Buy Now...

click image to enlarge

Launched approximately six months after the well-received Huawei Honor 9, the Lite version of the product shares some of the Honor 9 feature set.  However there are some differences including those of chipset used, size increase and weight reduction plus a reduction in the price along with different cosmetic colour schemes.  So how does the Honor 9 Lite handle its follow-up persona?

With colour schemes based on Midnight Blue, Glacier Grey, Navy, Seagull Grey, Pearl White, Magic Nightfall and the Sapphire Blue of my review unit, the Honor 9 Lite combines an aluminium frame with front and back glass panels packed inside a body measuring 151 x 76.9 x 7.6 mm (H x W x D).  Despite the increase in size with this model, Huawei has managed to trim the weight a little down to 147g.

Dominating the front of this Honor 9 Lite handset is a 5.65 inch IPS LCD capacitive multisource touch screen capable of displaying 16M colours at a resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels with a 18:9 ratio giving ~428 ppi density.  Arranged around the rim of the screen are a volume rocket and power button on the right, a pop-out tray, for either sharing by dual nano SIMs or a single SIM and microSD card to increase storage capacity, sits on the left side, while a micro USB port, speaker outlet and 3.5 mm jack headphone socket are found on the base of the unit.  A pinprick tool for opening the pop-out tray was meant to be included in the box but somehow it had managed to be absence without leave.  Fortunately I had a suitable replacement.

See also: Smart Phones

more

Dual camera facilities are located on the front and rear of the Honor 9 Lite.  The pairing at the front, in its role as the secondary unit, consists of a 13MP and 2MP combo delivering 1080p content.  Situated on the rear of the handset is the prime camera unit.  This again is made up of a 13MP and 2MP units.  This combination features geo-tagging, touch focus; face detection, digital zoom and panorama scenes plus video capture at 1080p @ 30fps.  Both camera arrangements produced results that I was happy to accept for the purpose of this review.

The reflective back pane decorating the rear of the Honor 9 Lite also houses the unit’s fingerprint reader facility.  While I have no strong feelings regarding the positioning of this particular feature, I would have preferred a front-mounted location, which I find more convenient, but it is hardly a major issue.

Huawei has taken the decision to go with the HiSilicon Kirin 659 chipset with this particular model.  This chipset is made up of 4 x 2.30 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4 x 1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 for the Octa-core CPU with a Mali-T830 MP2 GPU.  While a model with 64GB of ROM and 4GB RAM is available, my review sample had been allocated 32GB of ROM and 3GB of RAM.  As mentioned earlier you do have the option to increase storage through the use of a microSD card up to 256GB by opting out of the dual SIM facility.

Providing the battery power is a non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh unit.  Running my usual non-stop video playing test with content being sourced via a USB To-Go connection, I was able to get 7 hours 17 minutes before the Honor 9 Lite went into shut down mode,  I was a little disappointed in the timing achieved.

As supplied the Honor 9 Lite comes with Android 8.0 (Oreo flavour) over-laid with EMUI 8.0.  This combination may not be universal accepted by some users but it is one that I find I can work with when using this handset/

As you would expect Huawei has incoporated a number of standard offerings into this product.  Sensors include accelerometer, proximity and compass plus messaging features that include MMS, Email, Push Email and IM.  You also get Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, A2PP, GPS, MP4/H.264 player, MP3/eAAC+/WAV/Flac player, document viewer and photo/video editor.

While a step-down from the original Honor 9, this Lite version is well worth considering with its pleasant, stylish appearance and more than adequate performance.  By shopping around you should be able to purchase this handset for £187 or even less.

https://www.hihonor.com/global/products/mobile-phones/honor9lite/index.html