honor 9n – Tech Raman

Honor 9N Detailed Review – A stylish all-rounder

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:11:56 +0000

Honor has been on a roll with back to back launches, the aggressive approach also propelled the parent company Huawei go past Apple as the second largest Smartphone vendor in the world and also push it the elite top 5 league in India. The key to success for any brand is to offer choices to the users in various price segments. Honor has a lot to offer in the 10K to 30K price segment in India and the latest Honor 9N at price starting at ₹ 11,999 hits the sweet spot. If you wonder why? go ahead read my Honor 9N detailed review.

Honor 9N box contents:

The device,
Sim Ejector Tool,
A transparent Back cover,
Power adapter and
USB Type-C cable.

Design and Build quality of Honor 9N

149.2 x 71.8 x 7.7 mm
152 grams
glass body with an aluminum frame

Honor 9 Lite is the most successful phones of Honor in India, having sold 1 million-plus units and still going strong. Honor 9N takes a leaf out of the 9 Lite with much semblance to it. Similarly, it has glass rear treated to a 12-layer of glass with mirrored finish premium design. Being glass, it also is thinner than the metal counterparts and is lighter on hands. For everyday use, a lighter the phone, the more comfortable it is to practically manage and the Honor 9N has a good ergonomics. The rounded corners compliment the design. The back has the fingerprint sensor which is easier to reach. The dual camera capsule and the flash sits neatly on top. On the left side, there is a hybrid SIM tray. So you can add two SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card for increasing the storage. I appreciate when attention is paid to the paint job even for the SIM tray though it sits inside for the most part of the phone’s life. On the right side, there is the power button and volume button, both again quickly accessible. The bottom has the audio jack, mic, micro USB port and the speaker grille. Honor 9N comes in four beautiful colors – the standard matte black, the Honor signature blue shade and a newly introduced two colors lavender purple and robin egg blue. Honor 9N has a pleasant looking design and is also one of the most comfortable phones I have used recently. It is also the most stylish phone you can buy in this price segment and is complimented by a “top notch” (pun intended) display.

Display of Honor 9N

5.84″ TFT LCD display
2280 x 1080 pixels resolution
432 ppi density
19:9 aspect ratio
2.5D glass

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis notch in the display The new trend in the smartphone fortune Or to take Arms against the notch and rebel” Pardon me for the cheesy take on the Shakespeare quote, the truth is the notch is here to stay for a while and while hordes of tech reviewers in general curse it, my interaction with ordinary folks gives me a different insight. Many don’t mind it, while some like it some or indifferent to it. Honor 9N is the most affordable Smartphone to come with the notch. If you are someone who doesn’t like notch? well, Honor gives you the control to disable it. Simple. The display is bright, vivid but not oversaturated. It is pleasing to look at and offers a good viewing experience. The texts look sharp. The outdoor under sunlight readability is good too. Overall, I liked the display at works here. The display setting offers eye comfort mode which is the blue filter setting with an option to schedule the mode, a full-screen display allows you to manage the full vision display for apps, there is even a resolution mode setting in case you want to scale down to HD+ 1440 x 720p to conserve the battery.

Software Features of Honor 9N – EMUI 8.0 at work

Watch Honor 9N Features, Tips and Tricks

https://youtu.be/Ip6zypPW8cg EMUI has come a long way since its inception and now it has become one of my comfortable and favorite user interface to use. They have toned down much of bloatware and it works faster now and doesn’t lag down the phone. It also has a clean looking interface with a set of good features which many might appreciate. The settings page is very clean and is just a page with options nesting within. EMUI 8.0 also brings in private space feature allowing the user to have a separate private space, kind of partition with its own set of apps separated from main space. There is also the App Twin feature to simultaneously run two instances of apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.

Fingerprint sensor in Honor 9N

Honor phones have a reputation for fast and accurate fingerprint sensors with added features. Honor 9N like their rest of the phones is very fast and very accurate. It supports the app lock too. The add-on features include touch and hold gestures and slide gesture on the sensor area to take a photo when on camera app, answer incoming calls, stop alarms, show notification panel and browse photos. With India going digital, there is also a Paytm quick pay option, which when enabled allow launching the payment screen from the lock or off screen instantly.

Face recognition in Honor 9N

Honor 9N also has face recognition capability. It works fast and is accurate too if the light conditions are good enough but would struggle in low lightings. App unlock is also supported via face recognition.

Performance

HiSilicon Kirin 659
Octa-core (4×2.36 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
Mali-T830 MP2
3GB/4GB RAM
32GB/64GB/128GB,expandable

The Kirin 659 processor is a workhorse for Honor, having used it extensively in their mid-range Smartphones in the last few quarters. What could give it a new lease of life would be the GPU Turbo update it would be receiving soon. The update is supposed to ramp up the gaming performance by 30 percent and the battery optimization by 20 percent which should be exciting. For now, the processor is good enough to handle day to day tasks. You would be more than happy if your daily diet on phone would be to make calls, browse, check on your social media applications. Push it further, if you are a gamer there is no denying the Snapdragon offers more processing power in their latest 600 series for the midrange but the 659 still stays afloat. I could play my daily does of PUBG on this without many hiccups and still manage chicken dinner in the game. The graphics are set to medium by default while playing. Agreed, it’s time Huawei brings in an updated new chipset but I am betting on the GPU Turbo update for the extra push on this processor. I will update once it happens. With the legacy of Huawei in the modem technology, Honor phones offer good call quality and it is evident on this phone too. The 4G connectivity is solid and this is one area Honor phones always excel at.

Battery performance of Honor 9N

There is a 3000 mAh battery which might sound underwhelming on paper. What helps in better battery life is the good built-in modem that doesn’t drain the battery. I have put the phone under moderate use and it could sail through a day if you are a demanding user the phone can last 18-20 hours.

Camera performance of Honor 9N

13MP + 2MP dual rear camera
16MP selfie camera

The Honor 9N comes with some playful elements and easy to use modes. There is portrait mode for both front and back. Additionally, the rear camera app also has a wide aperture mode. AR lens adds some fun elements to your photos. As usual, like most Honor phones, there are extensive camera modes to make even ordinary users take some good photos. There is also a Pro mode giving you control over ISO, shutter, exposure values and focus. Coming to the camera quality, the selfies are a notch ahead and very impressive. The pictures are sharp with good details. The portrait mode does a good job, with a right softness in the background. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="13977,13978,13979,13980" orderby="rand"] The 13+2MP dual combo is consistent in the output, on a positive note. The color reproduction is accurate and nicer. Though it could have done better with a little more sharpening. The portrait mode does a good job at edge detection in most of the captures. The night shot though suffers a bit of noise and can be rated decent and a shot above the average. [gallery link="file" columns="5" ids="13982,13983,13984,13985,13986,13987,13988,13989,13990,13991" orderby="rand"]

Verdict: To Buy or Not to Buy the Honor 9N

In India, the Honor 9N is priced at Rs 11,999 for 3GB RAM + 32GB storage variant, and 4GB RAM + 64GB storage at Rs. 13,999. There’s a 4GB RAM + 128GB storage variant that costs Rs. 17,999. If you like your phone to be stylish, you can’t look beyond Honor 9N in this segment. It is beautiful with mirror finish, lightweight and has good ergonomics for day to day use. It’s overall a good a perfect mid-ranger if you are looking for a phone that looks both beautiful and capable and won’t disappoint you.]]>

9 Reasons why Honor 9N scores over Redmi Note 5 Pro

Lakshmi Rajan — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 06:27:41 +0000

The plain fact is there is no one best Smartphone, had it been there no one would be buying any other mobiles, right? Every phone has its own plus and minus points that people weigh over when buying their new Smartphone, when their needs matches more with the positives a phone offer, they buy it. Simple. If you are looking for an affordable mid-range Smartphone, the choices narrow between the newly launched Honor 9N and the Redmi Note 5 Pro, while both the phones have their own goodie bags, I list 9 reasons why Honor 9N beats over Redmi Note 5 Pro and if you value these points as priority, you get your right pick too.

Design

Smartphone has become almost an extension of us, most of us can’t live without it and is our integral part. For a device that we carry almost always with us, the ergonomics matter a lot. The phone has to be lighter and get its dimension right for ease of use in our daily life, this is where Honor 9N has a vital advantage. The Honor 9N measures 149.2 x 71.8 x 7.7 mm as compared to 158.6 x 75.4 x 8.1 mm reading of Redmi Note 5 Pro, a few mm does make a huge difference and anything less than 8mm definitely is better. More importantly, the Honor 9N at 152 grams is much lighter than the 181 grams the Redmi Note 5 Pro weighs. Clad in glass body as compared to the more common in the category metal body the Redmi note 5 pro comes and available in exquisite one of the kind robin egg blue color and Lavender purple along side the traditional black and Honor’s special blue shade, the Honor 9N could easily win hands down the most stylish Smartphone in this price category.

Notch Ahead

Smartphone industry keeps evolving when it comes to aesthetics and design, last season it was about the new found love for 18:9 aspect ration which helped the OEMs to bring more real estate to the screen while still managing to keep the phone narrower for grip. Redmi Note 5 Pro embraced the 18:9 aspect ratio and it was well received but there was a quick shift again from the 18:9 aspect ratio to 19:9 aspect ratio with the arrival of notch design. Undoubtedly the ‘notch’ on the top divided the tech community with many of them deriding it but ultimately what matters is the end consumers and when I interacted with many consumers, I found there are lot many people who liked to be one notch ahead. The notch was embraced again, people did like it. So Honor moved in swiftly and the Honor 9N comes with notch. You don’t find any other device in this price range with notch, atleast yet. For those who don’t like notch, the EMUI also offers a display setting to hide notch.

Display

Honor 9N has a 5.84 inches IPS LCD display with a 1080 x 2280 pixels resolution translating to 432 ppi density. On the other hand, the Redmi Note 5 Pro comes with a 5.99 inches IPS LCD display offering a 1080 x 2160 pixels working out a 403 ppi density. 9N is packed with more pixel density and also when kept side by side, the display panel looks slightly more vibrant than the Note 5 Pro giving it a slight advantage.

Game Suite

If you are a hard core gamer like me, you would like the Game suite feature in Honor 9N. Game suite offers three modes: Performance mode: to improve game performance Smart mode: to balance performance and power consumption Power saver mode: saves battery life but reduces game performance. It also offers a DND mode while you are at gaming for an uninterrupted game session. When enabled, all onscreen notification will be muted or hidden except for calls, alarms and low battery alerts. The device will not ring or vibrate for calls and alarms so you can have unhindered gaming.

GPU Turbo – The future proofing

Talking about gaming, we all know the Smartphones performance can deteriorate over a time or atleast when you buy a Smartphone, you are limited to its hardware capability. What works as advantage for Honor Smartphones is the tight integration of software and hardware since they use their own HiSiliconne Kirin chipsets, very few countable OEMs have their own chipset running on their phones. Huawei, the parent company of Honor has their own R&D centers across the world including one in Bangalore. With a talented workforce of engineers and tightly integrated ecosystem, they are pushing a GPU Turbo update to some of their Hauwei/Honor Smartphones and Honor 9N is poised to receive the update in few months, the update promises to increase the gaming performance by 30% and battery life by 20%.

Riding Mode

A recent report states that in India the use of mobile phones while driving claimed 2,138 lives last year. It’s a serious concern which made Honor introduce a Riding mode in their Smartphones including Honor 9N. It can be easily enabled from the quick settings before you start your ride. When you enable the ride mode, the bluetooth and headset will be disabled in case you have paired them, and calls will be automatically answered with voice or sms messages based on your ride mode settings. You can choose to answer by voice message, answer by text or decline calls automatically. The app also features an optional ride tracking which gives you insights on your riding pattern, distance covered and time spend on wheels.

Better Camera Controls

EMUI has probably one of the better camera app offering good number of presets or modes which helps normal users take amazing pictures, something which the MIUI on Redmi Note 5 Pro lacks. Honor 9N offers an extensive array of modes including pro photo, pro video, AR lens, night shot, light painting, and my favorite good food mode. For those who are not comfortable or unsure of handling manual modes, the light painting mode enables them to become ace photographers in capturing the city at dark with trailing lights, shoot silky water like pro. Another area in the camera app where Honor 9N scores over Redmi Note 5 Pro is the rich manual controls the EMUI offers. If you are a pro, you definitely have a better control on the camera with a Honor 9N smartphone. So either way, amateur or pro, the Honor 9N camera offers a better usability and controls.

Fingeprint Sensor – A little more

There is no denying both the phones offer accurate and quick fingerprint sensor and also has app lock feature. But Honor has few more tricks to the fingerprint sensor implementation. You can use touch and hold or slide gestures on the sensor area to do certain tasks like to answer incoming calls, stop alarm, quick access notification panel or browse photos.

Battery modes – last minute survival methods

We all scramble to prolong the battery when it is reaching the fag end, we turn off the connectivity, dim the screen and what not to make sure the battery can last a little longer. The Honor 9N offers a better power saver mode than Redmi Note 5 Pro there is a power saver mode and when you are really left with last few percentage of battery, you can turn to the Ultra power saving mode which turns the screen black, shuts down everything else except to use dialer, messages, contacts, SOS and an option to add two more apps to the home screen. So if you value any of these points above, the Honor 9N definitely should be your pick. What you think of these features, do share your thoughts. https://youtu.be/Ip6zypPW8cg ]]>

Honor 9N incoming, iPhone X users take a hike !

Lakshmi Rajan — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 16:22:30 +0000

Disclaimer: iPhone vs Android talks can lead to serious injuries to friendship. Engage at one’s own risk. The other day one of my friends came up to me with a very weird but intriguing challenge. He is that typical iPhone warrior for whom the world begins and ends with IOS. Oh, he is also a ‘proud’ owner of an iPhone X by the way. I am a die hard Android guy who is often looked down upon by IOS users. My friend is no different. Sometimes I wonder why I even call him a friend! Whatever! So this fellow comes to me and challenges me to troll iPhone X with any Android device. I hate to admit but for a few days I actually groped for an answer to his challenge. Being a true blooded Android guy, my eyes and ears are always on lookout for new Android devices and came across the info on upcoming phone from Honor which gave me a window to send a virtual slap to my iPhone X buddy. I am talking about the Honor 9N which is slated for India launch on July 24th this year. I dug out some images of this device from speculation stories and leaks to troll my friend in epic proportions. So over a drink, I snapped him like Thanos with the visuals of the Honor 9N stacked up against the iPhone. Round one : score even Round 2 : Score even This infinity war continues… the Honor 9N might sprint a surprise in the coming rounds, watch out.]]>