Honor 9X Review: A Solid Mid-Range Contender with Room for Improvement

The Honor 9X makes a decent impression with its modern aesthetics and spacious screen, yet its core components hold it back from truly standing out in the crowded mid-range market.

Design and Display The Honor 9X sports a glass-back finish with a plastic frame, offering a premium look that catches the light with a holographic X pattern when tilted. The Blue variant has a subtle appearance, and the curved design makes the phone comfortable to hold. The buttons provide satisfactory feedback, though the absence of a notification LED and the phone's tendency to slip and smudge are concerns. Notably missing is Gorilla Glass protection on both the front and back, which led to a shattered screen in our testing a disappointing flaw for the price. The 6.59-inch IPS LCD panel delivers good color reproduction and contrast, with a clean, notch-free experience thanks to the motorized pop-up selfie camera.

Performance At the heart of the Honor 9X lies the Kirin 710F chipset, a processor that feels underpowered for the price point. While everyday tasks and multitasking handle smoothly with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, gaming performance is mediocre. PUBG can run on medium settings without major issues, but higher settings introduce stutters. The software, EMUI 9 based on Android 9, shows improvement but still lags behind competitors like Samsung and Xiaomi in refinement and aesthetics.

Cameras The triple-camera setup includes a 48MP primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 2MP depth sensor. Photo results are mixed: portrait images suffer from inconsistent edge detection and background blur, while primary and wide-angle shots offer natural colors but lack the punch and detail seen in rivals such as the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Night photography favors the Honor 9X, with its long-exposure night mode producing strong results, but video capabilities lag, capped at 1080p at 60fps without gyro-EIS. Selfies are problematic, with portrait modes delivering uneven blur and edge detection, though the Honor 9X avoids the severe red tint issues found on some competitors.

Battery and Additional Features The 4000mAh battery, paired with Honor's optimization, easily lasts a full day under normal use, even with heavy photo-taking and gaming. However, charging remains a frustration, limited to 10W speeds despite the chipset's support for faster charging. Call quality and speaker performance are adequate for the price, though audio lacks depth for instrumentals. The rear-mounted fingerprint sensor is fast and reliable, while face unlock, facilitated by the pop-up camera, is swift but intrusive due to frequent activation.

Verdict The Honor 9X is an average offering for its price range, undone by critical shortcomings such as the underwhelming Kirin 710F chipset, lack of fast charging, and absent Gorilla Glass protection. While its design, display, and battery life are strong points, the phone cannot compete with alternatives that provide better overall value and performance.