The camera in a smartphone has become a deciding factor for most customers. When earlier this month, Honor launched a smartphone with four cameras, it was obvious that it would catch the fancy of "camera conscious" customers. Is the four-camera equipped Honor 9i only about the cameras or does it have what it takes to get a march on the competition? We spent a few days with the smartphone and read the rest of our review to find out the answer to the above question:
Design
The first thing that you will notice about the design and build quality of Honor 9i is that it looks more premium than other smartphones in the same range. The credit for it goes entire to the aluminium body that's coupled with the matte finish. It's fair to say that the smartphone has top-notch build quality and excels in the look and feel factor. What adds gloss to the design is the fact that one-handed usage of the device is extremely easy.
The front of the device is dominated by the 5.9-inch IPS LCD display, which comes with slimmer bezels and on-screen navigation keys that only appear when one touches the screen. The slimmer bezels add to the premium look of the smartphone. Right above the display lies the dual selfie cameras. Flip the smartphone over and you'll see the dual rear cameras along with LED flash. The fingerprint sensor lies just below it and at the bottom lies the Honor branding. The right edge has the power and volume rocker buttons and the left edge has the SIM tray. The 3.5mm jack, microUSB slot and the speaker grilles are all on the bottom edge.
The minimalistic design of the 9i works quite well and if you like your smartphone to be chunkier then this isn't the right choice for you.
If the design of the smartphone worked wonders then the display isn't far behind. The Honor 9i has a beautiful display and it's a treat to watch videos or browse photographs on the smartphone. The Honor 9i's 5.9-inch IPS LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio - which we mentioned earlier - has a lot going for it.
The colours look bright and vibrant, but not saturated. And if you don't like the default colours being showcased on the display, you can choose from warmer or cooler tones. The colour reproduction was accurate and they don't change even when viewed from different angles. However, sunlight readability was one aspect of the display that could have been better. Overall, the minimalistic design coupled with a beautiful display really impressed us.
Performance
Honor 9i smartphone is powered by an octa-core Kirin 659 processor. It packs 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. The smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat skinned with the company's own EMUI 5.1. However, there is no word on whether the smartphone will be getting an Android Oreo update. The Honor 9i smartphone houses a 3340mAh battery.
On paper, all the specifications sound really impressive and we've to admit that after using the phone for a while, it's safe to say that it lives up to what it promises. Most routine tasks were handles with consummate ease by the smartphone. Before getting into the performance details, let's talk about the software on board.
The Honor 9i runs Android 7.0 Nougat skinned with the company's own EMUI 5.1 and comes with quite a few tweaks. For instance, the notification panel is different from what it is in other Android smartphones. The app icons are also different and the app drawer of the smartphone is integrated with the home screen.
While launching various apps on the smartphone there weren't any noticeable lags and even switching between apps wasn't an issue. Even while using multiple tabs of Chrome, there was absolutely no problem. Honor 9i handles multitasking quite seamlessly.
Be it playing music while using navigation or playing games the device coped with multitasking easily. You can browse the Internet or use social media apps like Facebook and Instagram, there won't be any issue with the smartphone's performance.
The cell phone reception was good most of the times, even in areas like elevators. Another plus was the fingerprint sensor of the smartphone as it was very quick in unlocking the phone, even with moist fingers.
The one aspect where the smartphone falters is gaming. The smartphone does warm up slightly even while playing "simple" games like Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds. Having said that, this isn't what can be termed as a heating issue.
The battery of the smartphone is another aspect where the smartphone scores highly. On what can be called heavy usage - social media, browsing internet, watching videos, listening to music - the smartphone's batter lasted an entire day. It's another feather in the Honor 9i's cap.
Now, let's talk about the USP of the device: The four cameras. It comes with 16MP+2MP rear cameras and 13MP+2MP front facing cameras. In both the cases, the secondary camera is for Bokeh effect. The cameras also have a feature called smart selfie toning flash. According to Honor, the feature automatically adjusts the brightness level as per the surroundings. Users can also click images first and focus later.
Most of the images that we clicked using all the four cameras came out quite well. The images taken in daylight or even well-lit indoor areas turned out to be really good. There wasn't any noticeable pixilation and the colours were accurate. While viewing images on the laptop, the quality didn't deteriorate. In lowly lit areas, there is a drop in the image quality but even then they were satisfactory.
The Bokeh effect of the both the cameras was good and we liked that fact that it can be adjusted. The camera app of the smartphone also comes with a Portrait mode and a Moving Picture mode. The latter is a functionality that enables the user to click GIF like images.
Finally, the 13MP selfie camera also did a good job and mostly clicked good pictures. It comes with a Beauty mode that can be adjusted. You can click Moving Pictures with the front facing camera too. However, there was an inconsistency in the quality of images in well-lit and lowly lit areas.
We also ran a few benchmark tests on the phone. It scored 912 and 3351 in single core and multi core score of Geekbench 4 test and 64050 in Antutu.
Verdict
For a smartphone priced at Rs 17,999, Honor 9i comes with good specifications and its performance surely matched our expectations. This is what can be called an all-rounder of a smartphone. The Honor 9i has a great design and a beautiful display. To support the good looks is the smooth, solid performance and it has a camera that clicks really good images. There's not much more that you can ask of a smartphone at this price point, can you?
The first thing that you will notice about the design and build quality of Honor 9i is that it looks more premium than other smartphones in the same range. The credit for it goes entire to the aluminium body that's coupled with the matte finish. It's fair to say that the smartphone has top-notch build quality and excels in the look and feel factor. What adds gloss to the design is the fact that one-handed usage of the device is extremely easy.
The front of the device is dominated by the 5.9-inch IPS LCD display, which comes with slimmer bezels and on-screen navigation keys that only appear when one touches the screen. The slimmer bezels add to the premium look of the smartphone. Right above the display lies the dual selfie cameras. Flip the smartphone over and you'll see the dual rear cameras along with LED flash. The fingerprint sensor lies just below it and at the bottom lies the Honor branding. The right edge has the power and volume rocker buttons and the left edge has the SIM tray. The 3.5mm jack, microUSB slot and the speaker grilles are all on the bottom edge.
The minimalistic design of the 9i works quite well and if you like your smartphone to be chunkier then this isn't the right choice for you.
If the design of the smartphone worked wonders then the display isn't far behind. The Honor 9i has a beautiful display and it's a treat to watch videos or browse photographs on the smartphone. The Honor 9i's 5.9-inch IPS LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio - which we mentioned earlier - has a lot going for it.
The colours look bright and vibrant, but not saturated. And if you don't like the default colours being showcased on the display, you can choose from warmer or cooler tones. The colour reproduction was accurate and they don't change even when viewed from different angles. However, sunlight readability was one aspect of the display that could have been better. Overall, the minimalistic design coupled with a beautiful display really impressed us.
Performance
Honor 9i smartphone is powered by an octa-core Kirin 659 processor. It packs 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. The smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat skinned with the company's own EMUI 5.1. However, there is no word on whether the smartphone will be getting an Android Oreo update. The Honor 9i smartphone houses a 3340mAh battery.
On paper, all the specifications sound really impressive and we've to admit that after using the phone for a while, it's safe to say that it lives up to what it promises. Most routine tasks were handles with consummate ease by the smartphone. Before getting into the performance details, let's talk about the software on board.
The Honor 9i runs Android 7.0 Nougat skinned with the company's own EMUI 5.1 and comes with quite a few tweaks. For instance, the notification panel is different from what it is in other Android smartphones. The app icons are also different and the app drawer of the smartphone is integrated with the home screen.
While launching various apps on the smartphone there weren't any noticeable lags and even switching between apps wasn't an issue. Even while using multiple tabs of Chrome, there was absolutely no problem. Honor 9i handles multitasking quite seamlessly.
Be it playing music while using navigation or playing games the device coped with multitasking easily. You can browse the Internet or use social media apps like Facebook and Instagram, there won't be any issue with the smartphone's performance.
The cell phone reception was good most of the times, even in areas like elevators. Another plus was the fingerprint sensor of the smartphone as it was very quick in unlocking the phone, even with moist fingers.
The one aspect where the smartphone falters is gaming. The smartphone does warm up slightly even while playing "simple" games like Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds. Having said that, this isn't what can be termed as a heating issue.
The battery of the smartphone is another aspect where the smartphone scores highly. On what can be called heavy usage - social media, browsing internet, watching videos, listening to music - the smartphone's batter lasted an entire day. It's another feather in the Honor 9i's cap.
Now, let's talk about the USP of the device: The four cameras. It comes with 16MP+2MP rear cameras and 13MP+2MP front facing cameras. In both the cases, the secondary camera is for Bokeh effect. The cameras also have a feature called smart selfie toning flash. According to Honor, the feature automatically adjusts the brightness level as per the surroundings. Users can also click images first and focus later.
Most of the images that we clicked using all the four cameras came out quite well. The images taken in daylight or even well-lit indoor areas turned out to be really good. There wasn't any noticeable pixilation and the colours were accurate. While viewing images on the laptop, the quality didn't deteriorate. In lowly lit areas, there is a drop in the image quality but even then they were satisfactory.
The Bokeh effect of the both the cameras was good and we liked that fact that it can be adjusted. The camera app of the smartphone also comes with a Portrait mode and a Moving Picture mode. The latter is a functionality that enables the user to click GIF like images.
Finally, the 13MP selfie camera also did a good job and mostly clicked good pictures. It comes with a Beauty mode that can be adjusted. You can click Moving Pictures with the front facing camera too. However, there was an inconsistency in the quality of images in well-lit and lowly lit areas.
We also ran a few benchmark tests on the phone. It scored 912 and 3351 in single core and multi core score of Geekbench 4 test and 64050 in Antutu.
Verdict
For a smartphone priced at Rs 17,999, Honor 9i comes with good specifications and its performance surely matched our expectations. This is what can be called an all-rounder of a smartphone. The Honor 9i has a great design and a beautiful display. To support the good looks is the smooth, solid performance and it has a camera that clicks really good images. There's not much more that you can ask of a smartphone at this price point, can you?
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