Honor X9b 5G review

With bigger screens and slimmer dimensions, durability seems to be a cause for concern. But Honor’s new phone, the X9b is claimed to absorb up to 1.2 times the impact of a drop. And while I’m not at liberty to test out that claim, here’s a review of everything else that the phone has to offer. Starting with the brand, Honor has come back after a brief hiatus from the market. Apart from the Honor 90 which launched last September, this is Honor’s only other smartphone in the market.

So brand value might be a question but the phone? That is appealing! At least in the way it looks. The Honor X9b has a sleek design, weighs just 185g and is 7.98mm thick. Since it has a curved display, it is also comfortable to hold. The rear panel offers vegan leather or metallic finish options. Both look beautiful and also keep fingerprints at bay. The volume and power buttons are on the right spine and placed well within reach. It misses out on a 3.5mm jack but comes with an official IP53 rating for dust and water resistance.

Talking about the display, it features a 6.78-inch curved AMOLED display with a 1.5K resolution, 1200nits peak brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate. Numbers aside, the user experience is smooth and offers a mostly lag-free experience. I say mostly because I did notice a few frame drops. Being an AMOLED display, the colours are vivid and accurate, and the brightness too is sufficient, even outdoors. In short, streaming content won’t be an issue.

And with a 5800mAh battery, you would also be able to watch that content for longer. In my case, I only ever felt the need to charge the phone once every day. Even under heavy usage, the device managed energy consumption well, providing sustained performance throughout.

Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset, the Honor X9b handles everyday tasks with ease, delivering smooth multitasking and gaming experiences. While it might not outperform some competitors on benchmarks, real-life usage will prove satisfactory for most users. Again, I refer to most users because those who like to play heavy titles won’t necessarily be happy with the performance.

The X9b runs on Android 13 with Honor’s Magic UI layered on top. The interface is clean save for a few pre-loaded apps and services. Except for these, however, MagicOS has a lot of cool tricks that make it convenient to use. Lastly, the camera. The rear camera setup includes a 108MP wide lens, a 5MP ultrawide lens, and a 2MP macro lens. The Honor X9b captures detailed and vibrant photos in ideal lighting conditions, portrait shots excel with precise depth adjustment, and videos too are impressive offering versatile shooting options. The front 16MP camera is also equally good. However, the phone struggles with consistency, more so in low-light scenarios.

In essence, the X9b is a good all-rounder with impressive design and display. However, if you’re a hardcore photography or gaming fan, you might want to look elsewhere.