Huawei Honor 9 Hands on

If you ask for a recommended smartphone with budget price, we would recommend the Honor 8 among the Huawei brand. The device was introduced in the summer of 2016 and offers a very good price-performance ratio. For a few days now the successor Honor 9 is available in Germany (we had introduced it here). It costs similar to the predecessor and optically has not done much, but the technology inside has been brought up to date. Basically, it is a Huawei P10 in another appearance and without Leica camera technology. Today we will see why the Honor 9 can be recommended for conscience to buy.

The Honor 9 is packed in a white cardboard box, the body colors are silver and blue. Later, a black version is also to be added. The silver version was provided for the test. The silver device has a very nice “shine effect” on the back, as can be seen in the photos, but fingerprints are super fast visible. In the packaging, we can find there is a hard plastic cover and of course a USB cable besides the device itself. As a connection, USB Type C is used; the power supply supports the Huawei QuickCharge technology, so the device can be recharged very quickly. A headset is not supplied.

Good first impression

The display is very nice bright and colors strong and true to nature. The full-HD resolution is absolutely sufficient, really not more needs with the size of about 5.2 inches. The fingerprint sensor has moved to the front in comparison to the Honor 8 and at the same time also serves as a home button. We find the positioning with the Honor 9 is very good, especially since the sensor also works very reliably and fast. In addition to the fingerprint sensor, two touch buttons for the multitasking menu and the back button have been placed, the assignment of the buttons can be customized to suit your personal preferences.

The camera also makes a good first impression. Honor 9 uses a dual camera with a 12 megapixel RGB sensor and a 20 megapixel monochrome sensor. Thanks to the HiSilicon Kirin 960 chipset, videos can finally be recorded in 4K resolution; the predecessor did not go yet.

Body: light and shadow

The body of the predecessor Honor V9 is especially rounded on the back towards the sides, whereby the Honor 9 should lie better in the hand. Now you can stand to glass backs as you want, we find them but always a bit slippery and not as nice as metal body. This is also the criticism of the Honor 9, it feels in the hand not as good as for example a Huawei P10 or an Apple iPhone 7 (both metal body). But it’s very successful about the reflections on the back: depending on light incident, the case looks darker or lighter.

First Conclusion

The Honor 9 is a good and consistent development to the Honor 8. The technology was updated, the internal user memory doubled from 32 GB to 64 GB. The dual SIM function is of course also on board again. With the multiple color options, we suppose most users would find what suit them. The Honor 9 is recommended for daily use if you don’t have many high requirements on the mobile phone.

Huawei Honor V9 Smartphone on Hand

The Honor V9 is the top Smartphone in the Honor brand, which was launched at a higher price than current models on the market. With the Honor V9, you would find the specifications are improved significantly. The device comes with Quad HD display, dual camera and HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor and comes with a super flat metal boy. Whether the surcharge to the “normal” Honor 8 is worthwhile and where are the strengths and weaknesses, should be described in this experience report.

Elegant Appearance

The Honor V9 is huge, yet elegant and beautiful to look at. The entire body is made of metal; the front is covered by glass with a rounded edge (2.5D glass). With only 6.97 millimeters, the device is quite flat, the 15.7 centimeters in height and the 7.7 centimeters in width, however, make the device so large that a single-handed operation even with large hands no longer possible. If you have not already possessed the same or similar size smartphone, one should definitely feel it in hand before the purchase. Here now Honor offers the V9 in different colors: red, blue, black and gold. There are three versions: 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM, 6GB RAM + 64GB ROM, 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM.

Good Specification

In this report, we will just provide a quick overview of the advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages is definitely the 5.7 inch Quad HD display (2560 x 1440 pixels). It is not only very sharp, but also offers a great display quality and a very good maximum brightness. The thin body edges around the display are also to be mentioned positively.

Also the operating system and the software run smoothly in the test. Although the installed Android 7.0 OS is not the latest, but it is comparatively up-to-date and with the EMUI 5.1 interface, most users will probably get along very well, because it is optically nice and offers a lot of functions. The HiSilicon Kirin 960 Octa-Core processor with 4x 2.4 GHz and 4x 1.8 GHz clock power is the reason for this.

The dual camera on the back has two sensors: a 12 megapixel color sensor and a 12 megapixel monochrome sensor. Photos are sharp and are (as opposed to videos, more below) absolutely comparable to the images of significantly more expensive smartphones. In particular, the monochrome function is a highlight since the monochrome sensor can still provide good images even in poor light conditions.

The battery is also clearly mentioned. With 4,000 mAh it offers a very good capacity and is recharged quite quickly thanks to Quick Charge technology. The battery runtime is normally two days during normal use.

Some drawbacks

The Honor V9 has also revealed some disadvantages in the test. Thus, in addition to the size, the strong heat development is particularly noticeable. The device has often been very warm after a short time of use, for example when apps were downloaded from the PlayStore and pictures were also viewed in the photo gallery. The loudspeaker is definitely not one of the strengths of the Honor V9. It is very loud if necessary, but the sound is quite flat.

Another disadvantage: the video function. The quality of the recorded video is comparatively bad, which can be determined especially by the strong noise (even in good light). In addition, the picture and sound are not synonymous, which appears when shooting of people very strange. The video function was tested by the way with 1080p Full HD resolution, purely theoretically, the Honor V9 could also record in 4K.

Since the Honor V9 is also a LTE telephone, the lack of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) function has to be mentioned. The brother models of Huawei (Mate 9, P9, P10, etc.) support voice telephone over the LTE network, but the Honor V9 cannot do this is not quite understandable. Also WiFi calling, thus the telephone over WLAN nets, is not supported.

Conclusion

The Honor V9 is a very smart smartphone, which is especially worthwhile for lovers of giant displays. Huawei offers a very good and up-to-date technical equipment and can score with a good software. In addition to many positive points, there are also some negative aspects, which should be conscious before a purchase.

 

 

Huawei Honor 8 Pro (V9) Available

Honor today introduced a new smartphone: Honor 8 Pro. The big brother of the Honor 8 is at high price with high expectations of the technology and the design. In principle, the Honor 8 Pro is not an unknown device, the device has been available in China for some weeks under the name Honor V9; in some areas such as Europe, no change was made except the device name.

Equipment and technology

One of the highlights at the Honor 8 Pro is certainly the 5.7 inch display. It resolves with 2560 x 1440 pixels (2K) and thus offers a very sharp display with a high pixel density of 515 ppi. For comparison: the normal Honor 8 has only a 5.2-inch display with 1080p Full-HD resolution. The internal memory of the Honor 8 Pro is 64 GB and expandable via MicroSD memory card, if no second SIM card is used. The memory is 6 GB.

 

The second highlight is the dual camera on the back of the Honor 8 Pro. It resolves with 12 megapixels and should allow particularly good photos. It should be the same camera as in the Honor 8 or the Huawei P9, also 4K video recordings with 30fps are possible. The front camera offers a maximum of 8 megapixels and can record videos in 1080p Full-HD.

As an operating system Android version 7.0 with the EMUI 5 interface is used. For a good speed, a Kirin 960 chipset is inserted, which has so far only been used in the Huawei Mate 9 and Huawei P10 devices. For wireless network connections, the device provides all important standards, including Dualband WLAN ac, Bluetooth 4.2 and LTE Cat6 at up to 300 Mbps. In addition, the Honor 8 Pro Dual SIM is capable, so you can use two Nano-SIM cards simultaneously.

 

The battery of the Honor 8 Pro is quite large with 4,000 mAh, the battery should with normal use two full days without recharging. By the way, a quick-charging function is available via the USB Type C connection on the underside of the Honor 8, but wireless charging is not possible.

Design and materials

The Honor 8 Pro will be available in black, blue and gold. The design is quite strongly to that of the Honor 8, the back of this time is made of metal and not like the Honor 8 from glass. Because of the bigger display, the dimensions are also slightly changed compared to the small sister model, the Honor 8 Pro is 157 x 77.5 x 6.97 millimeters tall and weighs a whopping 184 grams.

The display glass is slightly rounded to the sides (2.5D optics), which is not only visually more beautiful, but also leaves the device better in the hand. The fingerprint sensor is located on the back as with almost all Honor and Huawei smartphones.

Mixture of Honor 8 and Huawei Mate 9

The Honor 8 Pro makes a good impression in the first impression. The technology is with 2K display, dual camera and 4,000 mAh rechargeable battery, 6 GB RAM and the Kirin 960 chipset make the device future-proof. Basically, the Honor 8 Pro is a mixture of the Honor 8 and the Huawei Mate 9. Actually, the Huawei Mate 9 is still a good piece better equipped in some points and costs currently not much more on the price, the only poorly equipped Honor 8 price is cheaper, but for some users, it’s budget phone to recommend.

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