Honor 9i Review

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has launched some great handsets in the market in recent times. Launched this year, the Honor 8 Pro (Review) directly challenged the OnePlus 5. We were impressed with its specifications and features considering the price. Now the smartphone market is seeing a trend towards handsets with 18:9 aspect ratio. The company has also presented its claim with Honor 9i. To strengthen its claim, the phone has also been given four cameras, which is a unique feature in itself. On paper, its specifications seem strong. Is the handset strong in normal use as well? We will answer this question for you.

Honor 9i Design

If you are attracted to phones with thin bezels and big displays, then you will also like the Honor 9i. It has a big 5.9-inch screen with very thin edges. Don’t be intimidated by the big screen size. The 18:9 aspect ratio makes this phone feel like a 5.5-inch screen with 16:9 aspect ratio in your hands. The thin bezel display also means that the earpiece, sensors and front camera are placed on the top edge. The fingerprint scanner is on the back. The front panel is very clean.
As soon as you take the phone in your hands, its curved edges give a good feel in the hands. The metal unibody also makes the Honor 9i feel sturdy. The black finish of our review unit is very beautiful, but it is like a magnet for fingerprints. The phone also slips in the hands. In such a situation, you have to be careful. The dual camera module on the rear is raised. The good thing is that it comes with a metal rim to protect it from scratches. Honor has placed the LED flash, camera and fingerprint sensor on the back. The fingerprint sensor is a little higher than we would like. We had to stretch our index finger a little to reach it.

Honor 9i has a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer. There is also a loudspeaker along with a headphone jack at the bottom. Apart from the phone, you will also get earphones, plastic cover and a 10 watt charger in the retail box.

Honor 9i specifications and software

The first thing that will grab your attention is its display. The Honor 9i sports a 5.9-inch FullView screen. It has a FullHD+ resolution (1080×2160 pixels). Viewing angles are good, but we felt colours could have been more varied. You can control the colour temperature, but the contrast cannot be increased. The display is bright enough for indoors, but the situation changes outdoors.

Honor has provided four cameras in this phone. The primary sensors on the rear and front panel are 16 and 13 megapixels respectively. Along with these, there are 2 megapixel secondary sensors on both sides which will be used to capture depth information. This means that you will be able to take pictures in portrait mode with both camera setups. There is an LED flash on the rear and a soft selfie flash on the front panel.

Talking about hardware, Honor 9i has Huawei Kirin 659 chipset. The processor has a maximum clock speed of 2.36 GHz. You will get 64 GB storage with 4 GB RAM. There is also an option to expand the storage due to the hybrid dual SIM design. But you will have to choose between a second nano SIM or a microSD card up to 128 GB. Honor has given a 3340 mAh battery in this phone which is slightly larger than average.

On the software front, you get EMUI 5.1 based on Android Nougat. Huawei has used its own visual style. Some options in the Settings app have been rearranged, but it won’t take you much time to get used to it. Honor has provided some unique gestures that can be activated with a fingertip. If you knock on the screen twice, the phone will take a screenshot. If you knock with a fingertip, the screen will start recording. You also have the option to launch apps by typing letters on the screen. We found some of these features to be very useful during our review.

We found that the FullView display is not meant for one-handed use. It is not easy to reach the top corners. The phone also offers a one-handed mode that makes the UI smaller. You can activate it by swiping on the navigation buttons. Another problem with the 18:9 display is that not all apps are made for it yet. You may run these apps with a black patch at the bottom of the screen. You also have the option to scale some apps. You will also find many unwanted apps.

Honor 9i performance, battery life and camera

The performance of the Honor 9i is similar to other devices of this price range. The phone does not heat up during normal use. But the situation changes during gaming. You will love watching videos and playing games on the big screen. We played games like Real Racing 3, Prime Peaks and Clash Royale to test the performance of the Honor 9i. Real Racing 3 and Prime Peaks worked fine. But Clash Royale ran a bit zoomed in. It was getting chopped off at the edges. We did not get the option to run the game in 16:9. But we slowly got used to it.

We also found that the battery drains faster while gaming. So we would suggest you keep an eye on the battery level while playing games. The handset manages power well if it is not performing a powerful task. The battery lasted for about a day in normal use. But playing games and watching videos has a huge impact on battery life. In our HD video loop test, the phone’s battery lasted for 8 hours and 54 minutes, which is not very good compared to other smartphones. You can reduce battery consumption by turning on the power saver mode in the phone. But the lack of fast charging support is disappointing.

On paper, the most important feature of the Honor 9i is the camera. As soon as you launch the camera app, you will find the interface to be very simple. You get controls for flash, aperture mode, moving picture mode and portrait mode. The moving picture feature is similar to Live Photos in iOS. It allows you to capture short clips along with photos. You can get the option of different shooting modes by swiping right on the default screen. Apart from HDR, panorama and video, you also get a Pro mode for photos and videos. There is also an option to download more modes.

The default mode for photos works well. The 16-megapixel camera captures detailed photos in landscape and macro shots. The 2-megapixel secondary camera helps to some extent in separating the subject and background in portrait and wide aperture modes. But it seems that the background blur is done by software. There is a bokeh mode for selfies as well. We found that the performance of the selfie camera was better than the rear camera. You will also get a beautification mode.

Camera performance in low light is average. The phone manages to keep the noise level low. But the pictures become too sharp due to which the details are reduced. Selfies in low light are better and the credit goes to the selfie flash. You will be able to record 1080p videos with the front and rear cameras of Honor 9i. You will also get the option of beautification while recording videos with the front camera. But the output will be limited to 720p only.

Our verdict

It is clear that now companies are moving towards 18:9 aspect ratio. And this feature is not limited to just flagship devices. Honor 9i is another affordable option for customers.

The Honor 9i offers a good mix of features and price. You get a fingerprint sensor compared to the LG Q6 and a display with a 1080p resolution compared to the Vivo V7+ (Review). The processor is perfectly capable for everyday use. The software is also easy to use. However, the camera and battery performance could have been better.

If you value looks over performance, the Honor 9i is a bit different from other smartphones and justifies its price. On the other hand, if you are looking for a reliable performer, the Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review) and Moto G5S Plus (Review) are good options.