Honor 9X review

The Honor 9X offers a 48 megapixel camera and a secondary ultra-wide camera at a very tempting SIM-free price

(Image: © Basil Kronfli/Digital Camera World)

Digital Camera World Verdict

The Honor 9X is an all-screen phone that places design ahead of everything else. Despite this, it’s still a competent performer with a decent camera, stacks of storage and stellar battery life. While the lack of NFC, a telephoto lens and stereo speakers work against it - but given a starting price of under £250 in the UK, it’s still a solid offering from Honor.

Pros

  • +

    All-screen front

  • +

    Novel pop-up camera

  • +

    Great battery live

Cons

  • -

    No OIS or telephoto camera

  • -

    No NFC for contactless payments

  • -

    Mono speaker

  • -

    Not available in USA

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The Honor 8X was one of 2018’s most impressive affordable smartphones, combining a big screen with tiny bezels and plenty of power; upon launch, it was elevated to best-in-class budget phone status and held the top spot for most of the year. Now, its successor, the all-screen Honor 9X has hit shelves, complete with a pop-up selfie camera and no less than three sharpshooters around the back, despite a budget price. 

Working against it is a Kirin 710F processor - a midrange chipset, as well as no NFC, so contactless payments aren’t an option. There’s also no telephoto camera, with the Honor 9X instead featuring the same setup as found on the ROG Phone 2 and Asus Zenfone 6 - a wide and ultra-wide camera. This means that the 9X won't be gunning for the best camera phone crown.

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Basil Kronfli

Basil Kronfli is a freelance technology journalist and content creator with a number of specialisms. He started his career at Canon Europe, before joining Phone Arena and Recombu as a tech writer and editor. From there, he headed up and runs Tech[edit], a technology YouTube channel, and has worked alongside this role at Future as a Senior Producer, sharpening his considerable video production skills. 


His technical expertise has been called on numerous times by mainstream media, with appearances and interviews on outlets like Sky News, and he provides Digital Camera World with insight and reviews on camera phones, video editing software and laptops, on-camera monitors, camera sliders, microphones and much more.