent, though, offering a simpler version of some menus, but not others - the dialer is the same size as in regular mode (in all fairness, its fairly oversized to begin with).
Simple homescreen with a tiled interface
Performance
The Honor 9, surprise, surprise, employs the same Kirin 960 chip found inside the P10 and Mate 9. It is developed in-house by Huaweis chipmaker HiSilicon and has been around for some time now. Even with a few months of history behind it, the Kirin 960 is still one of the most powerful smartphone chips and we are glad to welcome it in our testing lab once again. Most of the Honor 9 models come with 6GB of RAM, great for multi-tasking.
The main processor within the chipset consists of a quad-core Cortex-A73 cluster clocked at 2.4GHz, plus a quad-core array of the fam iliar Cortex-A53 cores, ticking at 1.8GHz. The Cortex-A73s boast a 30% power efficiency compared to the previous A72 design, while delivering improved performance at the same time.
We kick off the benchmark routine with some CPU-only loads in GeekBench. A single A73 core performance is on par with the new S8 series and very close to the new Kryo 280 cores by Qualcomm.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S8
1991 - OnePlus 5
1932 - Xiaomi Mi 6
1929 - Honor 9
1876 - LG G6
1767 - Oppo R11
1596 - Sony Xperia XA1
887
GeekBench 4 (single-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 5
2031 - Xiaomi Mi 6
2026 - Samsung Galaxy S8
1945 - Honor 9
1940 - Huawei P10
1927 - Honor 8 Pro
1853 - LG G6
1733 - Huawei Honor 8
1720 - Oppo R11
1629 - Sony Xperia XA1
800
But its the multi-core tests where the four A73 units really shine and show as big potential as the latest Snapdragon and Exynos processors.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 6
6719 - Samsung Galaxy S8
6656 - OnePlus 5
6604 - Honor 9
6457 - Oppo R11
5777 - LG G6
4175 - Sony Xperia XA1
3611
GeekBench 4 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 5
6404 - Samsung Galaxy S8
6175 - Honor 9
6149 - Xiaomi Mi 6
6132 - Huawei P10
6069 - Honor 8 Pro
6036 - Oppo R11
5510 - Huawei Honor 8
5447 - LG G6
4209 - Sony Xperia XA1
3554
The Kirin 960 choice of graphics, the Mali-G71MP8, is an enormous improvement over the previous generations of HiSilicon chips and is flagship worthy. It performs beautifully on the Honor 9s 1080p screen and is beaten only by the latest Adreno GPU inside the Mi 6 and OnePlus 5.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 6
41 - OnePlus 5
40 - Honor 9
33 - Huawei P10
30 - Samsung Galaxy S8
23 - Honor 8 Pro
15 - Sony Xperi a XA1
15 - Oppo R11
15 - LG G6
12 - Huawei P9
11 - Huawei Honor 8
11
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 6
25 - OnePlus 5
24 - Huawei P10
16 - Honor 9
14 - Samsung Galaxy S8
13 - Oppo R11
8.6 - LG G6
8.5 - Honor 8 Pro
7.9 - Sony Xperia XA1
7.9 - Huawei P9
7.1 - Huawei Honor 8
6.9
This offscreen test can give you a better understanding of the Mali G71MP8s real power. Unfortunately, the GPU came last among the current flagship crop, though still a worthy contender.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 5
41 - Xiaomi Mi 6
41 - Samsung Galaxy S8
36 - Honor 9
33 - LG G6
26 - Huawei P10
22 - Honor 8 Pro
21 - Oppo R11
15 - Huawei P9
10 - Huawei Honor 8
10 - Sony Xperia XA1
6.2
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S8
25 - Xiaomi Mi 6
25 - OnePlus 5
24 - LG G6
16 - Honor 9
15 - Huawei P10
14 - Honor 8 Pro
11 - Oppo R11
8.6 - Huawei P9
6.5 - Huawei Honor 8
6.3 - Sony Xperia XA1
3.7
Still, while looking at the synthetics, real-life gaming is definitely a pleasant experience on the Honor 9.
Basemark X
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S8
42370 - Huawei P10
39433 - OnePlus 5
38844 - Xiaomi Mi 6
38541 - Honor 8 Pro30853
- LG G6
30507 - Honor 9
29398 - Oppo R11
20350 - Huawei P9
16942 - Huawei Honor 8
16592 - Sony Xperia XA1
9714
Moving on to some all-round performance ben chmarks, we find that the Honor 9 shines bright in BaseMark OS II tests. Its just a notch behind the top dogs in the chart, a lag mostly contributed to the inferior GPU.
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
- OnePlus 5
180331 - Xiaomi Mi 6
177326 - Samsung Galaxy S8
174435 - LG G6
143639 - Honor 9
143583 - Honor 8 Pro
128755 - Huawei P10
126629 - Oppo R11
118677 - Huawei P9
98069 - Huawei Honor 8
94892 - Sony Xperia XA1
60707
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- OnePlus 5
3601 - Xiaomi Mi 6
3547 - Samsung Galaxy S8
3376 - Honor 9
3072 - Huawei P10
2910 - Honor 8 Pro
2865 - Oppo R11
2386 - LG G6
2126 - Huawei Honor 8
2099 - Huawei P9
2068 - Sony Xperia XA1
1351
The bad news first - there is GPU performance throttling triggered automatically to prevent overheating. Huawei wasnt that successful in cooling the Honor 9s chipset as it was with the P10. It sure was easier with the all-metal P10, but the large pieces of glass around the Honor 9 left the tiny frame as the only material capable conducting the heat outside the device. The panels wont go unpleasantly hot, but the phone may eventually throttle under pressure.
The good news - you wont notice this throttling. While the benchmark scores revealed this process, the Honor 9 wont experience hiccups in game s. Or even if the phone hits the breaks on the GPU, its powerful enough for you not to notice whats happening under the hood. And we can live with that.
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 spec s dont 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 its 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 | ||
| 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 youve climbed.
Health
Smart Controller and Compass are another pair of generic, yet hardware-specific apps. Its 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
Gallery with Quick
EMUI 5.1 comes with an updated Gallery app. GoPro has partnered with Huawei to bring the Quik video editing app into EMUIs Gallery. With EMUI 5.1, Quik is responsible for all Highlights and c ustom video edits.
The gallery defaults to a timeline, which sorts your images by the date youve taken them. The pinch gesture is available for setting thumbnail size. You can opt for the standard Album view with all of your images sorted in different albums, and you can also have hidden albums, though thats more of an organizational tool than a privacy one - they are there when you hit hidden albums.
Gallery
Highlights is a new gallery feature. By that we mean it isnt new for Android, but is now making its way to EMUIs default gallery app. While your phone is idle, the gallery will index your photos and sort them by places and people. GoPros Quik integration generates video highlights from your best moments. It can detect faces and frame the picture accordingly, or it can even sync the whole video with musics beat. All of these new features are available in the new Discovery tab.
Opening a single image lets you quickly delete or rotate it, as well as gives you a host of sharing options. The info icon up top gives some pretty detailed information about the image, including a histogram.
Viewing a single image
The built-in editor is also pretty capable. It offers nifty light and exposure adjustments, including shadow s and highlights. To top off the manual controls, there are also levels. If you prefer a more automated approach, there are quite a few filters (more than Instagram and Prisma combined) and beauty enhancements.
The image editor is quite capable
Video Player
By contrast, the video player is rather basic. It still gets the job done, but the only extra features you really get are playback speed and a hovering windowed mode.
Simple video player
Music Player
The Honor 9 has quite stylish Music app pre-installed. It offers four default playlists - songs, artists, albums, folders. You can create your playlists, too. The background of the app changes dynamically to match the album art, which is a nice little touch.
The music player
The Now Playing screen is pretty standard, it offers album art and lyrics. If youre especially into lyrics, you can have them overlaid on top of the homescreen.
Huawei has amped up the audio reputation of the Honor 9 by partnering with Monster, the headphone manufacturer, to make the Honor Purity equalizer. Grammy Award winner Rainer Maillard has prepared custom playback styles for Huawei Histen - an "ultra-wide 3D sound technology". You can enable this effect for any headphones and it will be system-wide, not just for specific apps. There re custom equalizers, too, if you like to tweak the sound output by your liking.
A udio options • choose your headphones • Custom equalizer • Honor Purity by Monster equalizer
Audio quality is good
The Honor 9 did well when connected to an active external amplifier, producing perfectly accurate tones and posting great scores across the board. Its loudness was just above average so we cant complain about that either .
When headphones come into play the volume drops to below average, the stereo worsens a moderate amount and a tiny bit of intermodulation distortion creeps in. All in all, the readings remain very good to excellent, so its a decent showing by any standard. Sure, there are better performers out there, but it will take a proper audiophile to be able to tell the difference.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | < td>IMD + NoiseStereo crosstalk | |
| +0.03, -0.02 | -89.1 | 91.7 | 0.0021 | 0.0099 | -86.7 | |
| +0.14, -0.07 | -89.0 | 91.8 | 0.0027 | 0.110 | -61.6 | |
| +0.03, -0.01 | -94.1 | 94.1 | 0.0010 | 0.0070 | -94.2 | |
| +0.15, -0.08 | -94.0 | 94.0 | 0.0033 | 0.139 | -59.9 | |
| +0.05, -0.11 | -94.1 | 94.1 | 0.0017 | 0.0067 | -94.5 | |
| +0.05, -0.02 | -93.7 | 93.8 | 0.0018 | 0.105 | -53.7 | |
| +0.04, -0.00 | -92.5 | 92.5 | 0.0016 | 0.0072 | -92.8 | |
| +0.03, -0.03 | -92.3 | 92.3 | 0.0056 | 0.060 | -77.2 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -93.5 | 93.3 | 0.0042 | 0.0092 | -92.7 | |
| +0.12, -0.32 | -92.6 | 93.2 | 0.0072 | 0.219 | -67.0 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -93.3 | 93.3 | 0.0059 | 0.0095 | -94.4 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -93.4 | 93.4 | 0.0067 | 0.020 | -56.3 | |
| +0.01, -0.04 | -93.0 | 94.8 | 0.0019 | 0.0080 | -93.5 | |
| +0.25, -0.02 | -92.7 | 93.0 | 0.192 | 0.175 | -59.5 |
Huawei Honor 9 frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Lei ca Dual Camera v2.0 minus Leica
Just like the Huawei P10, the Honor 9 features a dual camera setup, which consists of a 20MP monochrome sensor and a 12MP RGB one, each of these behind its own 27mm-equiv. f/2.2 aperture lens. There is also a dual-tone LED flash.
This is the same camera setup we saw on the Huawei P10 and Mate 9, sans the Leica branding. This means you wont be getting the proprietary Vivid and Smooth film modes. Manual monochrome mode is not available just like on previous Honors - it is reserved only for the P series, but this is a silver lining we are happy to live with.
While the 20MP and 12MP resolutions dont match, the engineers have come up with an ingenious solution of how to use them and the snappers work just fine in the hybrid modes.
When youre shooting color, the Honor 9 blends the footage from the monochrome camera with the one from the RGB camera with the goal being, you guessed it, to produce better images. The high-res 20MP monochrome camera records luminance data as reportedly, thats where most of the fine detail is, while the lower-res 12MP camera provides the color to go with the detail. That way you can opt for 20MP color photos, a big leap from the 12MP default resolution.
In addition to the Variable Aperture effects, the Honor 9 camera supports Portrait Mode, which combines the Variable Aperture bokeh affect with Beautification, and should offer some nice Portrait shots with bokeh effects. The selfie snapper has been upgraded with f/2.0 lens, and while there isnt a second sensor, Huawei has found a way to create bokeh here as well.
Finally, Huawei introduces Live Photos with this new iteration of the Huawei camera app - its a short 3s video taken shortly before youve hit the shutter, and it plays when you tap and hold on the image - no 3D Touch required.
The camera interface takes a bit of getting used to, as weve previously noted. There are two panes with options that can be evoked from the left and the right edge of the viewfinder. The left one brings forward the mode selector, while the menu coming from the right edge is the settings menu. The two panes dont just slide out with a simple swipe; you need to practically pull them through half the screen for them to stick, which doesnt always happen on the first try, particularly in landscape.
Theres also the added convenience of having to flip back and forth between these panes for selecting resolution and color mode. Say, for example, that you like to shoot 20MP monochrome and 12MP color images to use both cameras in their native resolution (to the extent that you get control over that, in the first place). Well, going from 20MP mono to 12MP color requires a switch to color on the left and then, to 12MP on the right.
Camera viewfinder • available modes • settings
Also, for a phone with a dedicated 20MP monochrome camera, youd expect the P10 to have a prominent switch to go to black&white capture straight from the viewfinder, but no - its a shooting mode in the left pane. Instead, the shortcuts that are constantly visible in the viewfinder are Variable aperture mode, Portrait mode, Live Picture, Flash switch, and the selfie camera switch.
Camera interface • More shooting modes • Variable aperture • Zoom • Filters • Manual
Image quality
The Honor 9s photos havent improved since the P10 series, but thats to be expected and they were pretty great anyway. The colors are vibrant, but stay true to life as possible. Detail is abundant, and textures are rendered in a very natural way, but ultimately the 20MP color images dont match the 20MP monochrome ones for high-intricacy subject resolution. For a while there we thought it was as simple as blending 12MP color on top of the 20MP detail, but apparently, its more complicated than that.
Dynamic range in color images is striking, but its even better in the monochrome photos. We suspect some au to HDR trickery is involved here. We noticed a comment saying "hdr" within the EXIF in some pictures, even though we didnt use HDR. Then again, those who lacked the "hdr" mention in the EXIF, were just as good.
The 12MP color samples are great - there is plenty of detail, little noise, accurate colors, wide dynamic range, and the sharpening hasnt been overdone. The native 12MP images are really good.
Honor 9 12MP color samples
The 20MP hybrid samples cant benefit from more detail, and they clearly look as upsampled from 12MP. They do share all othe r benefits from the native 12MP ones, though. Since you cant extract more detail with those high-res pictures, we doubt anyone will use this mode that much.
Honor 9 20MP color samples
The monochrome 20MP images came with plenty of resolved detail, but there is not that much more detail than in the 12MP color ones. They have superb contrast, low amount of noise, and great dynamic range - especially in the shadows. Those are perfect for dramatic effects and creative street photography but you really need to pick the right subject for them to shine.
Be careful though - the monochrome camera on the Honor 9 isnt as good at getting accurate focus as other Huawei models. It failed is in about 20 percent of the scenes, which is a lot. A tap or two on the object eventually will make the camera get the proper focus.
Honor 9 20MP monochrome camera samples
As we mentioned before, there is some automatic HDR applied when needed, so the manual HDR is pretty much of no use, no matter the occasion. And thats okay with us.
HDR off • HDR off (different exposure) • HDR on
The Honor 9 camera is also advertised for its zoom prowess - 2x optical zoom. Its facilitated by those multiple frames that the camera captures all the time, which give it more data to work with than what youd get from a single 12MP shot (or 20MP).
As for image quality when zoomed in - the 2x the pictures are excellent with little to no loss in detail. Zoom any further than that (up to 10x), and image quality would quickly go south.
Regular sample • 2x zoom • Regular sample • 2x zoom
You can check how the 12MP RGB camera stacks against the Honor 8 and the P10s.
Honor 9 vs. Honor 8 vs. Huawei P10 in our photo compare tool< /p>
You could also use our tool to compare the monochrome camera and the 20MP hybrid samples, if you like.
Low light
The Honor 9 does an admirable job of shooting in low-light environment, preserving detail and, to a certain extent, color. But thats only true if you shoot evenly lit close-ups as is the case with our Picture Compare Tests. If you are going for landscape photos, the dusk photos are fine, but the night images quite often lack sharpness due to either focusing issues or camera shake even though the Honor 9 is equipped with plenty of tools to help it get them right.
12MP color dusk sample • 20MP monochrome dusk sample • 12MP color • 20MP monochrome
And now check the night shots.
12MP color night sample • 20MP monochrome night sample • 12MP color • 20MP monochrome
Using the manual mode and a tripod makes wonders, though. If you lock the ISO to 100 and use the longer shutter speeds, you can get some stunning long exposure shots.
12MP tripod night, 2.5s • 12MP tripod night, 4s
In full-on Night mode, you can manually select a s hutter speed up to 32s with ISO up to 3200. The viewfinder image will change as the exposure develops, so if you figure youve gathered enough light you can stop at any time.
Then theres the Light painting mode, which includes four sub-modes: Car light trails, Light graffiti, Silky Water and Star track. Youd need some form of fixing the phone to stable support for shooting in these modes, like a tripod or a beanbag, as these extremely long exposures cant be done handheld without camera shake.
Light Painting - Car Trails, 15s • Light Painting - Car Tr ails, 39s • Light Painting - Car Trails, 42s
Panorama
The panoramic shots taken with the Honor 9 are excellent. They use the full vertical resolution, and at about 3,100px tall theres plenty of pixels. Detail is on par with still images; stitching shows no obvious issues, and exposure variation is handled smoothly. The dynamic range once again deserves praise.
Honor 9 panorama
Variable aperture and Portrait modes
Thanks to the depth information the Honor 9 can gather from its two cameras, it can try and reproduce the blurred background of a proper portrait lens. The feature is accessed from the Wide aperture mode toggle and lets you simulate apertures from f/0.95 to f/16.
As with all such implementations it works weirdly more often than it does well, so its only now and then th at you end up with some good portrait shots like those below. They wouldnt hold up to closer scrutiny, but they are still good enough.
F/0.95 sample • F/2.4 sample • F/16 sample
The new Portrait Mode is available on both the main and selfie snappers. It combines the Variable Aperture with Beautification and should offer Portrait shots with beautified faces and bokeh background effects.
You can adjust the level of beautification, while the bokeh strength stays the same across all shots. The blurred background is indeed nice, but the beautification may smear away some of the fine de tail from your face so we turned it off. Wed rarely choose this mode instead of the Variable Aperture though.
Portrait mode samples
Selfies
The real strength of the 8MP selfie camera (fixed focus, sorry) should be the trendy Portrait shots with simulated bokeh effects.
The regular daylight samples turned out great with plenty of detail, pleasing colors, and also quite good dynamic range.
Honor 9 8MP selfie samples
The Portrait Mode simulates bokeh, while it also applies beautification effects on your face. Unfortunately, those things might have sounded great on paper, but the software algorithm that applies the background effect isnt that smart, and the beautification is not something us grumpy guys would have on. Most of the samples we took were more miss than hit, so dont get your hopes as high as Huaweis marketing would like you to.
Honor 9 front Portrait samples
And here is how the beautification feature works (hint: it doesnt like beards).
Normal selfie • Portrait with beatification
Video camera
The Honor 9 captures 4K videos, but just like the P10 it is using the H.265 codec. The consequences are two-fold. On the positive side, the bitrate of 30Mbps is very low for 2160p footage, and hence files take up less space (compare that to the ~50Mbps MPEG-4 4K videos of most competitors). The downside is that YouTube still doesnt offer support for this standard, so weve uploaded the test samples on Vimeo instead.
1080p videos use MPEG-4 compression, so theyre YouTube-friendly.
The 1080p/30fps videos have a rather standard bitrate of around 17Mbps, while 1080p/60fps is exactly double that. Surprisingly, youd get larger files per second of footage from the P10s 1080p/60ps mode, than from its 4K mode. But thats expected as the 1080p videos use H.264 video encoding.
Audio is recorded in stereo at 192kbps, which is great.
The camera also supports capturing 720p videos with variable aperture. Just like with the still images, you choose an f number between 1 and 16. The videos turned out quite awful though and we doubt anybody will use th is feature. Its just a gimmick and nothing of a real value.
4K videos are sharp and detailed and exhibit good contrast and pleasing colors. The dynamic range is quite decent, too.
As it happens all too often, the 1080p footage is just okay, nothing spectacular. The good thing is that the smoother 60fps mode doesnt come at the expense of detail though there is noticeable oversharpening everywhere.
One limitation the Honor 9 enforces on you is that video stabilization only works in 1080p resolution, only at 30fps, and not in 2160p. The digital stabilization does a fine job, but comes at the expense of fine detail, sharpness, and narrower field of view.
You can also download the untouched video samples: 2160p (10s, 39MB), 1080p at 60fps (10s, 42.5MB), 1080p at 30fps (10s, 22MB).
And heres the promised video compare tool, where weve pitted the Honor 9 against the Huawei P10 and Oppo R11. We observed some minor compression artifacts when we examined the Honor 9 videos of our lab test charts. In the real-life footage, however, we didnt notice any issues. Apparently, the algorithm doesnt like stationary uniformly gray objects. So while we do suggest you check out the video compare tool below, be aware that its not strictly representative of real world scenarios.
Honor 9 vs. Huawei P10 vs Oppo R11 in our video compare tool: 2160p
Final words
The Honor 9 is a well-executed project, which in spite of the lack of a massive PR campaign, has everything needed to succeed and prevail on the market. We cant really figure out Huaweis strategy for the Honor brand yet again, but we dont mind having such a thoughtful allrounder once in a while.
The Honor 9 is mostly sold online via the vMall eShop run by Huawei. Its official price at launch is €429/£379 and thus the Honor 9 falls right in the upper mid-range class. But dont let the low price fool you - its a flagship smartphone by the book, which steps on a lot of headliners toes.
The latest Honor has one of the best chipsets currently available - the Kirin 960 - and Huawei didnt skimp on RAM either - there are a good 6 gigabytes at your disposal. But the chip is not only powerful, but also energy-efficient and coupled with top-notch software optimizations, the Honor 9 scored excellently on battery endurance.
Huawei is the company to make the dual-camera setups the next big thing on the smartphones, so the expectations were sky-high for the Honor 9. Even though there are no Leica filters to be found, the Honor 9 offers even more features than the widely advertised P10. In addition to the great color and monochrome shots, you also get improved portraits, variable aperture, and even video recording with the option for bokeh effects. The selfies turned out great even though the selfie portrait mode is disappointing.
The Honor 9 may be supposed to be a booster of Huaweis online presence, but its much more than that. Flagship killer comes in mind - an allrounder that OnePlus invented, but lately failed to delivered. The Honor 9 may have its ups and downs but the latter are easily forgiven by the low price tag.
Honor 9 key test findings
- Premium design with curved glass, solid build, stunning color options, but way too slippery.
- The LTPS IPS LCD screen has great pixel density, superb contrast, and brightness. Color accuracy may not be top-notch, but the sunlight le gibility is excellent for an LCD unit.
- The Home key is a very smart setup: it does superfast fingerprint scanning and can also serve as a touchpad. It can replace the whole Android control deck thanks to swipe gestures.
- Solid battery life at 77h - the Honor 9 is excellent at web browsing, video playback, voice calls, and standby efficiency.
- EMUI is a functional Android overlay, even if it has its quirks. Huawei has worked a lot on polishing single-handed operation, and it shows. Knuckle gestures are somewhat gimmicky, but the option to restore the app drawer will make the transition easier for those who are not used to an iPhone-like single-tier interface.
- The Kirin 960 chipset offers class-leading CPU and GPU performance. There are signs of performance throttling when it gets hotter though.
- The onboard speaker is loud with clean output. Audio output via the analog jack is quiet, but clear. There are various equalizer presets courtesy of the H isten audio, and you can even simulate surround sound if you like.
- Multimedia package gets the job done - the gallery benefits from the new Discover tab with GoPro-made Highlights, the image editor is powerful. The video player has little more than play/pause, and the music app looks good and works well.
- Still images show laid-back processing with accurate colors, high detail level, and great dynamic range. The monochrome camera takes these another notch up (minus the colors, obviously). The lossless-like zoom works up to 2x, which is nice. The dedicated Portrait mode isnt as good as on the iPhone or Oppo R11, but the variable aperture effects are awesome.
- Good regular selfies, but the camera lacks autofocus and the widely advertised Portrait Mode is very disappointing.
- 4K videos are very detailed, if a little noisy, but the h.265 codec makes for problematic sharing. 1080p footage is nothing special in terms of image quality but you can use EIS stabil ization here. The Portrait HD videos, though tempting, are disappointing.
We mentioned the OnePlus 5 a couple of times already so its only natural to kick off our competition section with it. The 5 offers a bigger and arguably better AMOLED screen, as well as somewhat faster Snapdragon 835 chip, but it also costs about €80 more. The OnePlus take on the dual-camera is the Apples and not Huaweis, so you will lose the B&W shots for better portraits. Deal or no deal?
OnePlus 5
The Huawei P10 has already lost quite a few euros from its launch price down to €500. It has a more stylish design and Leica filters, so you may want to consider it. Plus - its the opposite of slippery, especially the "dazzling" models.
Huawe i P10
The Oppo R11 cant match the wide availability or the flagship performance of the Honor 9, but its dual-camera setup turned out to be one of the best weve seen in terms of quality and features. It was designed after the Apples wide+tele combo, but the results are nothing short of impressive. The thin metal design is another feature to give it an edge over the Honor 9. If camera experience is of the biggest importance above all other features, look no further.
Oppo R11
The LG G6 is a great alternative to the Honor 9, and P10 if you will. It has a higher-res screen, water resistance, and a slightly better chipset. The secondary wide-angle camera is a real treat too. Both the regular and wide-angle snappers produce top-notch images and videos, and while less creative-friendly, they are better suited for various occasions, i ncluding vacations.
LG G6
Xiaomis Mi 6, even with its limited availability is a great match for the Honor 9 as both cost the same. The Mi 6 not only offers the wide+tele dual-camera like the rest of the competitors, but also class-leading Snapdragon 835 chip with 6GB RAM, a bigger battery with faster charging, and lightweight MIUI 8. The Mi 6 design employs similar technics to the Honor 9s, but its curves are better and prettier, while its panels are splash resistant. The hassle of importing the Mi 6 might be worth it after all.
Xiaomi Mi 6
Finally, the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) has an AMOLED display, awesome battery life and water-resistance over the Honor 9, while it makes cuts on the camera and processor. Its €100 cheaper though and is among the better mid-rangers available out there.
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
At the end of the day, the Honor 9 can certainly feel a bit rough around the edges, but thats strictly figurately speaking. Its one of the most slippery phones there are but this is offset by the stunning looks. We noticed some performance throttling but in real life it will probably go unnoticed thanks to the snappy chipset, which has plenty of reserves. The camera has a few gimmicky sides, but it delivers right where its important.
The Honor 9 may not be a flagship killer but its certainly flagship-grade. It may not be getting the attention it deserves but it will remain a solid recommendation in our books.
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