Honor 9i Design
If you entice thin bezel and big display phones, then you will also like Honor 9i. It has a large 5.9 inch screen with it very thin. Do not be afraid of big screen size. Due to 18: 9 aspect ratio, this phone gives a feeling of a 5.5 inch screen with 16: 9 aspect ratio in the hands. Thin bezel display also means that the earpiece, sensor and front camera have found a place on the side. The fingerprint scanner is on the back. The front panel is very clean.
As soon as you take the phone in your hands. Its curved edges give a good feeling in the hands. Honor 9i also looks strong due to metal unibody. The black finish of our review unit is very beautiful, but it is like a magnet for fingers. The phone also slips in the hands. In such a situation, you will have to take precaution. The dual camera module on the rear portion is bulging. The good thing is that it comes with a metal rim to protect against scratch. Honor has placed LED flash, camera and fingerprint sensor on the back. The fingerprint sensor is slightly above our choice. In reaching this, we had to stretch our index finger a little.
Honor 9i has a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer. There is also loudspeaker with headphone jack on the lower back. In addition to the phone in the retail box, you will also get earphones, plastic covers and 10 watts of charger.
Honor 9i’s specification and software
The first thing that will draw your attention is its display. Honor 9i has a 5.9 -inch fullview screen. It is fullhd+ resolution (1080×2160 pixels). Viewing angles are good, but we should have been colors and diverse according to us. You can control the color temperature, but the contrast cannot be increased. The display for indoor is sufficiently bright, but the situation changes in outdoor.
Honor has given four cameras in this phone. The primary sensors of the rear and front panel are of 16 and 13 megapixels respectively. They have a 2 -megapixel secondary sensor on both sides, which will be used to capture depth information. This means that you will be able to take photos in portrait mode from both camera setup. There is an LED flash on the rear and a soft selfie flash on the front panel.
Talking about hardware, Hawawei Kirin is 659 chipset in Honor 9i. The most clock speed of the processor is 2.36 GHz. You will get 64 GB storage with 4 GB RAM. There is also an option to increase storage due to hybrid dual sim design. But you have to choose one of the second Nano SIM or one of the microSD cards up to 128 GB. Honor has given a 3340 mAh battery in this phone, which is slightly larger than the average.
Talking about software, you will get EMUI 5.1 based on Android Nougat. Huawei has used its visual style. Some options of the Settings app have been revised, but it will not take you a lot of time to introduce it. Honor has given some unique gestures that can be activated with fingers. If you knock on the screen twice, the phone will take the screenshot. Screen recording will begin if you knock from the joint of two finger. You also have the option to launch the app by writing letters on the screen. We found some of these features very effective during review.
We found that the fullview display is not made to use with one hand. It is not easy to access the top corner. The phone also has a one -handed mode which makes the UI small. You can activate it by swiping it on the navigation button. Another problem with 18: 9 display is that not all apps are made for it yet. You can run these apps with black patch on the bottom of the screen. You also have the option to score some apps. You will also get many unwanted apps.
Honor 9i Performance, Battery Life and Camera
The performance of Honor 9i is similar to other devices of this price. The phone is not hot in common use. But the situation changes during gaming. You would like watching videos and playing games on big screen. We played gams like Real Racing 3, Prime Pix and Clash Royal, so that the performance of Honor 9I can be checked. Rear Racing 3 and Prime Pix worked well. But the Clash Royal went a little zoom. It was coming to sliced on the edges. We did not get the option to run the game in 16: 9. But we gradually became accustomed to it.
We also found that battery consumption is faster during gaming. In such a situation, while playing the game, you will suggest you to keep an eye on the battery level. If the handset is not doing powerful task, it manages the power well. The battery in common use lasted for about a day. But playing games and watching videos affect battery life a lot. In our HD video loop test, the phone battery lasted for 8 hours 54 minutes, which is not much better than other smartphones. You can reduce battery consumption by turning on the power saver mode in the phone. But there is disappointment due to lack of fast charging support.
Paper is the most important feature camera of Honor 9i. As soon as you launch the camera app, you will find that the interface is very simple. You get control for flash, aperture mode, moving picture mode and portrait mode. The moving picture feature is similar to live photos of iOS. With its help, you are able to capture a small clip with pictures. You can get the option of different shooting mode by swiping the right side on the default screen. Apart from HDR, Panorama and videos, you will also get a Pro mode for photos and videos. There is also an option to download more mode with it.
Default mode works well for the photo. The 16 -megapixel camera captures photos with details in landscape and macrose shot. The 2 megapixel secondary camera helps some extent to separate the subject and background in wide aperture mode. But it seems that the background is through staining software. Selfie also has Bokeh mode. We found that the performance of the selfie camera was better than the rear camera. You will also get a beautification mode.
The camera performance is average in low light. The phone manages to keep the level of noise low. But the photos become more sharp due to which the details decrease. Selfie was better in low light and credit will go to selfie flash. With the front and rear camera of Honor 9i, you will be able to record 1080 pixels videos. While recording the video from the front camera, you will get the option of beautification. But the output will be controlled only up to 720 pixels.
Our decision
It is clear that now companies are moving towards 18: 9 aspect ratios. And this feature was not limited to the flagship device just. Honor 9i is another affordable option for customers.
Honor 9i shows good coordination between feature and price. You get a fingerprint sensor compared to LG Q6 and a display with 1080 pixels resolution compared to Vivo V7+ (Review). The processor for daily use is fully capable. Software is also easy to use. However, the performance of the camera and battery could have been better.
If you give importance to the look more than performance, then Honor 9 is slightly different from the other smartphone and also makes its price fair. On the other hand, if you are looking for a reliable performance, Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review) and Moto G5S Plus (Review) are good options.