Honor India has been quite active in the mid-range smartphone market, with the recent launches including the Honor 9i followed by the Honor 7x, and while these did so well, the company also had come up with the flagship View 10 to have a go against the likes of OnePlus 5T. But then, the concentration was no less in the major segment where the demand for phones is much higher and thus, there’s the new Honor 9 Lite getting official.
The Honor 9i was all about four cameras that it housed, and the Honor 7x while had one camera lesser, the phone made its mark with the super good combination of 18:9 display, similar internal specs, and an attractive price. Last year, the Honor 8 and 8 Lite had come with the beautiful glass exterior, and with their successors, expecting something else would only be a false one. The Honor 9 Lite, indeed, comes with the glass back that flaunts its beauty with not just that slab of glass but one having a curve on each side, making it not only good at looks but also be super comfortable to hold.
While doing that, the phone takes cues from the Honor 9i to include four cameras, two on the back and two on the front, with the selfies given a prime importance. And why not, selfies do now hold themselves as one major factor when a phone purchase decision has to be made. I wouldn’t get into further details about how good the captures are, as that will be done in the review anyway, but the sheet that holds the specifications does have a lot to boast about, including what powers the device. The Honor 9 Lite gets power from the same chipset that is known to do so well on both the other phones from the company, Honor 7x and the Honor 9i. The Kirin 659 octa-core chipset has enough power to handle things at ease and to help with the multitasking needs, there is 4GB of RAM and the storage is set at 64GB.
Two major points to take away about the Honor 9 Lite are about the size and the weight. The phone is smaller, with a 5.65-inch display but that being with the 18:9 resolution, the size of the phone is not of a typical 5.5-inch device because there is too little space left around the display. Also, at 149 grams, it is not as heavy as the other two phones here.
At the same time, I also ask myself, would I want a higher-resolution camera on the back and be okay with the metal design that is offered on the Honor 7x, or is it a glass body that I should go for? The choice is personal but given that the phones have cameras with similar sensor and aperture size, the looks of the Honor 9 Lite can easy kill the 7x, also if you wanted to have a dual camera even on the front, it is present on the 9 Lite.
The Honor 9 Lite has all the basics ticked when it comes to the ports and buttons, with SIM slot given on the left, power and volume rocker buttons on the right, and the bottom of the device having the speaker grill, MicroUSB port, and the microphone. On the back, where the real deal is with the design, the phone houses a dual-lens camera setup that doesn’t pop out much from the chassis but for the part that it does, there is a protective ring that would touch a flat surface first, trying to keep the camera glass away from direct hits.
I’ve got time to spend with all the three color variants here, the Blue, Gray, and the Black one and each of them with the mirror-like glass back have one thing in common – the excellent looks. Of course, I did notice the glass to pick up smudges and fingerprints but that is well expected from any glass body but the company had mentioned that the camera glass is anti-fingerprint, so that is a little reassuring.
Another noticeable and a good thing about the device is its improved UI, i.e. the EMUI 8.0 that is based on the Android 8.0 Oreo OS, and this is the second device in their lineup to have the latest interface, after the Honor View 10. As usual, there’s nothing less to expect from the fingerprint sensor that aims to do so much apart from unlocking the phone for you.
The initial thoughts are quite positive, except for the hope that the cameras do well, given they are there majorly for the portrait shots and that is the case not just with the rear camera but also with the front one. The design, though, has been the icing on the cake.
