As far as I can recall, I never thought of having four cameras on my smartphone but there is a term called as ‘progression’ which keeps surprising us. Honor has been investing in their smartphones business with good results since the last year. It was Honor who forayed into affordable rear dual-camera smartphone, Honor 6X if you may remember. Well, this year too they have tried to offer latest innovations and Honor 9i is one such 2017 product.
Not only delivering the latest trends like the 18:9 tall displays which are a thing for 2017 smartphones, Honor 9i also puts new features into place. This is the first smartphone by Honor featuring 4 cameras on a smartphone, two on the front and two on the back. But does this make it a good smartphone? Let’s find out.
Design
Honor 9i has a very thoughtful design language which can be seen inspired from all of Honor smartphones till date. Honor 9i has a beautiful metal unibody design that looks premium and provides a solid build quality.
The front has a tall 18:9 5.9-inch display compactly fitted with very narrow bezel chin at the top and bottom. This is Honor’s first smartphone to come with an 18:9 aspect ratio display with an impressive 83-percent screen to body ratio.
The back has a camera module in the middle with a fingerprint sensor and LED flash on the top and bottom respectively vertical aligned. The camera protrusion is prominent but it is protected by a surrounding metal rim.
The ports and button placement are following the standard trend but it might get a little tricky to use the handset single-handedly.
We also have a first impressions video live on our YouTube channel which can be watched below.
Honor 9i Specifications
Honor 9i comes with Huawei’s in-house Kirin processor developed by HiSilicon which is fully owned by Huawei. This is the first smartphone to bring Kirin 659 processor in India and it performs well for daily routine. Along with this, it comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. Though having a Hybrid slot, it will only support either Dual-SIM standby or expandable storage. Have a look at its specification sheet below.
- 5.9-inch Full HD+ 2160 x 1080 pixels resolution 18:9 2.5D curved glass display
- Octa-Core Kirin 659 processor with MaliT830-MP2 GPU
- 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD
- Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1
- Hybrid Dual SIM (nano+nano/microSD)
- 16MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, secondary 2MP camera
- 13MP front-facing camera with soft LED flash, secondary 2MP camera
- Fingerprint sensor
- Dimensions: 156.2 × 75.2 × 7.5mm; Weight: 164g
- 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS / GLONASS
- 3340mAh battery
Performance
Honor 9i comes with an Octa-Core processor, 4GB RAM, and 64GB internal storage. This hardware is enough to handle daily tasks and you can even expand the storage up to 256GB via microSD card. We never found the smartphone facing any hiccups until we tried gaming on the smartphone. There is occasional lag and random stuttering for some graphics intensive games as the chipset is optimized for providing overall performance. The thermals of the smartphone are carefully handled as it never got too hot.
The handset comes with 3,340 mAh battery which lasts easily for an extensive day use. To be honest, this is now an expectation from all smartphones in spite of what all or what new they offer. If the smartphone is not able to survive one’s daytime it might not be even worth it.
The display on the handset is a sheer beauty if we try it indoors. It is incredibly sharp, and the color saturation is too on-point. As soon as we move outdoors its brightness suddenly loses all its charm. The display panel gets too reflective and we face difficulty using the smartphone outdoors.
Overall, the performance of the Honor 9i is at par with the competition but nothing extraordinary by any means.
Camera
Honor 9i is the second smartphone launched in India featuring four camera sensors after the Infocus Snap 4. With 16MP rear and 13MP front-facing camera accompanied by a 2MP depth-sensor on either side, Honor 9i surely is a good topic to initiate small talk. The 2MP secondary camera sensor is required to collect more details, such as depth information while the primary sensor is busy capturing the moment.
The bokeh or what we might know as the portrait mode is pretty common these days on a smartphone. Honor 9i took the bokeh game a little higher by using four camera sensors on a single smartphone. Talking about the camera results, in good lighting it works flawlessly. There are good details captured with proper color reproduction. To be honest, the pictures turn out to be fine but surely not the best.
Lowlight imaging even on this smartphone is still a struggle because as the universal truth states, the amount of light reduced is directly proportional to the noise induced. The front-facing camera turned out to be a good shooter for selfies capturing appropriate details with minimal distortion.
In conclusion, the camera is quite a pleasant offering on the Honor 9i.
ION Verdict
Honor celebrated their third anniversary in India along with the launch of Honor 9i this October. Honor has been gradually maturing alongside bringing new innovations to the table. EMUI 5, for example, is a lot better than EMUI 4 which not only brings a more user-friendly interface but also adds new features like multiple accounts for apps like Facebook & WhatsApp.
Honor 9i comes bundled with all the high-end features at a mid-range price which is an innovation in itself. 18:9 displays are a thing from flagships which were launched this year. Honor 9i gives its users an option to get more of high-end specifications, like the full HD display, 4 camera sensors, fingerprint sensor and octa-core processor at a price which justifies its spec list. Honor 9i also comes with a good design which even makes it better.
Taking head-on with similar offerings from other competitors like LG Q6, Vivo V7+, OPPO F5, Honor 9i stands out. But there are better overall performers like Mi A1 and Moto G5S Plus which can’t be neglected. Surely, worth considering in the list.
Pros
- Good design
- Decent hardware internals
Cons
- No fast charging
- Inconsistent camera performance at times
Buy Honor 9i on Flipkart.com for ₹17,999
[easyreview title=”Install or Not Scorecard” cat1title=”Hardware” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.0″ cat2title=”Performance” cat2detail=”” cat2rating=”3.5″ cat3title=”Design” cat3detail=”” cat3rating=”4.0″ cat4title=”Value for Money” cat4detail=”” cat4rating=”4.0″]
