Honor 9N price in India starts from Rs.11,999. its direct confrontation Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1, Oppo Realme 1 ,review) And Moto G6 ,review) as is from the handset. Does this new Honor smartphone have the power to carve out a niche for itself in the budget segment? Let’s know…
Honor 9N Design
At first glance, the design of Honor 9N attracts attention first. The back panel is made of glass and comes with a glossy finish. The horizontal dual camera does not protrude beyond the surface of the backpanel. The antenna line is hidden. For these reasons, the back panel looks very clean.
The 5.84-inch display has a notch on top which is quite small. There is no doubt that there is no consensus among customers regarding the display notch. That’s why Honor has also given an option to hide the display notch in the Settings menu. Actually, with its help, the user can darken the adjacent part of the notch.
The smartphone is very compact. Made to be used with one hand. The device feels great in the hands due to the rounded edges and curved sides. But it also slips easily. Due to the glossy glass back, fingerprints also fall on it. Build quality is commendable. The phone feels solid in the hands. It dropped several times during the review, but nothing happened to it.
The fingerprint sensor on the rear is fast and accurate. It can also be used to take pictures, answer phone calls and slide down the notification panel. The good thing is that with the fingerprint sensor it is possible to use these gestures with any finger. Not just with the finger that has been registered for the security of the device.
There is a place for the SIM tray on the left side of the Honor 9N. Here you have to choose between a second Nano SIM and a microSD card. There are volume and power buttons on the right side. They are a little small for our liking, but they are not difficult to reach.
There is a micro-USB port on the bottom of the phone. Along with this, there is also a 3.5mm headphone jack and a loud speaker. Disappointing to see no USB Type-C port for data transfer and charging. Now UAB is making the Type-C port the norm and it’s about time Honor makes this hardware feature a part of its budget handsets.
Honor 9N specification and display
Honor’s reliable Kirin 659 processor has been used in Honor 9N. this processor Honor 7X ,reviewHonor 9 Lite, Honor 9i ,review) has also been used. There are three variants of the smartphone that touch different price segments. The starting variant is with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage, which costs Rs 11,999. We have reviewed the variant of Rs 13,999 which comes with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. The third variant of the phone is priced at Rs 17,999, which comes with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. Let us know that in the first sale to be held on July 31, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant of Honor 9N will be available. The company has not yet told anything about the availability of the remaining variants.
Honor 9N has a 3,000 mAh battery. It runs on EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo. For connectivity, the handset includes Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, GLONASS, 4G VoLTE, Micro-USB port, and 3.5mm headphone jack. There is no support for NFC. Two SIMs can be used in this at the same time, but will work on only one 4G network.
Honor 9N flaunts a 5.84-inch full-HD+ IPS display with 19:9 aspect ratio. The front panel is dominated by the screen. But it’s not a completely borderless screen. There is still a lot of bezel at the bottom. Display is one of the important features of this phone. Viewing angles are decent and the panel is bright, vivid and punchy. 19:9 aspect ratio improves gaming and multimedia experience.
Honor 9N performance, software and battery life
If seen, the Kirin 659 processor is a bit old. It cannot challenge Qualcomm’s mid-range processors brought to date in terms of power and efficiency. The Honor 9N handles common tasks, such as web browsing and social media applications, with ease. But it lags behind when pressure is applied. With multiple apps open in the background or dozens of tabs open in Chrome, we did miss the slightly underpowered processor. We did notice keyboard lag at times. During the review, the phone sometimes slowed down. Budget phones are getting more powerful these days, so the Honor 9N’s slowness is disappointing. Games like Subway Surfers ran fine in our experience. But in games like Asphalt 8, there was a complaint of falling framerate.
The smartphone also got hot when pressure was applied. But not so much that it bothers you. Call quality was crisp and clear. 4G connectivity was also very strong. Honor 9N has face recognition support and this is made possible by the 16MP front camera. This works fine in most circumstances. In good light, it quickly unlocks the phone. But it has problems in direct sunlight and insufficient light.
Honor 9N out of box runs on Android 8.0 Oreo. Huawei EMUI 8.0 custom skin has been used on top of this. At the moment, nothing has been said about giving Android P update to this phone. EMUI now responds much better than the older version. Huawei claims that the EMUI 8.0 version is 60 percent faster than the EMUI 5.1. But it is still not as fast as stock Android or Oxygen OS.
Apps like Facebook Messenger, Truecaller and Netflix are pre-installed on the phone. The good thing is that they can be uninstalled. To be honest, the number of unwanted apps on the Honor 9N is disappointing.
Like Honor 9 Lite, the battery life of this phone of Honor brand is very average. The Honor 9N battery lasted 8 hours 40 minutes in our HD video loop test. It is also below average performance for this market segment. In normal use, we found that the phone needed to be charged as soon as 9-10 pm. By use here, we mean running Google Maps for two-three hours. Being active on social media apps like WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram throughout the day, playing Asphalt 8 game for a while and occasionally using camera for selfies and videos. There is no fast charging support. The phone’s battery takes about two and a half hours to full-charge.
Honor 9N cameras
Honor 9N has dual rear camera setup. The primary sensor is 13 megapixels and the secondary sensor is 2 megapixels. Along with this, LED flash has also been given. There is a 16-megapixel sensor on the front panel.
The camera app is intelligently designed. There is also a Pro mode where the user gets to control shutter speed, ISO, exposure, aperture and white balance. AR stickers are fun and a great way to kill time. It can be used with front and rear cameras.
The rear camera takes above average quality pictures in suitable lighting conditions. Images come with decent details and colors are accurate. In wide aperture mode, you can set the aperture between (F/0.95 – F/13). It is possible to do this before or after taking pictures. However, looking at the pictures taken in the wide aperture mode, it felt like a Photoshop attempt gone bad. The pictures did not even come of average quality. Edge detection was very average.
The performance of the camera in low light is very poor. There is a lack of detail in the photo and it seems sharper than necessary. There is also a glimpse of noise and the phone is also slow in focusing. The condition of the front camera is also similar. It lags in low light and takes decent pictures in decent lighting. There is also a beauty mode which offers 10 levels of beautification and it works well. You can also take Bokeh shots with the front camera. This is possible through software algorithms. Photos in this mode are of very average quality and the blur effect does not work many times.
You will be able to record videos up to 1080 pixel resolution from the front and rear cameras. The quality of the recorded videos is very average and the lack of detail is evident in them, especially at night. The footage looks shaky as there is no electronic image stabilisation.
our decision
Honor 9N is a compact smartphone that comes with vibrant display, new design and out of box Android 8.0 Oreo. The color variants are very interesting, especially the Robin Egg Blue. At the same time, the battery life is very average. Performance is below average. EMUI looks cluttered and the cameras disappoint in low light.
If you want a sleek phone with a good display, then the initial variant of Honor 9N will prove to be a profitable deal. The rest of the variants are a bit more expensive and we cannot suggest you to buy them. If you are looking for a phone in this price segment Redmi Note 5 Pro ,review) is a great all-rounder device and the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 is a complete bargain. Oppo’s Realme 1 is also a good option. It comes with a more powerful processor, but lacks a fingerprint sensor.