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Honor is a brand known in the Indian market for their cost-effective phones. Since its re-entry in 2023, people have been looking forward to what the brand has to offer next. The Honor X9b is one of its latest offerings in the sub-30k range, and here is how it fares as a mid-ranger.
Design
The first thing that comes to mind while handling the phone on a day-to-day basis is how slim it is. At 8 mm thick, the Honor X9b feels just right with a form factor that’s easy to use, and quickly stows away in my pocket. The Midnight Black model that I own has a matte finish. It didn’t hold on to grime, but the rear panel was a dust magnet, especially around the camera bump. One of the design features I like is the curved display which had super-slim bezels and was great for viewing multimedia. Palm rejection around the edges is accurate too.
Display
The Honor X9b features a 6.78-inch 1.5k screen with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. The screen is bright and vivid and I enjoyed watching the extended sneak preview of Dune: Part Two on YouTube and also the latest season of NCIS on Amazon Prime. The user experience at 120 Hz was buttery smooth without any issues.
The display is said to feature Honor’s HONOR Ultra-Bounce Anti-Drop display which keeps it safe in case you drop it. The body does feel durable at hand for the occasional drop from waist height, and did survive the occasional fall from my hip-level without any damage during the course of the review.
Unlike the display, the audio experience on the X9b was sub-par. Its mono speakers can get somewhat loud, but lack the depth in sound to offer a truly wholesome experience.
Performance
The Honor X9b features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 which is a mid-range processor. The phone scored well in its price category with a score of 5,21,571 on AnTuTu placing it right below the Oppo Reno 10 and the Redmi Note 12. In real-life usage, the performance of the device is fairly satisfactory without any performance issues or frame drops during gameplay. The device was able to render Call of Duty Modern Warfare at a steady 90 FPS.
Camera
The Honor X9b | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The X9b has a triple camera setup with a 108 MP Main Camera, a 5 MP Ultra Wide & Depth Camera, and 2 MP Macro Camera. The camera images shot outdoors in daylight were ok with decent sharpness and good contrast across the image. One image captured happened to have colour artefacts in the shadow area.
The Honor X9b | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
While the camera is able to capture true-to-life colours, it often tends to overexpose parts of the photo, where it could have retained details in the highlights.
Night-time images were average, not as sharp as some of its competitors in this price range deliver. The 16 MP selfie camera captured detailed selfie shots with beauty mode off which makes it ideal to click selfies at a pinch.
Battery
The X9b features a 5,800 mAh battery which lasts about 1-1.5 days at a stretch with the usual checking emails, clicking photos, watching videos, and the occasional phone call. The battery was one of the standout features in the days I used it.
A 30-watt charger (included in the box only as an at-launch perk) was able to charge it from 12 to 100 percent in about 2 hours and 10 minutes which is considerably slow compared to most devices in the same price range which could charge from O-100 with larger power bricks.
Verdict
The Honor X9b has a great display, battery life and build quality going for it. However, an average camera and a sub-par audio experience on the mono speaker is likely to make the Honor X9b play second fiddle to better smartphones such as the Poco X6 Pro or the Samsung A34 5G which delivers more performance for around the same price point.
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