Honor X9b Smartphone Review – Honor X9b is the latest offering from Honor in the upper mid-range segment. It was launched on October 2023 and judging by Honor’s previous commitments, it should launch globally but the company is yet to formally announce it. The Honor X9b was designed to provide a new class experience that is never found in the mid-range sector. So, it also brings the latest 5G connectivity and Honor’s modern design language that will surely elevate the user experience.
Honor has a real chance to shake the market with this smartphone, if you believe in the level of performance Honor is claiming to provide with this smartphone. The device arrives with an impressive display, a massive battery, and many more attractive features. So, let’s begin with a detailed review of the Honor X9b smartphone and see if this smartphone is worth purchasing. We will also break down each category and provide in-depth details on every aspect of the Honor X9b smartphone.
Table of Contents
Honor X9b Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The Honor X9b has a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz high refresh rate.
- The SoC inside the smartphone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 SoC capable of reaching up to a 4×2.2GHz clocking speed.
- The smartphone comes with the latest Android 13 OS with MagicUI 7.2 user interface for better customizability.
- The main rear camera of the smartphone has a 108MP triple camera system while the selfie camera has a 16MP sensor.
- The smartphone is powered by a Li-Po 5800 mAh battery with a 35W fast-wired charger and reverse charging support.
Design and Display
The design of the Honor X9b is a big flexing point. It closely resembles Honor’s flagship smartphones such as the Honor 70 or the Honor Magic 5 Pro. If we keep these three phones side by side, you find it impossible to tell which is a flagship smartphone and which is budget. The Honor X9b features a similar round camera module on the back and a frosted rear finish. All in all, the Honor X9b looks extremely polished and premium.
On the front, you get a 6.78-inch AMOLED display that can get up to 1200 nits of peak brightness under direct sunlight. This significantly improves the display’s outdoor visibility and improves user experience. The display panel will provide better image quality compared to other smartphones in the same range.
The display also has a 120Hz high refresh rate, which will make everything that happens on the screen super smooth. The display also supports up to 1 billion colors, so you can say goodbye to any color banding issues. The bezels on the screen are also extremely narrow, thanks to the curved nature of the display. This makes watching content on the screen quite satisfying. The Honor X9b will be available in Midnight Black, Sunrise Orange, and Emerald Green color options. Aside from this, the device is quite lightweight with 185 grams.
Memory and Internal
The Honor X9b features a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 SoC that can reach up to a 4×2.2GHz clocking speed. This is a 5G SoC that has relatively decent performance for a budget user and can easily run all your daily apps and other things you do on a smartphone. Since the Honor X9b is 5G-ready, you can reach near Gigabit speeds easily. As for gaming, you will find the Adreno 710 GPU in this SoC.
This GPU has enough power to run games like PUBG mobile, CODm, and even Genshin Impact at medium settings and smooth framerates. However, since Genshin Impact is very demanding, you can only play it with lower graphics. For RAM and storage, the smartphone is available for purchase with 8GB to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. When it comes to the software, the Honor X9b is running on the latest Android 13OS with MagicUI 7.2 user interface for better customizability. All in all, the software and storage section is decent while the SoC could have been better as per pricing.
Camera
The Honor X9b sports a 108MP triple-camera system at the rear. The main rear camera features a 108MP sensor, which is optimized to capture pictures with high dynamic range, true-to-life colors, and incredible details. The images look sharp even if you zoom in, which shows just how great the detail level of these pictures is.
However, the same cannot be said for the ultra-wide camera. It has a 5MP sensor, which is simply not enough to take great pictures like the main camera. So, the performance of the ultra-wide is average at best and sometimes even lower than average when there’s less light in the atmosphere. Speaking of low light, the main camera is more than decent, thanks to the night mode, which brightens up the images even if parts of the environment are dark. Besides this, there is a 2MP macro lens on the trio, and has nothing to talk about.
On the front, you will find the selfie camera. It features a 16MP sensor that can shoot some decent selfies with great details and even the skin tone is perfectly preserved. As for video recording, the Honor X9b can shoot at a maximum of 4kvideos@30FPS from the rear camera while the selfie camera can only shoot at a maximum of 1080p videos@30FPS. Furthermore, the gyro-EIS support is missing on both side cameras which is a bit disappointing.
Battery and Others
The Honor X9b has a Li-Po 5800mAh battery, which is very large for a smartphone in the budget section. with this large capacity battery, the Honor X9b has an excellent backup and can easily last for 2 days or more with moderate usage. This is partly thanks to the 4nm manufacturing process and the use of energy-efficient components inside the smartphone.
But when you do run out of battery, you wouldn’t need to worry as the smartphone supports 35W wired fast charging. There’s also support for reverse wired charging to charge your headphones. The fast charger is also included in the box, unlike many manufacturers who choose to omit that from the box. So, you don’t need to buy it separately later.
Apart from that, the phone also has Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, an under-display fingerprint scanner, GPS, NFC, and a USB Type-C port. The smartphone is available for purchase for $350 (Rs 28,990 in India) approx. for the base variant.
Honor X9b Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Honor X9b smartphone.
| Specifications | Honor X9b |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | October 2023 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.44 x 2.97 x 0.31 inches |
| Weight | 185 g |
| Size | 6.78 inches |
| Display | AMOLED 1B colors 120Hz 1200 nits brightness 19.5:9 ratio ~431 PPI density |
| Protection | No |
| Resolution | 1220 x 2652 pixels |
| OS | Android 13, Magic UI 7.2 |
| Chipset | 4nm – Qualcomm SM6450 Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 |
| CPU | Octa-core 4×2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| GPU | Adreno 710 |
| Card slot | No |
| RAM | 8GB, 12GB |
| Internal | 256GB |
| Camera | 108 MP (wide), PDAF 5 MP (ultrawide) 2 MP (macro) LED flash, panorama, HDR Max – 4K@30fps |
| Selfie | 16 MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | No |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Bluetooth | 5.1, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS |
| NFC | Yes (market/region dependent) |
| Infrared port | Yes |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, OTG |
| Sensors | Under display fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass |
| Battery | Li-Po 5800 mAh 35W wired Reverse wired |
| Colors | Sunrise Orange, Midnight Black, Emerald Green |
| Expected Price | $350 (Rs 28,990 in India) approx |
Conclusion
The Honor X9b is truly a unique smartphone that will surely bring some heat back in the mid-range sector. Compelling design, high-resolution display, decent main camera, and high-capacity battery are some of the great highlights of the smartphone. On top of that, the smartphone also features the latest 5G connectivity. We were honestly surprised by how well-made and balanced this smartphone was.
The design is also a key factor here and is a great selling point for the smartphone. It gets some great wins in a couple of departments when compared to other smartphones in the mid-range sector, especially at this price. Speaking of downsides, the sensors and SoC could have been better. However, if you want an alternative smartphone, the Xiaomi Civi 3 is also quite the contender and is offered around a similar price tag. However, the final decision is up to you, so it is better to choose a smartphone based on your requirements and needs.
