In the past year or more, expectations from the Honor brand have been rising exponentially. And this is not just because of tall promises. The Honor brand, an online brand of the world’s third largest handset major Huawei, has been delivering handsets that have been packed with features, at prices that are both attractive and come with the assurance of a name that has been around for a while now. The latest, the Honor 9N was launched with some pizzazz this week, and we check here to see if the latest launch can handle the toughest questions a customer is likely to ask.
1. Let’s start with the looks and colors.
The Honor 9N gets this one bang on, as its high glossy finish. It has 12 layers of glass coating at the back to achieve this effect, and with the idea being to deliver next level looks and specs to the budget segment, this is a model that you will be happy to flaunt. And it doesn’t stop there. A matt finish on the edges or the outer frame rounds off the premium looks, topped up with a really interesting choice of colours . While it has launched with black and blue versions, expect to get the full choice of Lavender purple, Sapphire blue, Midnight black, and Robin egg blue soon.
2. Let’s come to the need for speed, the processors and RAM.
This is covered too. While competition has the Qualcomm 636 chipset, the Honor 9N uses the in-house Kirin 659, a good match for the best Qualcomm has to offer. While the chipsets are matched on speed, there might be a marginal gap for Qualcomm on gaming, but not nearly enough to swing the deal away from everything else the 9N packs. Especially once the phone gets it GPU turbo update in Q4 of 2018, which will take its gaming abilities up a notch. Besides, the Honor 9N offers RAM options going upto 6GB, while competition is stuck till 4 GB. And storage going all the way to 128 GB, again, a unique situation at the price point.
3. Talking of price, just how much?
Starting with Rs 11,999 for the 3GB/32 GB variant to Rs 17,999 for the 6 GB/128 GB version, it even as a 4GB/64 GB version at Rs 13,999. While these look close to competition, the phone’s launch offers, which include a pick of a Jio cashback, Rs 2200 cashback, A Rs 1200 myntra offer and even 100 GB additional data, makes it an offer impossible to refuse.
4. If its’s Honor, we have to ask about the camera. What’s new here?
Well, at this price point, the Honor 9N brings you a camera option that keeps it ahead. At the back, it features a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor with f/2.2 aperture, alongside an LED flash. It supports PDAF and features such as HDR, time-lapse, and burst mode. The front has a 16-megapixel sensor with a beauty mode. It’s a camera combination that is an automatic upgrade, if you are moving up from a 10K phone, or aspiring to a premium phone camera.
5. What about the display? We heard you had a smaller display size?
At 5.84 inches, the Honor 9N might seem to have a fractionally smaller display size than a couple of its competitors. But again, it makes up with a higher 19:9 aspect ratio, even as competition has settled at 18:9. Even on screen Resolution it stands alone at a higher 1080X2280 pixels , while almost all competition is at 1080X2160. This means that even the phone has maginally smaller dimensions by competition, it also weighs in as the slimmest and lightest option, giving you far more bang for every gram, and buck!