We describe the Honor X9b as interesting right off the bat when looking at its appeal at first glance.
It does remind us of a certain orange contender from another Chinese brand which also featured a vegan leather orange aesthetic on the rear.
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To be fair we looked at the Honor 9Xb in comparison to its predecessors, which made more sense when we factor in progress.
It should be easy to sport an upward shift in terms of processing power, specs, design, and even battery life to indicate a move forward in terms of production.
The Honor X9b comes after the X9a which featured a 120Hz OLED curved display alongside a 64 MP triple camera and about 8GB plus 5GB of what Honor calls RAM turbo.
The Honor X9b matches some features from the predecessor and raises on others, which if you understand poker makes for a pretty comforting bet.
It’s a pretty tough device and it seems Honor used that as its selling point.
Introducing the Honor X9b to the South African market, Honor put the device under rigorous drop tests which included a wrecking ball as an attempt to prove just how strong the Honor X9b could be.
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So it can take a fall, but does it impress on specs and function?
Features
Inside the Honor X9b, there’s a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset powering the curved display device, padded with 256 GB of storage.
A massive 5800 mAh battery inside the Honor X9b should get you through the day, while the device weighs a healthy 185g on top of curved display edges that make solid sense.
It’s interesting screen-to-body ratio makes sense while watching a series and provides the elusion video playback that almost pops through the screen, which in today’s display tradition, should be the norm.
Vegan leather on the rear and a sunrise orange colour pallet is something we have seen before, but meticulously curated metal edges bring a scene of sophistication to the otherwise midrange device.
Display
We know the Honor X9b can take a few knocks but when looking behind the display we find a 6.78 AMOLED screen with a refresh rate at 129Hz and 1200 nits of brightness.
We see a Qualcomm Octa-core Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
There’s something called the Honor RAM turbo which Honor has coined as an indicator to Honor’s added sprinkles of RAM in order for the X9b to be a little quicker on response with fewer glitches when multitasking apps.
Audio quality was a tad average as we were looking for more bass especially when editing videos on socials, yet the cameras appear to be the added selling point.
We see three cameras, a 108MP main sensor alongside a 5MP ultrawide and 2MP Macro lens.
For us, it was the 120Hz AMOLED display that was tasteful in providing adequate content display to a device that comes in colours Sunrise orange and black with an interesting aspect ratio of 19.9:9 alongside a 1200 x 2652 pixel resolution.
The macro lens makes sense for us who love the added details in a picture while processing software, and Honor’s ultra bounce anti-drop protection makes sense when considering buying the X9b.
The Honor X9b can survive being submerged in water for a short while, – around 15 seconds on paper, which really adds some comfort for any buyer considering a new buy on a budget.
Overall
We have a device that’s ready to take a knock, ready for long days with adequate battery power, and a colour pallet that will most likely get you noticed.
It’s a pretty decent attempt from Honor, and a definite step forward when compared to its predecessor.
Also read: Honor’s plan at MWC 2024, cutting edge AI, innovation and awards
