- Honor 9N goes on sale in India exclusively on Flipkart 12 pm onwards on July 31
- As a part of launch offer, customers can avail Rs 2200 cashback, 100 GB additional 4G Data and up to Rs 1200 Myntra vouchers with an exclusive Jio Offer
Honor launched its latest smartphone, Honor 9N, in India on Tuesday, starting at an attractive price point of Rs 11,999. While targeting the budget-conscious shoppers, Honor has managed to keep the premium quotient intact with its Honor 9N.
For those unaware, Honor 9N will go on sale exclusively on Flipkart starting July 30. The handset comes in three variants and four colours. The base model with 3GB+32GB configuration is priced at Rs 11,999, while the 4GB+64GB model costs Rs 13,999. There's a 128GB storage variant for Rs 17,999 for those who like to have ample onboard storage.
With the pricing and availability of Honor 9N out of the way, let's take a look at what the handset offers. Here's our quick review of Honor 9N after briefly testing the phone at the launch event.
Design
Honor 9N scores full marks here. There's no surprise. The mirror-finish glass back in cool colours are pleasing and the Robin Egg Blue really stands out. The handset looks extremely lavish from afar, and feels extremely light. We could sense the lack of premium feel due to polycarbonate chassis, but the overall look and feel of Honor 9N is out for the win.
Honor 9N feels handy, but the glass back could get slippery. While the Midnight Black and Sapphire Blue attract fingerprint smudges (more on the black but not disturbingly huge), we were impressed by the Lavender Purple and Robin Egg Blue.
Display
Honor 9N comes with a 5.84-inch Full HD+ display, with a 19:9 aspect ratio and a notch, which can be concealed with a simple setting. A simple trick Honor used in EMUI 8.0 to hide the notch by placing the notifications on the so-called ears around the notch made a lot of sense.
As for the display, the resolution is satisfactory and users won't feel the colours on the phone washed out or have trouble viewing the display under harsh sunlight. We have no complaints in this area.
Camera
We will be testing the Honor 9N cameras in the next few days to judge whether it is as good as the company claims it to be. From our brief time with the Honor 9N at the event, we did not find any misbalance of colours, fading out or over-exposure (despite AI integration). The dual rear cameras with 13MP and 2MP sensors are equipped to deliver satisfying results, whether you are shooting landscapes or portraits (yes, the bokeh effect is good).
Moving to the front camera, the Honor 9N's 16MP shooter has some interesting feature such as smart beautification to really make your selfies pop, and accurate bokeh effect. While we reserve our final judgment on the cameras, early hands-on the phone looks promising.
Security
We had the chance to test the face unlock and it works extremely well, even in dim-lit areas. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is well within the reach of your fingers so you do not have to stretch your fingers awkwardly to unlock the phone, snap a selfie, or even snooze alarm.
Performance
It is hard to comment on the phone's performance without having to test it thoroughly, but we will be doing so for our detailed review. The EMUI has had its flaws, such as unexpected lags, but the company claims to have improved the overall feel so we are keen on testing it out.
The Kirin 659 processor is equivalent to Snapdragon 625 chipset. For a budget smartphone, Honor 9N has a decent setup, but there are interesting features, specifically the Game Suite, which we will be testing out. Honor has also promised to rollout GPU Turbo for the 9N, and our review will include detailed insight on all such features.
Battery
Honor 9N comes with a 3,000mAh battery. There's no fast charging, but the battery capacity shouldn't generally take longer than 90 minutes to fully charge. As for the battery life, we will test the Honor 9N under various use-case scenarios, so stay tuned.
Verdict
Based on our early hands-on, we can safely recommend the Honor 9N Robbin Egg Blue as it is unique and looks elegant. The cameras seem promising, but we would be giving out the final verdict by the time the handset goes on sale.
