Computer Shopper - UK (2020-04)

ISSUE386|COMPUTERSHOPPER| 41

IFTHEREWASever aphone designed to
catch the eye, it’s theHonor 9X. On the
surface,our glittering blue review model
appeared to tick all the boxes, with a
great-looking screen with no notch in sight, a
3.5mm headphone jack and somewhere to
stow amemorycard to expand its already
reasonable 128GB of memory.For just £220,
falling forits charms is easy.
Even beyond the exterior,there arestill
plenty of things to like.The 9X supplies a
massive 4,000mAh battery and a
48-megapixel camera, while the 16-megapixel
selfie camera pops out of the topofthe
handsetwith afriendly mechanical whir.Asis
so often thecase,however, there’s acatch:
the Kirin 710 processor,the very same chip
that powered 2018’s Honor 8X.

UPPER HAND
We’ll get to that issue shortly,but suffice to
sayperformance doesn’t match the design.
The 9X is tall, slim and elegant, with softly
curved edges that make if comfortable to
hold and give it the illusion of costing much
more than it actually does.
It charges via aUSB Type-C port at the
bottom, which sits alongside the 3.5mm
headphone jack. Avolume rocker and power
button are situated on the right side,and on
the topofthe phonethere arecompartments,
sealed flush with the side panels, which hide
the selfie camera and the SIM/microSD slot.
It lacks NFC, however,soyou can’t use it for
contactless payments.
The displayisagenerous
6.6in, 2,340x1,080 LTPS
panel. In testing it covered
90.2% of the sRGB colour
gamut, which is atypical
score foraphone at this
price.Wealsorecorded a
maximum brightness of
428cd/m^2 ,which is bright
enough to see on asunny
day, andthe measured
contrast ratio of 1,269:1
helpstomitigatejagged-
looking edges around
text and images.
On to that problem
processor,then. The 2.2GHz
Kirin 710 –paired with 4GB
of RAMhere –has been a
stalwart of Honor and
Huawei phones forawhile
now,and this cost-saving

HONOR 9X

★★★★★

£220•From http://www.currys.co.uk

VERDICT

AnelderlyCPUovershadowsthegoodwork
Honorhasdonewiththishandset’sdesign

ANDROID9.0SMARTPHONE

tactic is becoming

increasingly dated as

both manufacturers

continue to use this

low-powered chipset.

This is especially

obvious if you look at

the results of our

performance tests. It’s

not slow in general, but

by scoring 1,533 in

Geekbench 4’s single-core

test and 5,493 in the

multicore test, the 9X

is no faster than the old

8X; in fact, it scored

slightly lower than the

8X’s respective results of

1,611 and 5,668. In terms

of more recent budget competition, the

Motorola One Macro (see page 46) is about

£60 cheaper yet scores acomparable1,433

in thesingle-core test and 5,744 in the

multicore test.

Honor has at least managed to squeeze a

little more out of the graphics hardware,with

the 9X slightly improving on the 8X’s

performance in the GFXBench Manhattan

tests. Here,the newmodel produced an

onscreen result of 19fpsand a21fps

offscreenresult, whereas the 8X produced

18fps in both. However,the One Macro wins

again, with 42fps in the onscreen test and

23fps offscreen.

Disappointingly,battery lifehas also

decreased between

generations. In our battery

rundown test, the 9X lasted

12h 41m going from full

charge to zero.That’s 15

minutes less than the 8X, so

it’s not drastically different,

but still astepbackwards.

FARANDWIDE

The main camera on the

Honor 9X is a48-megapixel

(f/1.8) unit with a½in sensor.

It’s backed up with a

2-megapixel depth-assist

sensor to help improve

portrait shots and an

8-megapixel wide-angle lens

with a120° field of view.All

three cameras sit vertically

aligned in aslightlyraised

section on the upper-leftarea

of the back of the phone,

which doesn’t protrude far

enough to unbalance your

typing and swipes if you’re

resting it flat on atable.

Taking pictures on a

bright, overcast dayleft

the colours looking abit

flat andwashedout. The

detail is surprisingly sharp,

however: we zoomed in

and compared the detail

taken on abright daywith

Huawei’smore expensive

Nova 5T and the results

were similar.Wepreferred

the colour on the images

taken with the wide-angle

lens, but there’s much less

detail on these when you zoom in, as you’d

expect from an 8-megapixel sensor.

The same was true when taking photos

indoors in low light. There’s nothing missing

from the detail of the 9X compared to the

camera on the Nova 5T,but the images lack

vibrant, punchy-looking colours.

The camera can shoot 1080p video at

60fps in astandard 16:9 ratio,but can expand

to 19.2:9 (the full ratio of the screen) if you

drop to 30fps. 720p resolution can only be

shot at 30fps, but at this level the image

stabilisation is much improved.

BEAUTY BEFOREAGE

The Honor 9X is aphone that’s filled with

positives: it’s nicely premium-looking, the

displayispretty good, and storage is

expandable.Underneath that slick exterior,

however,isaprocessor that should have

been retired by now. Withouteven

incremental improvements in core

performance or battery life, most of this

phone’s other benefits feel atad superficial.

AndyShaw

Batterylife

0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100

See page 84 forperformancedetails

PROCESSOROcta-core2.2GHzHiSiliconKirin 710•

SCREENSIZE6.6in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,280x1,080•

REARCAMERAS48 megapixels, 8megapixels,2megapixels•

STORAGE128GB•WIRELESSDATA4G•NFCNo•

DIMENSIONS164x77x8.8mm•WEIGHT197g•

OPERATINGSYSTEMAndroid 9.0•WARRANTYOneyear

RTB•DETAILSwww.hihonor.com•PARTCODE51094TTX

SPECIFICATIONS

12h41m