Honor 9 Lite

Honor's new budget smartphone seems to have a lot going for it on paper, packing an 18:9 Full HD+ screen, an aluminium frame, a glass back and Android 8; in some respects, it even trumps of few of today's flagships.

But the Honor 9 Lite isn’t a flagship phone. It has 32GB of storage in contrast to the 64GB or 128GB found in today's top-enders. Its camera has no image stabilisation, and it's powered by a mid-range Kirin 659 chipset with 3GB of RAM if you're in the UK, though a 4GB variant is available in India and other regions.

Do these compromises prevent this phone from coming highly recommended, or has Honor done it again and released a mid-range handset that punches way above its price?

Honor 9 Lite price and availability

• Costs AED 849 in Midnight Black and Sapphire Blue
• Out now in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

Costing AED 849, the Honor 9 Lite sits at the lower end of the Android smartphone price spectrum, making it an attractive option if you're looking for a wallet-friendly purchase.

It's available now, both online and in most retail stores.

Design

• Premium look, but attracts fingerprints
• Comfortable size and in-hand feel

With a 5.65-inch screen, the Honor 9 Lite isn't too big and it isn't too small; this phone hits a sweet-spot size that gives you a generous amount of screen while also being manageable, even for smaller hands.

This optimum ratio of screen size to overall size is achieved by Honor's adoption of an 18:9 aspect ratio with no physical front buttons. These factors combine to shrink the bezels, resulting in a 75.5% screen-to-bezel ratio.

The bottom of the phone is home to a micro USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack, along with the single speaker, while the power and volume rocker buttons are on the right-hand side.

The frame is softly curved and feels solid. The phone's corners are rounded too, which results in a really comfortable in-hand feel, and for the price it's sufficiently premium.

The glass back, however, is the biggest giveaway that this is actually a fairly budget smartphone. For starters, it's an absolute fingerprint magnet, so will look grubby almost as soon as you start using it. Tapping the Honor 9 Lite's back with your fingernail also makes an inexpensive-sounding hollow noise.

Still, for the price, we're hard-pressed to complain. The Honor 9 Lite looks sleek, is skinny in the pocket and feels reasonably well built.

Screen

• 18:9 IPS display is great for the price
• Very sharp with FHD+ resolution

The Honor 9 Lite's screen has a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2160. With the display measuring 5.65 inches the resulting images are sharp, with a pixel density of 428 pixels per inch – that's better clarity than some flagships, such as the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and OnePlus 5T.

The screen is an IPS panel that offers great viewing angles and good brightness levels, making it usable in bright conditions. The colours are a bit on the cool side, sporting an ever so slight blue hue, but Huawei offers a range of white balance options in the settings, so you can tune the screen to your own preference.

Night mode is also available for some added eye protection, and you can drop the screen's processed resolution to 720p. Making the screen look less sharp may sound counter-intuitive, but it puts less strain on both the battery and the chipset.

In terms of sheer quality, the Honor 9 Lite won't have the punch and depth of the OLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy A5, but with virtually no OLED screens currently available on phones of this price, this screen choice is easily justified.

And what Honor does deliver is class-leading for the price: an 18:9 screen, perfectly suited to enjoying websites and watching widescreen content. This aspect ratio also keeps the bezels on the slim side, and puts the screen and your content centre stage.

Battery life

• 3,000mAh battery makes this a full-day phone
• Plenty of power-saving modes

Thanks in part to the Honor 9 Lite's undemanding 5.65-inch screen, the 3,000mAh of battery under the hood is ample if you're an average user looking for a one-day smartphone. 

Power users might run dry in the evening, while light users may creep into a second day, making the 9 Lite's battery performance solid without being stellar. The phone scored 76% in our screen-on battery test, which is average for a phone with such a bright display.

What's especially good about the Honor 9 Lite, and specifically EMUI 8, are the battery optimisation options within the settings.

These range from small tweaks, like adjusting the output resolution, through to an extreme power-saving mode, which disables most of the phone's smart functions in order to eke out as much battery life as possible.

It's worth noting though that the Honor 9 Lite doesn’t support fast charging, so you'll want to charge it overnight when possible.

Camera

• Strong selfie camera and plenty of shooting modes
• Mediocre low-light performance

Both the front and rear cameras on the Honor 9 Lite are dual-lens setups consisting of one 13MP and one 2MP sensor. While the front camera has a wider aperture, to help with those low-light selfies, the rear camera has more shooting modes.

The selfie camera is a lot of fun. Thanks to the fact that you have two cameras you can blur out backgrounds and keep yourself - and anyone else - in the foreground sharp – and as the camera packs Huawei's time-honoured Aperture mode, the background defocus can be adjusted after you take a shot, giving you maximum control over the degree of blur. Just be weary of cranking it up too much, as it can easily make edges seem grainy and unclear.

This works well, especially in well-lit medium-contrast environments. For low-light scenes, meanwhile, the Honor 9 Lite's screen flash saves the day, provided you're no more than an arm's length away from the phone; any further and you'll be a murky blob of nondescript grain.

The same is true if you opt to keep the flash off – in low-light and high-contrast situations shots have noticeable grain and middling-to-low dynamic range.

Shooting modes on the front camera include panorama, time-lapse and filter, the latter overlaying Instagram-esque effects on your shots. It can also shoot Full HD video, again putting it on a par with the rear camera.

We would normally expect more from a rear camera than from a front one, and this is where the Honor 9 Lite may disappoint more discerning photographers. Photos and videos from both cameras pack similar amounts of grain across lighting conditions.

The dynamic range in high-contrast images shot on the rear camera is poor, in dark areas in particular, with no auto HDR kicking in. And even when HDR is enabled there's visible grain even in decent light, although HDR mode is more sympathetic to the tonal nuances of a scene than auto, so we'd recommend keeping it in mind.

For any enthusiasts, the low-light performance isn't a deal-breaker, as Honor offers a range of modes that extend the shutter speed to up to eight seconds. Even with its mediocre sensor, by dropping the ISO and putting the phone on a surface or mobile tripod you can still get some stunning shots, and even a light painting or two.

Full HD video is recorded at 30 frames per second, but there's no slow-motion option available. There are also full manual modes across photo and video, plus HDR, panorama, light painting, time-lapse and more.

So while the Honor 9 Lite isn't the best camera for the price – the Moto G5 Plus edges ahead in plain automatic mode – for enthusiasts it’s a great choice, with more shooting modes than the competition.

Camera samples

You can find a range of camera samples below. The first four shots illustrate what you can expect from the aperture and auto modes in good lighting. 

The fifth photo is an example of the front camera's bokeh effect while the last photo illustrates the phone's 'light painting' mode. As you can see, daylight results look good enough, but when the lights drop to an indoor level, even before you get to low light, detail drops and grain creeps in.

Interface and reliability

• Newest version of Android is great
• EMUI interface is heavy

Like all Honor phones, the Honor 9 Lite runs EMUI, Huawei's custom skin on top of Android. In the past this hasn't proven popular with users, as it's significantly heavier than stock Android, and it also pre-loads a number of third-party applications.

What's good about the Honor 9 Lite's Android offering is that it's the latest version, Android 8, and it's paired with EMUI 8, the most stable version of EMUI to date. The pre-loaded third-party bloatware can also be uninstalled.

The EMUI experience is highly customisable. You can switch the app drawer on or off, change your themes or transitions, customise the home screen grid size and manipulate your notification and quick toggle options to suit your needs.

The core layout is typical Android: home screens, a Google screen on the left and a pull-down notifications bar at the top. You can also pull the notifications bar down with a vertical swipe on the fingerprint scanner, perfect for anyone with smaller hands. A double tap of the scanner will subsequently clear all notifications.

The Honor 9 Lite reliably ran all the apps we tested, from Netflix and Amazon Kindle to Google's own suite of services.

Each app gives you the option to customise whether it displays in 18:9 or 16:9 ratio, while within video apps such as Netflix and YouTube a feature that enables full-screen video makes a huge difference, eliminating black borders even if the content isn’t perfectly formatted.

With no force-closures of apps or out-of-the-blue resets in our week with the Honor 9 Lite, stability wasn't a problem, although the chipset's lack of power occasionally reared its head with a few dropped frames here and there.

Performance

• Kirin 659 is good for general tasks
• Very occasional slowdowns

Huawei's own HiSilicon sub-brand makes the Kirin 659 chipset that powers the Honor 9 Lite. It's a mid-range chipset paired with a mid-range amount of RAM – 3GB – and these combine to punch exactly where you'd expect an AED 849 smartphone to.

Benchmarking on Geekbench returned a multi-core score of 3,696; far from being a powerhouse, the Honor 9 Lite does what it needs to do without too many flourishes - although, usefully, one of the flourishes is comfortable split-screen multitasking.

Video playback was smooth at up to Full HD resolution; 4K MKV files were too tall an order, even when using third-party apps, but given the screen’s resolution that isn't a drawback per se, just a reflection of the power limitations here.

Wi-Fi and signal strength were spot-on in our tests, as was fingerprint scanner reliability. Memory read/write speeds were on the slow side, so transferring big files and general data-heavy tasks won’t be zippy, but provided you don't mind waiting the Honor 9 Lite did at least prove reliable in our tests.

Connections and storage

• Micro USB feels outdated
• All other key connections are present

Connectivity on the Honor 9 Lite is competitive in the below AED1,000 price-range.

While the micro USB port holds it back compared to a USB-C port, as found even on some cheaper phones, the fact that it offers dual-SIM support, or an optional microSD expansion slot in place of the second SIM slot, is a bonus.

The phone also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and GPS, so will support low-energy Bluetooth devices and Android Pay, and can give you accurate tracking when you're running or plotting a route.

32GB of onboard storage is also fair given the price of the Honor 9 Lite, although it may not be enough for heavy gamers who need to install apps on the phone's internal memory.

For average users, though, it will be ample, and the fact that the bloatware can be uninstalled means that over 20GB of the storage is available – significantly better than on some other current 32GB phones, such as the Sony Xperia XA2.

The addition of a memory card slot means the internal storage can be bumped up by 256GB, so even if you fill the 32GB of included storage with photos, videos and music an inexpensive microSD card will give you plenty more space.

Movies, music and gaming

• Excellent screen for movies and reading
• Underpowered for intense 3D games

One area in which the Honor 9 Lite does excel is playing video. The screen is bright and sharp, and is an excellent aspect ratio for watching films on.

Streaming services are plentiful on Android, and the split-screen multitasking capability works well when simultaneously running multiple apps, including more demanding services like YouTube.

The fact that the phone runs Android 8 is also handy when it comes to picture-in-picture video. This enables you to open a floating window in apps that support the feature, like VLC and YouTube Red.

A 3.5mm headphone jack is present, so whether you opt for wired or wireless headphones, no dongles will be needed.

The only drawback when it comes to multimedia is gaming. Thanks to the mid-range chipset and possibly the slow built-in storage, intense 3D games like Injustice 2 drop too many frames to make for a smooth experience. Lighter 3D games, such as Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition, perform a bit better, and 2D games should be no problem.

It's also easy to cover up the speaker when holding the phone in landscape orientation, so make sure you’re wearing headphones if possible if you want a decent sound experience when watching or gaming on this thing.

Verdict

It's clear where Honor cut corners when putting together the Honor 9 Lite: performance isn't outstanding, and the rear camera is okay, but not great, especially in the basic auto mode. It's equally clear where Honor focused its attention: this is the best-looking sub-AED 1,000 phone around right now.

The Honor 9 Lite's screen is exceptional, bringing 18:9 to a lower price bracket than we've seen in the UK to date. The phone also has a fingerprint scanner and a great selfie camera, as well as the latest version of Android.

While certainly not perfect then, the Honor 9 Lite strikes an excellent price/performance balance. It's also further evidence that Honor seriously gets the mid-range market, flooding it with great phones across various price points.

Who’s this for?

Anyone who wants a phone that does the basics well and which doesn't cost the earth will be well served by the Honor 9 Lite.

It's also an excellent stop-gap option for anyone who wants an Android phone to tide them over until their next big upgrade, whether that’s a Samsung Galaxy S9 or a Huawei P20.

If you're a teenager, or if you're buying for a teenager, the Honor 9 Lite is a great balance of value and function, not to mention a capable selfie phone, ideal for social media.

The manual modes also make the 9 Lite a good introduction to manual photography – pair it with a mobile tripod, fire up the manual modes and you'll be able to get some great snaps.

This definitely isn't a phone for hardcore gamers owing to the lack of power under the hood, but for casual content watchers and Netflix streamers it's a decent buy.

Should you buy it?

In a word, yes, if you don't need a flagship phone.

If you're more serious about gaming, however, stump up the extra for a phone with a bit more power under the hood like the Moto G5 Plus.

But, if you want the best screen and design for the price, the Honor 9 Lite fits the bill. It looks sleek, has all the ports you need and offers extensive shooting modes that save the camera from mediocrity if you're prepared to go manual every now and then.

The Honor 9 Lite is a great phone for the money, but the following three handsets are decent alternatives.

Honor 7X

The Honor 9 Lite’s most obvious competition is the Honor 7X, the next bump up in Honor’s range. Coming in at AED 1,049, it packs a bigger screen, a better camera and double the storage, not to mention a more premium all-metal body.

Though it also has some of the same flaws, including middling performance and slow charging.

• Read the full Honor 7X review

Moto G5 Plus

For around the same price as the Honor 9 Lite, you can pick up a Moto G5 Plus. This offers more power under the hood, but a less elegant design, and none of the front camera effects the 9 Lite brings to the table.

• Read the full Moto G5 Plus review

Nokia 6

The Nokia 6 is also available for AED 799 at the moment, offering stereo speakers, a more traditional screen aspect ratio, and a much more stock Android experience, though the battery life leaves a little to be desired.

• Read the full Nokia 6 review

First reviewed: March 2018