Huawei's sub-brand, Honor has been making waves in the Indian smartphone market, but 2019 wasn't as exciting as the previous years. But the company has vowed to do a whole lot better in 2020 with exciting launches lined up. Honor is kick-starting the new year with a successor to its popular X-series and things are looking good for the Chinese brand in India.
Honor 9X is coming to India on January 14, the company revealed through media invites. Honor 9X is not entirely new as the company had launched Honor 9X and 9X Pro in China in July last year. The phones never made it to India, disappointing fans who were treated with competitive phones from brands like Xiaomi, Realme, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo and others.
By confirming Honor 9X's arrival in India, Honor is trying to build on the popularity of its existing lineup before making a splash with big announcements. Even though the invite or the teasers do not say anything about Honor 9X Pro, the company might bring both phones together to target different price categories.
Honor has consistently kept its X-series alive. According to a microsite on Flipkart, Honor has released one X-series phone each year since 2014. From Honor 4X in 2014 to Honor 8X in 2018 and now Honor 9X in 2020, Honor only missed 2019. While it certainly puts a crack in the company's consistency, the response from the Indian market for its Honor 9X is something worth looking forward to.
Honor 9X price in India
Other factors aside, the pricing of Honor 9X is going to play an important role in the handset's success. In China, the company launched three variants of the phone, starting at CNY 1399 for 4GB+64GB model, CNY 1599 for 6GB+64GB and CNY 1899 for 6GB+128GB configuration. If Honor maintains a similar pricing structure, we can expect the Honor 9X to cost anywhere between Rs 14,000 and Rs 20,000.
Since Honor 9X is joining the party a little late, a concession in the price could do better for the company in getting people's attention.
Honor 9X features
The price alone won't be a considerable factor in Honor 9X's success. The phone's features will also play a crucial role. If that's the case, here's what Honor 9X has to offer.
Honor 9X features 6.59-inch Full HD+ display, dual rear cameras with 48MP and 2MP sensors and a 16MP front-facing snapper. The handset is powered by an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 810 chipset and Android Pie-based EMUI 9.1.1 out-of-the-box. This should ease some of the users' concerns about Huawei-Android fiasco.
Honor 9X is powered by a 4,000mAh battery, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, a pop-up selfie camera, USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It's fair to think at this point that Honor 9X faces stiff competition from rival brands like Realme and Xiaomi. Stay tuned for updates.
