Honor 9X Pro review

Wrap-up

No matter how powerful and beautiful the 9X Pro is, the user experience is seriously handicapped by the limited app catalog and that's something mainstream users won't easily accept. When you take away the Play Store and the streaming capabilities, the Honor 9X Pro quickly shapes as a no-deal on the markets which are used to having them.

Then again, its price of €250 is very tempting and may redeem it a bit. Kirin 810 turned out to be one of the best performers in its class, the large screen is free of any punch holes or notches, and the camera has very good all-round quality. Oh, and it's got outstanding battery life, of course.

The competition

Until then, you might consider the Redmi K30 as a worthwhile alternative. It also costs about €250 and is an excellent match for the Honor 9X Pro. It has a large screen with 120Hz refresh rate, but the pill-shaped hole is quite the eyesore. Then again, the Snapdragon 730G is the fastest mid-range chip by Qualcomm and the Redmi K30's quad-camera is better in quality and versatility. And, of course, MIUI 10 has Google's blessing.

The Redmi Note 8 Pro is also priced closely to the Honor 9X Pro, and while it can't offer as powerful performance, it still does a great job at everything else. Oh, and it has all the Google stuff within the latest MIUI 11.

The recently announced Realme 6 Pro has received nothing but positive reception so far. It has a 6.6" IPS LCD screen with 90Hz refresh, but there is a pill-shaped notch though. The phone runs on the new Snapdragon 720G chip, offers better camera by adding a zoom snapper and a macro shooter, there is also an additional ultrawide selfie cam, plus a larger battery, and of course Realme UI with Google's DNA. And the Realme 6 Pro maybe cheaper than the Honor 9X Pro at some markets, making it a tough one to beat for sure.

Finally, the regular Honor 9X differs from the Pro by two things - it utilizes the older Kirin 710 chip and has all Google services as part of its EMUI 9.1. It is naturally cheaper, so if both Honor and Google are important, maybe you should give this one a try.

Xiaomi Redmi K30 • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro • Realme 6 Pro • Honor 9X

The Verdict

Huawei's AppGallery is expanding, sure, but the tempo is far from rapid and it will take some time before it even begins to feel like a proper app store. But, if you are fine with sideloading stores and apps, the Honor 9X Pro will work for you just fine.

We did like the Honor 9X Pro a lot once we removed ourselves from the "It's a Google's world" mindset. There is life after Google even if Huawei is yet to really prove that. And Amazon and the likes do help. We only hope for the video streaming issues to be resolved and this phone might actually be quite usable.

Then again, if you consider Google's apps and the Play Store a must-have, then the Honor 9X Pro will not cut it, no matter what we or Honor has to say.

Pros

• Beautiful glass body
• Immersive, notch-free, IPS LCD screen with excellent contrast
• Great battery life
• Class-leading performance
• Very good photo quality all-round

Cons

• Sluggish charging
• Older Android version stripped of Google Services
• Netflix and similar streaming platforms are no-go
• No 4K videos, so-so 1080p quality
• Subpar speaker loudness