After One Month With The Honor 9X [HONOR Content Crew]

First things first… The FullView display is a real beauty and a sight to behold, with near to zero bezel and definitely no notches and cut-out. What you get is an impressive full 6.59” display that you just cannot miss when you first power up the phone. Now that I have gotten that out of the way… 

The FullView Display

OK. So, after one month of using the Honor 9X (and constantly staring at the FullView display), what do I think about this phone?

Although the Honor 9X comes with a 6.59” screen, the phone itself does not feel big. It is a size that I find comfortable to hold and has got the right balance between weight and display comfort – meaning, I can hold the phone and watch videos for hours without feeling the strain on my hands. The screen is big enough that I do not need to strain my eyes. This also means gaming is an enjoyable experience..

Even though the Honor 9X comes with only a Kirin 710 processor (mid-range processor), there is really nothing mid-range about its performance. The phone is able to handle intensive games like PUBG and Arena of Valor just fine. You can check out my gaming session over here.

Personally, I feel that mid-range processors have reached a point where they are good enough to run available apps without any issues. This is very different five years ago when we can see and feel a gap between the flagship (high-end) and the mid-range. Currently for me, I feel the mid-range is the value-for-money segment, especially during times when we are all more budget conscious these days.

Besides playing games on my mobile phone, I like taking food photos. The camera on this Honor 9X is decent. I would not go to say that the phone has got the best camera setup, but the camera performs decently enough. However, I personally find the AI mode to be either a hit-or-miss affair and have found myself occasionally turning off the AI mode. Some food photos come off looking dull with AI turned on and I found they look better with AI disabled. But this is not something that is a problem only on this phone. I have seen similar things on even flagship phones like Samsung Note 9 – AI sometimes just messes things up. So, good to play around when taking photos.

The camera on the Honor 9X is also capable of taking 48MP photos. This is particularly useful for those who want to capture lots of details in their photo (maybe for printing, cropping or just zooming in). But I pefer another feature of the camera on the Honor 9X -- 6X zoom. I can actually take decent photo from far away (no, not a stalker) with this feature. This can be useful when we are in concerts or seated far away in the stadium. There is also the ultra-wide mode to capture really big family photos. ?

Good looking food photo... Yummy!

 Actual dish looks good but somehow came out dull in this photo

Also, in low-light conditions, I find the phone starts to struggle a bit, with faces sometimes becoming blotched. Do note that while I love to take photos, I am really an amateur point-and-click person. So, I tend to just take more photos and then pick out the best one. This way, I will still get a good shot somehow. ?

 Faces in photo look blotched but real people are all very handsome and pretty... ? 

Which brings to the next point… Storage. There is a lot of it. 128GB to be precise. I can store lots of videos and photos and still have enough space for games. There is even microSD support (but at the expense of your second SIM – How I wish the Honor 9X comes with a dedicated microSD slot like the Honor 8C)! I can go on taking photos and videos without having to worry about running out of space!

Speaking of videos, one interesting and nice feature on the Honor 9X is the slo-mo. I can record 480fps slow-mo videos and if you’re not sure what that means, check out this video:

While I have not taken a lot of videos in the one month I have used the phone, the few videos I took had mixed results. Some came out bright and colourful while others came out fairly dull. I suspect it is due to the low lighting conditions in the “dull” looking videos.

If there is something on my wish list for this phone, it is to have an IR Blaster. I have many broken remote controllers at home and with my Honor 8 Pro, I can still control my aircond and TV. It is something that I wish Honor will include as standard feature in ALL their phones. Having said that, even the earlier generation, Honor 8X, does not come with an IR Blaster. So, I guess it’s not a big surprise to find there is no IR Blaster on the Honor 9X.

The Honor 9X currently retails at RM999. At this price and with all the features included in the phone, I think it is a good value phone – powerful enough to run apps in the market, with big enough battery to last all day and decent camera to capture the moments. And… That gorgeous screen. ?