Review of the Honor 9 Lite smartphone after a year of use: personal experience

At the end of March 2021, after two weeks of painstakingly searching for information about smartphones, I chose and purchased Honor 9 Lite for myself as my main smartphone. After exactly a year of operation, I want to share my impressions, emotions, feedback and constructive facts about this phone model.

Appearance

Honor 9 Lite stands out from the crowd and attracts attention with its appearance. The aluminum case, covered with so-called 2.5D glass, gives the device a special, expensive look. In models of sapphire blue and gray, the light shimmers beautifully, and looking at the clean glass on both sides, a mirror reflection is clearly visible.

With this smartphone:

• It’s comfortable to walk down the street and talk by putting the device to your ear;
• there is no shame in putting it on the table in a restaurant, even if the interlocutor has the latest iPhone model;
• if the interlocutor or a random passer-by does not know what kind of smartphone model it is, then based on appearance, build quality and tactile sensations (if you give the gadget in your hands), they will give you a 100% answer that it is a flagship;
• goes well with a formal suit;
• the first impression is always positive.

I proceeded from practical reasons, and simply because I like this color better, I took the Honor 9 Lite in black.

For appearance

, my rating for the smartphone is 10 out of 10.

Which Honor and Huawei smartphones have an IR port?

Before setting up an infrared port on Huawei and Honor, check its availability on your specific device. This can be done simply by reading the operating instructions. There, in the configuration section, all external and built-in accessibility modules are indicated.

How to install a new theme and change the old one on Huawei/Honor

In 2021, the following models come with this sensor:

• Honor 3, 6;
• Honor 7C;
• 8 Pro;
• 9 and 9 Light;
• Huawei Mat 9 and Mat 20;
• P9 Plus.

Before purchasing, be sure to check with the seller whether such a port is available on the model you have chosen. If yes, test it right in the store.

Ergonomics

As for convenience and practicality of use, in general everything is good, except for a few points.

In similar case sizes, competitors usually fit a 5.2-inch display. Honor, due to the reduced frames on the right and left of the screen, has achieved the placement of a 5.65-inch display. Because of this decision, Honor 9 Lite has a screen with an aspect ratio of 19:8, and it cannot be called a shovel.

It fits well in the hand, the case thickness is 7.6 mm and the rounded edges help you hold the smartphone in one hand and surf the Internet with your thumb. But using one hand, I can’t reach all corners of the smartphone with my thumb, at least for me.

You have to move the gadget a little in your palm, which causes slight discomfort.

For me, the weight of the smartphone is noticeable (Honor 9 Lite was 4 years away from the feather-light Samsung Galaxy S4), but this is for the better.

As for the black edges of the empty space, they are not noticeable on this display, and provide room for fingers when holding the phone in a horizontal position.

Horizontal coverage hides the two front cameras on the left side and does not cover the speaker on the right. This contributes to a good perception of the content, be it a game, a movie or a regular book.

The phone fits easily into your clothing pocket and does not slip out of your hands.

Regarding the shortcomings identified during the period of operation:

1. The main dual camera, enclosed in a small frame, has a millimeter protrusion above the glass. By placing the device on a flat surface and pressing on the lower right edge, the play is clearly visible. Because of this, the smartphone, especially in the first 3-4 months, slid on its own on even and smooth surfaces. So, he ran away from me from the edge of the sofa, table, open and closed laptop.
2. Honor 9 Light is very easily soiled. You will have to wipe it down often, so it’s better to get yourself into a new habit.
3. If you don’t wipe your smartphone for a long time or your fingers are wet or sweaty (especially in the summer), then the fingerprint scanner on the back of the screen refuses to read your fingerprint. Until you wipe your finger dry and wipe the scanner, you won’t be able to unlock it using this method.
4. Well, the previously mentioned minor inconvenience is that when working with one hand, you won’t be able to reach all corners of the screen with your thumb. To do this, you need to loosen your grip and lower the phone slightly onto your fingers to give your thumb freedom of movement.

Ergonomics:

7 out of 10 points.

Design and ergonomics

Stylish glass, low practicality.

Honor Lite 9 is sold in Russia in three colors - black, blue and gray. The front and back panels are covered with rounded glass, the frame is aluminum. A rare combination.

Widescreen screens occupying most of the front surface will be difficult to surprise in 2021. This approach is still pleasing to the eye and a pleasure to use when using a smartphone.

In the case of Honor Lite 9, you shouldn’t expect any kind of revolution - the side frames are quite thick and noticeable.

Above the display are the front camera modules, a proximity sensor, an event indicator and a neat cutout for the earpiece. In the black color of the body, these elements are almost invisible.

Below the display is only the Honor logo. The navigation buttons on the device are touch sensitive.

The front panel is covered with rounded 2.5D glass with anti-reflective coating. It’s pleasant to use the screen, your finger glides like butter, but you can find fault with the oleophobic screen - traces in the form of greasy stains and fingerprints accumulate quite quickly, and the gadget has to be wiped regularly. Perhaps this feeling arose after testing the flagship Honor View 10, where everything was excellent in this regard.

A glass backdrop is stylish and beautiful, but not entirely practical. Firstly, greasy stains collect here, and secondly, the first fall of the device can result in cracks.

The arrangement of elements is traditional. The horizontal dual camera module protrudes very slightly and is located in the upper left corner, with a flash next to it. In the center, the developers placed a slightly recessed fingerprint scanner, with the brand logo and trade markings at the bottom. Nothing superfluous, everything is in its place.

The power and volume buttons are located on the right side.

The slot for SIM cards and memory cards can be removed with a paper clip from the left side of the device.

The bottom edge includes a microUSB connector for charging, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a microphone and a speaker.

The developers freed the top edge from any elements.

In terms of ergonomics, everything is ordinary. The device fits well in the hand because it is thin (7.6 mm) and light (150 grams), the sides are rounded, and both sides are covered with pleasant glass. The gadget may seem slippery and easily soiled, but this is a problem with all glass smartphones. There are no questions about the build quality.

What happens to a smartphone after a fall?

Do not put a cover on it under any circumstances. There is no point in hiding such beauty!

As for safety, I will say this: it fell on me 30-40 times. There were serious falls onto the tiles from a meter height and onto the asphalt (from about 1 meter 70 centimeters), there were no cracks or chips of the glass, only a microscopic dent remained on the end, which is noticeable in bright light and detailed examination.

My friend, who purchased the same model of smartphone, dropped the gadget in the gym on the metal body of one of the exercise machines. Just fell out of my pocket while doing an angle press. A gray spot appeared on the end of the device, which was easily removed with a finger. As it turned out, the smartphone, as a result of the fall, knocked a piece of paint off the body of the simulator and was left without a scratch or dent.

Therefore, don’t wear a cover, really.

Drop resistance:

9 out of 10 points

Display

The smartphone screen is truly pleasing to the eye. The AMOLED screen delivers an excellent picture in Full HD+ resolution. There is no “caustic acid” in color rendering, no backlight flickering, only soft and smooth automatic adjustment.

There is a special mode with soft yellow light to protect your eyes from overstrain. In general, the entire implementation of the gadget is made for comfortable visual perception.

If something about the colors doesn’t suit you, there is a flexible adjustment of the color temperature of the normal and vision protection mode. I did not touch these settings and left them “as is”.

At night - perfectly visible at minimum brightness. In sunny weather, maximum brightness is more than enough. Even if the screen is exposed to direct sunlight, you can read the text on the screen without any problems.

And to boot, there is a reduced HD+ screen resolution mode.

The pixels are not visible, the picture quality sags a little, but it significantly saves battery. A useful feature if the gadget will not charge for several days.

Screen quality:

9 out of 10 points.

Camera

I’ll write right away - this is not a camera phone. Yes, the smartphone has dual cameras on the back and front, but the smartphone does not take super high-quality photos.

But it’s also impossible to call a smartphone completely bad in terms of photographs. Using modes and settings, especially in good light, you can get pretty decent photos.

I wrote about the shooting settings of Honor 9 Lite here.

Morning (the contrast of the clouds played).

Day (cloudy).

At night or in low light conditions, the photo capabilities of the device are all gone.

Flash brightness is average. In the photo, the text from a book or A4 is clearly visible.

There’s no need to brag about the video capabilities either. Shooting is available in a maximum of Full HD (16:9), in the H.264 codec, with a bitrate of 17 Mb/s. Camera stabilization when walking is weak. Sound recording is at an average level. It is written in quality 192 Kb/s, 48 ​​KHz, in AAC format. Wind or extraneous continuous noise is a serious problem when recording voice.

Note!

Photos from a smartphone without compression, I uploaded them in a separate archive.

Camera quality:

4 points out of 10.

Cameras and photos

Two decent dual cameras.

One of the main features of the smartphone is the presence of four cameras at once. Two main modules are located on the back of the device, and two more front ones are located on the front. Similar solutions are already widely used in flagship smartphones, so it will be interesting to see how this will work in a mid-segment device.

First, some numbers. The main rear and front cameras have 13 and 2 megapixel modules. For normal shooting, one sensor is usually enough, and additional ones are needed to implement the bokeh effect and blur the background. There is no optical zoom here.

Now let's move on to the photographs. The picture quality is excellent if you shoot in ideal lighting. Gorgeous picture with correctly adjusted white balance, rich colors. When taking portraits, you need to avoid backlight, since the camera does not always work well in such conditions. Instead of beautiful bokeh, you will get extra glare. It doesn’t reach the flagship level, but the quality is “honest”.

The picture on the front camera is a little worse, noise appears and the focus is not always sharp. When shooting, the screen acts as a flash, and software algorithms hide skin imperfections.

You can use the camera of the Honor 9 Lite smartphone at night - the photos are saturated, the objects are recognizable, but noticeable noise appears and sharpness is lost. However, such pictures most often do not go further than social networks, where there is no strong requirement for quality, so we will not find fault with the night shooting mode.

The closest competitors of Honor 9 Lite are Meizu M6 Note and Xiaomi Mi A1. The quality of the pictures is approximately the same. The advantage of Honor 9 is the second front camera. The quality of the “self” is better than that of two competitors, but the implementation of the dual main camera let us down a little. Competitors' additional modules have higher resolution. The Meizu M6 Note has an additional camera resolution of 5 megapixels, this module is used only to create bokeh, while Xiaomi used two identical 12 megapixel cameras with different apertures: f/2.2 and f/2.6. This allows for 2x optical zoom. The Mi A1 blurs the background much better than its competitors.

The full collection of photos on Honor 9 Lite in original quality is posted on Yandex.Disk.

Interface

Out of the box, Honor 9 Lite runs on Android 8.0 with the proprietary EMUI 8.0 add-on.

Machine learning has been introduced into the EMUI operating system, which analyzes the user’s work with the smartphone and uses a personalized algorithm to speed up the work of Honor 9 Lite. Based on an analysis of launched applications and the time they were launched, the system tries to predict your actions, loading frequently used programs into memory at a specific period of time.

I read about this kind of work of artificial intelligence before buying a smartphone. In general, I did not notice a noticeable increase in the acceleration of the smartphone. But most importantly, after a year of use, I did not notice any excessive freezes or severe lags of the interface.

Everything about the design of the EMUI shell is perfect: neat fonts, identical icon shapes and unity of style throughout the entire interface.

Standard, like many other proposed design themes, are made with high quality and taste.

There are no complaints about the management. Among the additional features I would like to highlight:

1. Flip the device to mute the sound (incoming, alarm, timer).
2. Double tap on the screen to enable or disable the screen lock.
3. Taking a screenshot by moving three fingers together on the screen.
4. Special features for people with visual impairments and more, with a ton of flexible settings.

Sound

The Honor 9 Lite is fine with multimedia. No, seriously, the speaker came out pretty loud.

And the DAC helps you enjoy pleasant sound, even through the included headphones.

The gadget connected to the headphones allows you to go into the audio effects settings, select the desired type of headphones and adjust the equalizer.

Calls

The smartphone can use 2 SIM cards. Calls occur in standby mode (while you are talking on one, the second is not available for incoming and outgoing calls). Since the smartphone has a combined slot, you need to make a choice between a second SIM card and increasing memory using a MicroSD card.

Note!

I have posted instructions on how to install a SIM card in Honor 9 Lite on a separate page.

The radio module of the global version of the smartphone supports all GSM frequency bands for communication, and LTE frequency bands, which are used by cellular operators in Russia and Europe.

The speaker is loud, the interlocutor can be heard perfectly. By turning the volume up to maximum, you can hear your interlocutor in a noisy public place.

The noise reduction of the microphone is good. In the same noisy place, you will be able to answer your interlocutor and he will understand your words.

Contactless payment

The beauty of this smartphone is the NFC chip present on board. This means that you can easily link your Visa and MasterCard to Google Pay and make payments at the terminal using Honor 9 Lite.

I described in detail the instructions for linking cards and their use via NFC on this page.

Interface

gets subjective: 8 out of 10 points.

Fingerprint scanner

Everything is in order with the security of the device. The best option of all presented is the fingerprint scanner on the back of the smartphone. Registration occurs in a standard way; up to 5 prints can be stored in memory.

In addition to its main function, using a fingerprint scanner you can:

1. Answer the call.
2. Turn off the alarm.
3. Take pictures and turn on video recording.
4. Open the notification panel.
5. View photos in full screen mode.

Additionally, you can use other protection methods:

• pin;
• graphic key;
• facial recognition.

The latter method is not entirely safe, since the Honor 9 Lite is not equipped with many sensors for high-quality protection during facial recognition. Yes, the method is very convenient, but a person who looks like you, or a photo of you, can easily unlock your smartphone.

Safety

: 7 points out of 10.

Answers to popular questions

It says “Fingerprint failed”, what should I do?

In some situations, when you try to unlock the display, a message may appear: “Fingerprint recognition failed. 4 attempts left. Clean your finger and sensor and then try again.”

The cause of the failure may be:

• the presence of moisture, dirt, fat on the hands;
• the presence of moisture, dirt, grease on the scanner itself;
• the user touched a fingertip that was not registered;
• weak touch, so not enough information for recognition.

To solve this problem you need to:

• wipe your hands with a napkin or towel to keep them clean and dry;
• wipe the scanner itself;
• touch him again.

The phone should now recognize the user.

After 5 incorrect attempts to unlock the screen using the sensor, the smartphone will block this function for 30 seconds. In this case, the user can use the display unlock using a 6-digit digital password.

The item with fingerprint settings has disappeared, what should I do?

There may be two reasons why the “Fingerprint” item disappeared in the “Security and Privacy” section of the smartphone settings:

In the first case, if the settings are lost, installing an anti-virus application with a full scan of the phone for malware that can block the operation of the sensor will help. When installing or updating the firmware, it is worth considering that its creators may forget to support the Russian language and some menu items simply do not appear on the display. In such a situation, selecting the English language and then configuring the sensor or returning to the factory settings of the smartphone will help.

What should I do if the added fingerprints are missing?

The sensor does not respond when touched

There are several reasons explaining this:

• dirt or moisture on hands;
• dirty or damp scanner;
• the cable is damaged.

In the first two cases, it will be enough to wipe your hands and the sensor, and then try again. If you cannot remove the ID after this, then the cable is most likely faulty, so you should contact a service center for diagnostics and subsequent repairs.

As you can see, setting up unlocking of Honor and Huawei devices using Touch ID is very easy. Enabling the scanner will prevent unwanted people from accessing your device and keep the information on it safe.

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Hardware capabilities in games and multitasking

The Honor 9 Lite cannot boast of a graphical component, but it also cannot be called completely stifling. The GPU handles most games at medium and low settings, with a screen resolution of 2160x1080 pixels.

But drawdowns in FPS cannot be completely avoided, especially in:

• not optimized games;
• complex and dynamic scenes;
• with a large concentration of players and depicting their actions in one place.

The GPU Turbo technology that Huawei introduced into its gadgets is available for this gadget as of September updates. With its help, FPS in games is automatically optimized. The technology really works, but when the quality of detail in games increases, with a subsequent drop in FPS, it will not help.

When it comes to multitasking, the smartphone fails. Constantly switching between applications, using a smartphone during a messenger call, parallel use of 3 or more programs leads the smartphone to lags, freezes, incomprehensible bugs, freezes, which are corrected by clearing the memory or rebooting the device.

Multitasking and hardware capabilities

: 5 out of 10 points.

Autonomy

The battery works in tandem with the EMUI shell, so the charge is not consumed left and right. During normal operation of the smartphone (meaning without significant load on the processor and video accelerator, as happens during games), the battery shows autonomy for 20 hours.

Additionally, there is:

• energy saving mode;
• ultra;
• changing screen resolution;

It is also possible to monitor statistics and battery usage.

So at any moment you can figure out what might be consuming precious energy so voraciously.

On my own behalf, I will say that I charge my smartphone once a day. I’ll put it on charge at night, and in the morning I’ll put it in my jeans pocket and go to work. In the evening, from 60 to 25% of the charge remains, depending on the “intensity” of the working day.

It has never let me down in terms of battery drain, like the same Samsung smartphones do. If it says that there is 6% charge left, that means it is. I can make one long call, several calls, or go online for a few minutes, without fear that it will go down right now.

Autonomy

: 8 out of 10 points, because you always want more.

Specifications

I thought it was the right decision to leave the characteristics plate at the end. It is likely that before getting to the pages of my review, you have already become acquainted with the performance characteristics of the smartphone. But if you forgot something or didn’t know something, then all the information is in one place.

Advice!

There is a new Honor 10 Lite model on sale. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with its capabilities in this brief review.

Performance and benchmarks

The interface “flies”, but the smartphone is not a gaming one.

Huawei traditionally equipped the device with a proprietary 16-nm chipset - an 8-core Kirin 659 with a maximum clock frequency of 2.36 GHz, which consists of four Cortex-A53 (2.36 GHz) and four Cortex-A53 (1.7 GHz) cores. Graphics processing is handled by the Mali-T830, and the memory capacity in the tested sample is 3/32 GB.

When a chipset other than Snapdragon is used, geeks immediately have doubts and suspicions. We can argue for a long time, but we must admit that Kirin processors deserve the right to exist. The same goes for the graphics accelerator, which will certainly be the weak link in this smartphone.

In everyday use of common applications and basic functions there should be no problems - the gadget’s interface is fast and stable. Messengers, YouTube, social networks, navigators and news aggregators work flawlessly; problems are possible only with real multitasking.

If casual games work perfectly, then powerful and heavy projects with 3D graphics will probably slow down from time to time, as was the case with Godfire, Modern Combat 5 and Mortal Combat X. There are two reasons for this - a weak graphics chip and high screen resolution (Full HD+), which loads the processor and consumes battery power.

Grade

Based on the ratings given in the article, I would like to give the Honor 9 Lite an overall quality rating.

Device power

The battery of Huawei Honor 9 Lite is Li-Po type and is non-removable. Its capacity is 3000 mAh, which is not so much for a phone with a large screen.

If you use a mobile device in dynamic games, the charge will decrease before your eyes - and there is nothing you can do about it. You shouldn’t even count on more than three hours of work in active mode (games, videos).

With normal use (calls, social networks), the battery charge is enough for 7 hours of continuous operation, and in standby mode - up to six days.

If necessary, you can use various economical modes available in the settings.

There is both a regular power-saving mode and a super power-saving mode, which completely disables most functions and allows the phone to receive and make calls for several additional hours.

Fig. 15 Estimated operating time of a discharged battery.

In order to save battery, the user can change the screen resolution from Full HD, which is set by default, to HD. To install it, you need to open the “Screen extension” tab and activate the “HD+” item.

Whatever you say, most users will be quite happy with this option.