Unboxed: The honor 9 is beautiful

honor 9

Honor delivered a shocker last year with the flagship honor 8, flaunting a stunning Aurora Glass body and packing top notch internals. In June this year, Huawei’s sub-brand introduced a successor to the shiny beauty, the honor 9. The new flagship device though, is only available in China and there’s no word if it will make a debut here locally. Here’s a closer look at the beautiful flagship.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, here’s what’s in the box. There’s the device, user manual, SIM eject tool, a quick charge power adapter and USB Type-C cable. The packaging itself is pretty slick, although not as premium as any of Huawei’s P or Mate series devices.

honor 9
Everything in the box.

The honor 9 retains the stunning Aurora Glass finish of its predecessor, but it now features 3D curves on the back. It keeps it clean on the back, with just the presence of the dual-camera and LED flash on the top. The fingerprint sensor, in case you were wondering, is built into the home button on the front.

honor 9

It weighs 155g and measures a slim 7.45mm and feels great in the hand. Overall, it’s stunning and well-built, with the finish feeling very premium.

You’ll find the 5.15-inch Full HD display on the front. There’s no fancy FullView edge-to-edge display, but the bezels are still pretty small.

Under the hood is Huawei’s top processor (until the debut of the Kirin 970 that is)—the current king-Kirin 960. It’s coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. A premium variant boasts 6GB of RAM and a generous 128GB of storage.

honor 9

Honor sticks to a dual-camera setup with a 12MP f/2.2 RGB sensor + 20MP monochrome sensor. It’s capable of 2X Hybrid Zoom. On the front is an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera.

Under its svelte body is a 3,200mAh battery that is claimed to provide up to two days of standard use. The fast charger bundled with the device is rated at 9V/2A and charges the device via USB Type-C.

honor 9

The honor 9 should appeal to audio enthusiasts too, being equipped with a HiFi chip and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

It runs EMUI 5.1 out-of-the-box, based on Android 7.0 Nougat.

honor 9

Pricing and availability

In China, the base model with 4GB RAM + 64GB storage costs CNY2,299 (MYR1,468); the 6GB RAM + 64GB storage variant retails at CNY2,699 (MYR1,723); while to top-of-the-line 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant goes for RMB2,999 (MYR1,914).

honor 9 + honor 8 Pro
Flanked by the twin terrors: honor 8 Pro

Unfortunately, there’s no news if this sexy baby will make it to Malaysian shores. At the moment, the best honor you can buy is the powerful honor 8 Pro, which unfortunately lacks the beautiful Aurora Glass treatment.

What do you think? Should honor bring its flagship here?

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Vernon
Vernon is the founder and chief editor of Vernonchan.com. A graphic designer by profession, he has a deep love for technology, cars, gadgets, food, and travel. He tweets too much and is also known as a caffeine bacterium ("life's too short for bad coffee"). Bleeds Blue (go Chelsea FC!) and considers BMW, Porsche, Alfa Romeo cars to have in the garage--hallmarks of a true petrolhead.