Honor 9N First Impressions: Just another Budget Phone?

Huawei owned Honor launched their latest budget smartphone in India recently. The Honor 9N is designed to be a perfect all-rounder budget segment smartphone. The smartphone is launched with a starting price tag of Rs 11,999. With that price tag, it comes in direct competition with smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1.

The highlights of the smartphone include the 3,000mAh battery and a 5.84-inch FullHD+ (1080×2280) 19:9 aspect ratio display. The smartphone is powered by the HiSillicon Kirin 659 chipset coupled with Adreno 509. The dual-SIM handset packs 3GB RAM with 32GB storage or 4GB RAM with 64GB or 128GB of onboard storage. The device sports a 13-megapixel rear sensor coupled with a 2-megapixel sensor at the back. The front camera is a 16-megapixel sensor. The handset also packs features like OTG support and a FingerPrint sensor.

Design

The Honor 9N boasts a 5.84-inch Full HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 19:9. The company claims a near bezel-less display, however, the phone has a quite a considerably big chin. Also, not to mention the smartphone also sports a Notch. The display is not something you can call best of the line but can be accepted for the budget smartphone segment. The display is good enough and vivid. The overall build quality is a little unsatisfactory. The glass on the back feels like plastic. The sides are made of plastic. The phone feels sturdy in handy. However, it looks premium and doesn't feel premium in hand.

Though the device feels nothing but like a cheap budget phone, it does looks a lot more premium when seen from a distance.

Camera

On the optics front, the Honor 9N sports a dual rear camera setup. It consists of a 13-megapixel rear sensor coupled with a 2-megapixel sensor. The photos quite good for the price. The contrast is quite good and the colours are impressive. Also, the AI tuning in the Honor phones is really great. However, the photos we took were under a stage lighting so wait for the full review.

For the selfies, the Honor 9N sports a 16-megapixel front-facing camera. The story is same with the front camera.

Overall the camera situation on the Honor 9N is great considering the price point. It is definitely better than the rest of its competition.

Price

The smartphone starts at Rs 11,999 and comes with amazing looks and a 19:9 display. But the smartphone is not all that great in the first look. The glass sandwiched smartphone feels a lot more plastic like. The camera is amazing for the price point. Also, the smartphone runs on EMUI skin from Honor, which is not something everyone likes. So from the first look at it, the smartphone is not an all-rounder but the compromises made are acceptable.