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Reviewing Honor 9A budget smartphone

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Honor 9A is a budget smartphone which was launched back in Malaysia on June 2020. Even though it is a budget smartphone yet it still has some great features such as the huge battery. In this review, we will be sharing our honest thoughts on the Honor 9A smartphone.

Design

First of all, let’s talk about the design of the Honor 9A. For the design-wise, the Honor 9A has a sturdy design. The Honor 9A feels really good when holding it on hands. However, due to the weight, it makes it heavy. Because of this reason, we can’t really hold the phone for a longer period of time. Besides that, the Honor 9A rear surface is made of plastic which makes it easier fingerprints to be seen. Maybe if Honor has made it glass or matte surface instead of a plastic surface then the design would have been perfect.

Nevertheless, due to this reason, it is highly advisable to use a proper phone case for the Honor 9A smartphone.

Display

The Honor 9A features a 6.3″ FullView waterfall display which only comes with a LCD display. Most of the current smartphones nowadays features a AMOLED display with in-display fingerprint scanner. But, since Honor 9A is a budget smartphone, Honor decided to use LCD display. Instead of having the fingerprint scanner in the display itself, Honor has move it to the rear side of the phone.

Even though, it uses an LCD display, the display is still quite bright than expected. There’s nothing much you can expect when you are using a budget smartphone which is priced below RM1000.

Camera

Over at the camera department, the Honor 9A features an array of four cameras. First of all, it has a 13MP main camera followed by a 5MP ultra-wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth sensor. Over the front side, there is a 8MP front selfie camera.

During our test of using the Honor 9A, we have tested the cameras thoroughly. The photos taken using the main camera looks quite nice than expected. At first, we didn’t expect a budget smartphone to have a great camera. But this phone proves that smartphone makers can include good cameras for a budget smartphone.

If you take a look at the first image above, both the contrast and saturation are quite good. There are a few smartphone where the photos will look alot fake because of adding over saturation. However, in this phone, while using the 13MP main camera, we didn’t really saw these types of issues.

Using the Honor 9A, we have also taken photos using the ultra-wide-angle camera. With the 5MP ultra-wide-angle camera, the photo stitching looks good. Not bad for a budget smartphone. The image above is the sample photos taken using both the 13MP main camera and 5MP ultra-wide-angle camera.

The depth sensor camera works really great at outdoor. As you can see the left photo above is taken using the 2MP depth sensor camera. The blurring of the image looks good. Probably for the software wise requires more improvement than expected. If you take a look at the picture on the right side, it was taken using the depth sensor too. However, this photo was taken at indoor. The Honor 9A did not perform quite well during indoor shots. Unless, there is some additional lights in the area, then the photo looks great in the Honor 9A.

We have also tried the selfie camera in the Honor 9A. Our first impression when using the front 8MP selfie camera is, the photos are not overly saturated. The colours are bright and details are quite sharper than expected. Good job Honor!. But taking selfie in low light is totally not advisable.

Performance/Gaming

Under the hood, the Honor 9A is equipped with MediaTek Helio P22 processor. We can’t really expect a Snapdragon processor on a budget phone. So, performance is not really great. The first issue we found using the Honor 9A is the lack of GMS (Google Mobile Services). Without Google services, it really feels weird to use the Honor 9A.

Due to this reason, we couldn’t really test high graphics games such as the Call of Duty Mobile. But looking at the Huawei App Gallery which they are really working hard to add more apps to it, we found out there is only one high graphic games which we thought of testing it on the Honor 9A. We played the Asphalt 9 game on the Honor 9A and we were quite disappointed with the graphics quality.

It its true that this is a budget smartphone. But stil, when we were playing Asphalt 9 on the Honor 9A, the device becomes hot quicker. And the graphics quality is quite low. Surprisingly, the device doesn’t lag even when we were playing high end games on the Honor 9A.

This phone will be really suitable for those of you who are not going to play high end games. That’s the reason in the beginning of this review we say that, this phone is really suitable for elderly people. If you are looking for a decent smartphone to perform all the basic tasks. Then this is the right guy (Honor 9A) which you are looking for.

Battery

The best part of the Honor 9A is the battery. Honor 9A features a huge 5,000mAh battery capacity which can easily last you up to 1 day. While using this phone for the past two weeks, we were able to use the Honor 9A for two days without charging it for one day. That’s really impressive from Honor.

Even though the Honor 9A has a huge batteries, yet it doesn’t support fast charging. We were kinda disappointed when we saw there is just a micro USB cable with a 5A power brick. Thank god, it has a huge battery, else this will be a total mess. Our advice to Honor is, next time please add fast charging technology in your budget phones. This is what people wants from a budget smartphone.

Pricing and Availability

Now, its time to talk about the pricing. Even though it doesn’t have great specs yet still it is a good phone to buy as a secondary smartphone. The Honor 9A is currently priced at RM549. We were mind blown to know the price! This is super cheap for a budget smartphone.

You can purchase the Honor 9A from both Shopee or Lazada.

Our final verdict

Our final verdict regarding the Honor 9A is, it is a great phone which comes in such a low price. It is totally understandable that Honor had to sacrifice a few things to make a budget smartphone. But, if they add the fast charging feature at least would have been great.

Overall, Honor 9A has a great battery which can last up to 2 days in a single charge. It even has great cameras which is consider good for a budget smartphone. The main lacking in the Honor 9A is the GMS. Without GMS, it is kinda hard to consider the Honor 9A as primary smartphone. Unless it is your secondary smartphone then it is quite a good choice we can say.

In conclusion, if you wish to purchase the Honor 9A you can easily get it from here.

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A great budget phone but requires more improvement on the camera and performance. This is a great phone for budget users and elderly people who don't really care much about performance.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Design
Display
Camera
Performance/Gaming
Battery
Raaj Lokanathan
Raaj Lokanathan
A software engineer as a profession. A tech blogger as a passion.

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A great budget phone but requires more improvement on the camera and performance. This is a great phone for budget users and elderly people who don't really care much about performance.Reviewing Honor 9A budget smartphone