HONOR recently introduced HONOR 9S in India – a promising entry-level phone that should surely appeal to consumers looking for a phone that offers excellent value. For a nominal price of INR 6,499, the handset offers a slick, ergonomic body, a gorgeous display, a decent camera, and is backed by a very capable hardware-software combo, featuring the advanced AppGallery and HONOR’s flagship Magic UI 3.1 powered by Android 10.
If you have been shy of upgrading to a smartphone because the existing options just didn’t feel reliable enough or were cutting too many corners, or were not fitting right in your pocket, the HONOR 9S is something you need to look at. Let’s dig deeper and elaborate why!
Immersive Display
In 2020, phones have gone bigger and bulkier across the board. That’s precisely why the compact HONOR 9S feels like a refreshing change of pace. Tipping the scale at 144 grams in weight and 8.35mm (0.84 cm) thin, it’s extremely light and handy and yes, easily portable – just fits into your palm or pocket really well.
It also has a gorgeous display and 5.45-inch (13.8 cm) HD+ Full View panel is sharp (with 1440×720 resolution) and has narrow bezels surrounding it, making for an immersive viewing experience. Colors (16 million at 295.4 PPI) are well-calibrated and punchy, which makes this is a great phone to enjoy multimedia content.
The Android-10 based flagship Magic UI 3.1 by HONOR also integrates a Dark Mode that uses a contrast between text and background for better visibility especially in reading. To that effect, the display is also TÜV Rheinland certified for eye comfort.
Capable Hardware in a Compact Body
HONOR 9S is powered by a power-efficient MediaTek Helio P22 octa-core chipset backed by 2GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The ample available storage will ensure that the performance does not deteriorate over a period of usage. Moreover, consumers also have the option to add another 512GB of secondary storage. And since there is a dedicated microSD card, they can continue using two SIM cards while augmenting storage.
All buttons and ports in HONOR 9S are easily accessible and compact for one hand use. The smartphone has also retained the 3.5mm audio jack that is still indispensable for consumers buying phones in the affordable price segment.
The HONOR 9S supports all relevant connectivity options and houses a 3020mAh battery that lasts up to 21 hours of phone calls and 17 hours of video playback. Moderate and heavy users should be able to comfortably muster a full-day mileage on a single charge.
Camera for your photography needs
As for photography, the 8MP rear camera has wide f/2.0 aperture with panorama and beauty mode and, leverages smart image processing algorithms to capture beautiful panorama shots. While being an entry-level phone, it still benefits from years of work HONOR has put into aligning image processing algorithms for its phones, and thus manages to outperform other offerings in the market. The 5MP front camera comes with a capable beautify mode for enhancing self-portraits.
Consistent performance backed by meaningful software
Considering the competitive price, the performance hardware is quite impressive and HONOR’s flagship Magic UI 3.1 is smart enough to make the most of it. The software is light and clean and is well optimized to efficiently use available resources.
The smartphone also comes with Face Unlock technology for convenient unlocking, which is secured and consistent and works even in low light conditions. All users need to do is raise their phone and the biometric unlock triggers.
Advanced AppGallery and Petal Search
One of the standout features of the HONOR 9S is its advanced AppGallery that comes pre-installed in the smartphone. Users can simply download various applications that are available on the AppGallery across 18 categories including lifestyle, travel, entertainment, gaming, and more. The market place lays special emphasis on user security (with an elaborate 4-layer system) and privacy.
Latest Developments by HONOR in App Ecosystem
To make it even more convenient for users, HONOR also introduced Petal Search in India, which is again a one-stop-solution for all your app searches, recommendations, downloads and updates. Once you have download the app from HONOR’s AppGallery, it additionally, gives you information on weather forecasts, top news, live sports scores, videos, images and music searches.
HONOR 9S also has Quick Apps that let users access popular app features without actually downloading them on the smartphone, thus saving a lot of storage space. Quick Apps is expected to re-image how we deal with apps and it can be downloaded from AppGallery under Quick Apps center.
As per HONOR, AppGallery is the 3rd largest app distribution platform in the world, having available in more than 170 countries/ regions with 400M+ active users in a span of few years. In Inida, 95% of top 160 apps are already available in the AppGallery, and 85% of top 500 apps can be availed through AppGallery and Petal Search. The brand aims to soon achieve the target of getting top 5000 apps of the country.
HONOR 9S: A phone you can trust and bank upon
A lot of us get confused when it comes to choosing the right specifications for our new smartphone. HONOR 9S could be the perfect option for people who have been shy of upgrading to smartphones for fear of unreliable and inconsistent experience. After all, for a phone in the entry grade segment, getting the basics right is what probably matters the most.
HONOR 9S is a reliable performer that includes an immersive display for watching multimedia content, is comfortable to handle, benefits from flagship Magic UI 3.1 software, and comes with AppGallery and Petal Search that are quite effective at churning up required apps and content.
Priced at INR 6,499, the HONOR 9S will be available in two color choices – Blue and Black – on Flipkart from August 6, 2020 starting 12 PM onwards. To further sweeten the pot, HONOR has some interesting ‘First Sale Offers’ up for grabs. These include:
- Flat INR 500 discount, reducing the effective price to INR 5,499.
- No Cost EMI options up to 6 months
- ‘Call & Win’ Contest – All participants get VIP Service benefits, Free subscription of Hungama music app for 3 months and 3 lucky participants can win HONOR Band 3 every week
Talking about the contest, it is there for a limited period and HONOR 9S and HONOR 9A customers need to call hotline number ‘18002109999’ to participate. Contest runs from 6th August 2020 to 5th October 2020. Users may follow HONOR social media handles (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) for more information about the contest and updates from the brand.
Apart from the HONOR 9S, HONOR also introduced HONOR 9A, another affordable phone with competent specs. Priced at 9,999, the HONOR 9A includes a bigger 6.3-inch display, 64GB of internal storage, and triple rear cameras. The brand also introduced its first laptop in the country, HONOR MagicBook 15, that’s powered by AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Mobile Processor with integrated Radeon Vega 8 Graphics. This powerful machine meant for young professionals flaunts a pop-up webcam, is ultra-portable, and comes pre-installed with Microsoft Windows 10 Home and a free one-month trial of the Microsoft 365 Personal Subscription.
