Now Huawei’s Honor brand has tried to give customers a more powerful option by introducing Honor 9 Lite. Let us tell you that this is an affordable handset which comes with four cameras. This is not the company’s first smartphone with four cameras, the company had also tried something similar through Honor 9i. However, this time the company has created a new option for the larger market by keeping the price of Honor 9 Lite at Rs 10,999. The specialty of Honor 9 Lite is not limited to just the camera, its specifications are also worth noting. At first glance this phone left a positive impression. Now it remains to be seen whether Honor 9 Lite can give a new definition to the budget segment in terms of performance or not.
Honor 9 Lite design and build
The Honor 9 Lite is very reminiscent of the Honor 8. It was the company’s first flagship smartphone in 2016. Due to 2.5D curved glass the back part gives a mirror like feel. However, it has been clarified on Honor’s website that this effect is limited to only Sapphire Blue and Glacier Gray variants. No such effect will be found in Midnight Black. It is very similar to Moto X4. The display glass in the front is also curved. Due to this reason the grip of the phone becomes good. Well, this feature also has a drawback. The phone slips easily in the hands and also gets fingerprints on it. The frame is plastic. This has been done to keep the price low. Because of this the phone becomes light and many times you will feel that the phone is not even in your pocket.
As per our wish, the SIM tray should also be of the same color as the rest of the phone’s body. But because it is not so, it stands out. Apart from this, we have no complaints with the build quality and finish. The volume and power buttons are plastic, but their response is good. The SIM tray is hybrid. That means you can use two Nano SIM cards at the same time, or a microSD card up to 256 GB with one SIM card. The 3.5mm headphone socket and Micro-USB port are at the bottom of the phone. The speaker grill has also found a place here. Once again, it is disappointing that Honor does not use a USB Type-C port. It seems that the company wants to limit this hardware feature to only expensive phones.
We liked the display of Honor 9 Lite very much. You will get a full-HD+ IPS panel. The screen is 5.65 inches and its aspect ratio is 18:9. This type of displays is now in trend. Due to the long display, the edges have become very thin which enhances the beauty of the phone. Despite this, there is space for the selfie camera above the screen on the front panel and for the company logo at the bottom. The brightness of the panel is adequate and the color reproduction is also decent. It’s not easy to reach every edge of the tall display with the fingers of one hand, but there are several gestures to help you. Like you can open the notification shade by swiping down the fingerprint sensor. There’s also a navigation dock, much like iOS’s Assistive Touch. One-handed mode will also be available.
Honor 9 Lite has a circular fingerprint sensor on the back. It detects fingerprints quickly. Apart from unlocking the screen, you can protect apps using the fingerprint sensor and create virtual safes for private files. This sensor can be used for different types of gestures, such as taking a photo, taking a phone call or browsing photos. These gestures will work with any finger. In the retail box you will get charger, data cable, SIM ejector tool. The phone does not come with a headset.
Honor 9 Lite specifications and features
Despite keeping the price low, Honor has not compromised on the specifications of the 9 Lite. Many of its specifications are similar to those of Honor 7X and Honor 9i which are expensive in comparison. The phone uses Huawei’s own octa-core Kirin 659 processor. There are two variants of the phone based on RAM and storage. One of these is with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. The second one with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, which we have reviewed. While using the phone, we found that only 2 GB RAM works throughout the day. You will get 2 GB free all the time. Other specifications include FM radio, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi b/g/n, 4G VoLTE, USB OTG, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope.
Interestingly, the Honor 9 Lite performed better in benchmark tests than the Honor 7X and Honor 9i.
Like the recently launched Honor View 10, the Honor 9 Lite also runs on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. By the way, the company’s skin EMUI 8 is available on the latest version of Android. It has a feature called Huawei Share which works like Apple’s AirDrop technology.
The Wi-Fi+ feature automatically switches between Wi-Fi and mobile data. This will depend on the connection status. When we restarted our router, the Wi-Fi+ feature of this phone started working. This feature was trying to check which internet connection is stronger between mobile data and Wi-Fi. Finally after checking it connected the phone to Wi-Fi.
The Settings app has a good design. You can create a backup of contacts, calendar, Wi-Fi credentials, SMS messages and call logs. However, it is not clear yet how much storage you will get for free. You will not be able to backup data from third party apps.
Honor 9 Lite performance, camera and battery life
Honor’s EMUI running on Android Oreo works well. But it is not as fast as stock Android. EMUI is quite different from Google’s Material Design language. But it looks good and is effective too. Despite having 4 GB RAM, the phone slowed down a bit while searching in the Settings app. However, we did not find this complaint again and again.
The touch response of the display is good. We also have no complaints with call quality. The processor is fully capable of keeping the multitasking experience good. There was no problem playing easy games. However, framerates dropped in games with powerful graphics like Asphalt 8. This phone gets hot easily. For example, the top part of the Honor 9 Lite got a little warm when downloading apps from the Play Store and listening to songs along with it.
The phone played very smooth in video playback with 1080 pixel resolution. Videos with higher resolution also played smoothly. In the default video player, you will get the option to stretch the video screen.
Now let’s talk about the most important feature of this phone of Honor. The primary camera on both sides of Honor 9 Lite is 13 megapixels. A 2 megapixel depth sensor is also provided on both the sides. With its help, Bokeh effect can be achieved. For this you have to choose between portrait or wide aperture mode in the camera app.
Photos taken in daylight looked good on the handset’s display. Autofocus is fast and details are clearly visible in landscape mode. However, the colors are a bit dull. When zooming in on photos, noise appears in dark areas. In low light, the performance of Honor 9 Lite is the same as other smartphones in this price range. Focus becomes slow. Details are not clearly visible. Especially the edges become sharper.
Wide Aperture mode gives you aperture values of (F/0.95 – F/13), allowing you to adjust the depth of field before and after taking the photo. However, in our testing, the blur effect did not appear to be very effective; the blurred image with the f/2.0 aperture value looked like Photoshop. Similarly, portrait mode is also provided in it, which works in exactly the same way. In this you will not be able to apply blur effect while taking photos. Also, Bokeh toggle is also provided in it but it is not very effective, because the pictures already come with Bokeh effect. The Bokeh effect is much better than the wide aperture mode but the edges of the subject do not appear defined at times. Besides, it also takes a lot of time to focus.
For photography lovers, shooting modes like professional and panorama have been provided in it. Features like filters and HDR have also been added to the phone. Along with this, the phone will recognize your smile with ‘Touch Capture’ and your picture will be clicked automatically.
Talking about video recording, you will be able to record videos up to 1080 pixels. The video is a very mediocre record. Since it does not have the feature of image stabilization, the video is recorded shaky. Pictures taken in low light do not appear very clear. The quality of selfies taken from the front camera is better. The beauty mode along with screen flash is attractive and you will be able to take good pictures even in low light. You will also be able to record videos up to 1080 pixels from the front camera. If you have turned on beauty mode, then the video quality will remain at the maximum of 720 pixels.
Some gesture modes are also provided in it for selfie. You will be able to take a selfie using your palm or with your voice. Apart from this, if you say ‘thing’ out loud while holding the phone in your hand, then the gesture sensor will click your picture. Talking about portrait mode, the front camera is also of better quality.
Now let’s talk about battery. Actually, in terms of battery, Honor’s previous smartphones 7X and 9i could not show anything special despite the large size battery. In our video loop test, the 9 Lite played HD video for 10 hours and 3 minutes without interruption, which can’t be said much better.
We found that using Asphalt 8 for even 10 minutes resulted in a 5 to 10 percent battery drop, which could be a matter of concern. There is no feature like fast charging provided in the smartphone. The 10-watt charge that comes with the phone takes an hour to charge 60 percent of the battery. To reduce power consumption, users have been given the option to turn on/off HD Plus screen resolution.
our decision
If we add the price factor to the trend of 18:9 aspect ratio, then the cheaper variant of Honor 9 Lite is currently the best option in the market. The price of this variant is Rs 11,000. One thing to note is that currently Honor 7X is also in the market, which may not have an additional camera but has a metal body, larger screen and a relatively larger battery.
The 4 GB RAM variant we tested is a bit expensive considering its specifications. The phone looks good but the battery power and camera quality are not very good. There are already phones like Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review) and Moto G5S Plus (Review) available in the market in the range of Rs 15,000. Although these phones do not have a long screen, which is in trend these days, but in terms of performance, they are much more powerful than Honor 9 Lite.
If you are not in a hurry, then you can wait for the arrival of Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus, which was recently launched in China, in India, the price of which will probably be around the Honor 9 Lite.