Honor 9i is a new addition to the Honor series smartphones from Huawei. Huawei always tries to make smartphones for mid range with most features the people can expect. Honor 9i is the first smartphone with full vision display and dual camera setup on both sides of the smartphone. The phone comes with a price tag of Rs. 17,999 and available to buy from Flipkart.
Unboxing and design
The smartphone comes in a white box which opens in a different way to reveal the smartphone. The box contains the necessary accessories like the micro USB charging cable, charging brick, headset, quick starting guide and warranty card. Except for these accessories, the box contains a clear case for the smartphone, and the screen protector is applied to the smartphone display before shipping.
The smartphone is all black with a matte finish all over the aluminum unibody with curved edges and premium curved glass display cover glass. The smartphone feels premium in hands because of the curves and the matte finish. The smartphone is only 7.5 mm thin and weighs only 164 gm including the battery.
The front of the smartphone is full black with minimal bezels around the display, only dual camera and earpiece speaker grill are visible. The back of the phone has the dual camera setup with flash, fingerprint sensor, and the Honor branding. The top edge of the phone is empty; left side has the SIM card tray slot, right edge has the volume rocker and the power button. Bottom edge got all the I/O ports (microUSB and 3.5 mm audio jack) and the speaker grill.
Display and Specifications
Honor 9i comes with a FullView display which has the FHD+ (2160X1080) resolution and 18:9-pixel ratio. The display is super crisp and bright; the content looks great on this display and blacks are deep black. It comes with on-screen navigation bar which takes some space in the display but looks decent.
Honor 9i runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1 layered on top. It sports a HiSilicon Kirin 659 octa-core processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. The phone comes with dual camera setup for front and rear with LED flash at the back. All this hardware is powered by a huge 3340 mAh battery which can easily provide two days of backup.
Camera
Honor 9i comes with four cameras, dual for the front and dual for the rear. The rear has a 16MP + 2MP setup with LED flash and front has the 13MP + 2MP camera setup with soft flash (using the display). The 2MP sensors with front and rear camera setup are there to add a depth to the pictures.
The camera app is customized and very easy to use, has a bunch of camera modes including the Pro mode. The camera does a decent job while capturing pictures, but while adding the depth effect, we have seen a lot of smartphone cameras which performed better than this camera. The depth effect looks like a software editing rather than hardware. It adds the blur effect poorly to the subjects; it sometimes blurs parts of the subject.
Front facing camera is also the same but performs better while adding depth effect inside selfies. The smartphone uses the display as a soft flash to brightens the face a bit. Overall the camera performance is at par which is all because of the weak depth effect on pictures.
Performance
The Honor 9i runs on the Hisilicon Kirin 659 octa-core processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. It comes with Android 7.0 Nougat pre-installed with Huawei’s own EMUI 5.1 layered on top. You can use it either way, home screen only or with app drawer button, it can be changed via settings.
The interface is smooth and very easy to use, there is nothing much to know about it. Everything is straightforward in the EMUI. The overall performance of the hardware is decent; you can play games, multitask several apps because of plenty RAM and browsing performance is also good. The user interface has lots of options and customizations built in like themes which you really shouldn’t worry about if you want it simple.
Battery, Performance and other features
The battery in Honor 9i is a 3340 mAh battery which is enough to power the smartphone for a full day easily. During our test, the battery performed amazingly well with full two days of battery backup which even includes some high-end gaming. On network and LTE enabled, it can provide you more than a whole day with cellular data enabled.
Every other feature in this smartphone works almost amazingly and the way it meant to work. The speakers are not so loud but can notify you about notifications and incoming call easily. The fingerprint sensor is easily reachable and very accurate, it unlocks the smartphone almost instantly.
Pros
- Crisp FullView display
- Fast fingerprint sensor
- Great battery performance
Cons
- Mediocre camera performance
Verdict
Honor 9i is an excellent smartphone for those who want to taste the “FullView” display and a large screen; the camera is also great for selfies. It is available in three color variant and available on Flipkart for Rs. 17,999 which is a great deal according to the price.
