Recently, Honor unveils its next-level affordable phone which is the Honor X9a 5G. I have tried to use this phone for more than two months and now I am going to give my full review before you consider buying this affordable phone.
Honor X9A Technical Specifications
Before deep diving into the review, I would like to share with you the specs of the Honor X9A. Upfront, there is a 6.67” OLED Curved Display with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The Honor X9A also packs with 120hz screen refresh rate. Due to the curved display, it has a 93% screen-to-body ratio and also it has a peak brightness of 800 nits.
In the camera department, the Honor X9A comes with a triple camera setup. First of all, there is a 64MP ultra-clear camera with f/1.8 aperture. Then, the phone comes with a 5MP wide-angle camera with f/2.2 aperture. Lastly, there is a 2MP macro camera lens with f/2.4 aperture. For a selfie camera-wise, the Honor X9A comes with a 16MP camera lens with f/2.45 aperture.
Under the hood, the Honor X9A runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G processor. Yes! You got it right, this affordable phone comes with the support of 5G. For memory and storage wise, this phone comes with three variants, one is 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. The second variant is 8GB RAM with 128GB storage and the third variant is 8GB of RAM with 256GB storage. The one I am using now is the max variant which has 8GB RAM with 256GB storage. Powering the Honor X9A is a huge 5,100mah battery. And according to Honor, the battery life can last for up to 2 days.
Operating system-wise, it runs on MagicUI 6.1 which is based on the Android 12 operating system.
Honor X9a Full Review
Design
Now, it’s time to review the Honor X9A after using it for two months. First of all, let’s start with the design of this phone. The design looks similar to the Huawei Mate 50 Pro. The rear camera design has a matrix star ring design where the camera lenses are placed inside the ring. Not only that, the matte finish gives a premium feel and touch to the phone itself. With the weight and thickness of just around 175g and 7.9mm respectively, it feels so light on my hand. Even though it has a curved display, it feels really good to hold it.
Display
The main highlight of this Honor X9A is the display. It has a tough curved display where you can even use the Honor X9A phone to smash garlic or even walnuts. Honestly, I will say that this is the toughest curved display I have ever seen in a curved display smartphone. Similar to the Kunlun or Corning Gorilla Glass 6, this curved display is super tough to break. With this tough curved display, Honor is pretty much confident about it which is why it was recognized by Honor Gold Label. This means within 180 days if the screen cracks, you can get it replaced for free.
One of the reasons I don’t really like to use curved display phones is because the probability of a mistouch happening is quite high. But in the Honor X9A, I do not need to really worry about the mistouch because it has AI Anti Mistouch which lowers the probability of mistouch happening.
This is the first time Honor X series smartphones are equipped with 1920Hz PWM dimming. This means, during the night when I watch Netflix TV shows, it reduces the screen flickering and makes it more eye-friendly. With the 800 nits of brightness, I can even read news articles on my phone without worrying about the screen glare in the sunlight. And as usual, this phone comes with a 120Hz screen refresh rate which is good for both my page scrolling and gaming.
Camera
Now, looking at the cameras, I would say the quality of the photos is not that bad actually. First of all, I tried using the 64MP ultra-clear camera and the photos turns out to be good. I won’t say it is perfect because this is just an affordable phone. Photos taken outdoors are much clearer compared to photos taken indoors. The contrast of the outdoor photos is much higher and makes the photos look more vibrant. When I tried to take photos indoors, the noise level in the photo is high. Especially when I zoom into the photos, the details get lost easily. The same goes for the 5MP wide-angle camera as well. For the price of getting this phone, the cameras are okayish enough. Technically, I didn’t even try to take macro shots using the 2MP macro camera because to me this is totally irrelevant to our daily scenarios.
Interestingly, I like the selfie camera more compared to the rear camera. The selfie photos are clearer and with the AI beauty mode feature, the skin tone colours are not that bad. Actually, I really liked it. Besides that, the Honor X9A also is equipped with different video recording modes such as multi-video recording. Using this mode, I was able to record both my reaction and the scenes happening in front of me. If you are a vlogger then I am sure you will like this feature.
Overall, I would say it’s an average camera system in the Honor X9A.
Performance
With the Snapdragon 695 5G processor, this phone supports 5G network connectivity. Yeah, I know that it’s quite difficult to test the 5G network in my area here. Based on the test from geekbench score, this phone scores 656 on single-core and 1938 on multi-core. Not only that but by running the 3D Mark test, this phone scores around 1193 on the graphic test.
Multitasking in the Honor X9A has never been a problem for me until today. I am able to open multiple apps at the same time without any issues. Besides that, the Magic UI 6 has a clean user interface which makes it easier to locate apps.
Talking about gaming on this phone is quite good graphics I can get while playing games. However, I think the screen is not so responsive. Sometimes, I have difficulty moving my game character. These are the small things I was able to notice while gaming on this phone.
Battery
By using the 5,100mah battery, I was able to use this phone continuously for 2 days with just a single charge. With the battery left at around 43%, I can continue to use the Honor X9A for another without any issues. Using the Honor 40W SuperCharge charging adapter I was able to charge the phone in just 30 minutes. With that, I was able to stream videos for at least 12.5 hours. Maybe while playing games, I was able to notice, that the battery gets heated very fast. Apart from that, even when I set the screen refresh rate to 120Hz, the battery drains out much faster.
Storage
Storage and RAM wise, the Honor X9A comes with 256GB internal storage and 8GB RAM. On top of that, it has 5GB virtual RAM which makes the RAM reach up to 13GB. Well, to me with this amount of RAM launching apps are quite smooth and does not lag.
Price
Finally, it’s all about the pricing. The Honor X9A is currently priced at RM1,499. If you ask me this is truly an affordable phone with great features on your hand. The good thing is it comes with Google Apps, a long-lasting battery and a high screen refresh rate. The only downside of this phone is the camera department. Overall, I will say that this is a good phone to buy.
In conclusion, I would suggest to those who want to buy a phone for their kids who are heading to college then this is an affordable can start off with.
