The Honor 9 Lite features an 18:9 5.65inch screen, dual cameras on the rear, plus dual cameras on the front! The stylish smartphone comes with 3GB Ram and 32GB storage, and is available for the wallet-friendly £169, making it particularly impressive value for money. Honor are the budget arm of Huawei, giving great value for money, and high-end features, with the Honor 9 performing well in our review.
Honor 9 Lite Features
The Honor 9 Lite features dual cameras on the back, with one 13mp camera, and one 2mp camera. There is a single LED flash on the back, and no LED flash for the front selfie camera (however, there is an option to use the screen as a flash).
Dual cameras – The main camera on the back of the smartphone is a 13mp f/2.2 camera, with a 26mm equivalent lens. The second camera is a 2mp camera, to help with bokeh and background blur. The main camera features Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) for quicker focus.
The portrait mode is designed to blur the background, and you can apply "Beauty effect" if you want it to. You can shoot using the wide aperture mode, designed to blur the background of your photo, with more control, and you can adjust the (software) aperture from f/0.95 to f/16.
The front also features dual cameras, with a 13mp + 2mp selfie cameras which let you use beauty mode, plus enable and disable background blur. The camera app has gesture control, which means you can take photos by waving at the front camera. There's also smile capture.
The Honor 9 Lite will record FullHD video at 30fps, and there's an option to record slow-motion video (this records VGA video at 120fps).
The front of the phone features a large 5.65inch 18:9 aspect screen, with a FullHD+ resolution of 2160x1080. The phone has a metal frame, and a glass back with a rear fingerprint sensor so that you can quickly unlock the phone.
Available in sapphire blue or glacier grey with a mirror-like effect on the back of the phone. Other colours are available but do not feature the same mirror finish. As with most other smartphones with glossy glass backs, the Honor 9 Lite is a fingerprint magnet, and you may want to spend time cleaning the phone if fingerprints upset you, or keep it in a case.
The phone comes with either 3GB / 32GB or 4GB RAM and 64GB Storage, which should be plenty. There's a MicroSD slot if you want to add more, or you can use two Nano SIMs. The phone is running Android v8.0, and EMUI 8.0 (Honor's user interface that runs on top of Android).
Key Features
- Dual rear cameras: 13mp f/2.2 (26mm), and 2mp
- Phase Detection AF (PDAF), LED flash
- Dual front cameras: 13mp f/2.0 (28mm), and 2mp
- 5.65inch 18:9 FullHD+ screen
- HDR shooting
- 3GB/32GB or 4GB/64GB, MicroSD slot
- FullHD video
- ISO50-ISO1600 (Manually selectable)
- Fingerprint sensor
- Metal frame, with glass back
- 3000mAh battery
- Available in grey, blue, and other colours
Honor 9 Lite Handling
The screen is large and clear. You can split the screen into two apps. It's bright, and viewing it outdoors in bright light was quite good, although it wasn't as bright as some other smartphones we had to hand.
The fingerprint sensor is in a good place on the back of the phone and is easy to find with your finger. The camera lenses are in the far corner, away from the fingerprint sensor, so it is easy to avoid smudging the lenses with your finger. However, as the protruding camera lenses are the only edge on the back of the smartphone, it’s quite likely you’ll end up using them as a grip at some point. A quick wipe of the lenses with a soft cloth is all you need to keep them clean.
On the side is the usual unlock / power buttons, and volume controls. The phone is solidly built and feels strong thanks to the metal sides. The phone is thin at 7.6mm thick.
The camera app has a number of different shooting modes including Photo, Pro Photo, Video, Pro Video, HDR, Panorama, Light painting, Time-lapse, Filter, and Watermark.
You can download additional features including Good food, watermark, document scan. Pro mode lets you adjust ISO, Metering, Shutter speed, Exposure compensation, Focus, White Balance, and there's a built-in guide to explain the options and settings.
At the bottom of the phone there is a headphone socket, and a MicroUSB connection, this seems slightly dated considering most Android smartphones have now switched to USB-C connections. You'll also find a speaker at the bottom.
Geekbench 4 gives the smartphone a score of 940 single core and 3620 multi-core. AnTuTu benchmark gives a score of 88684, which is better than the Honor 7X (at 74597), making it slightly quicker than the more expensive Moto X4.
Battery Life – Battery management appeared to be quite good, and the 3000mAh rating is better than some budget smartphones. As the battery can’t be removed, you’ll need to take a USB charger if you think you're going to run out of power
Honor 9 Lite Performance
The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.
Huawei Honor 9 Lite Sample Photos
Sample Photos - Colours are bright, and there is a good level of saturation and contrast. Some noise is visible when viewing images at 100%. The lack of optical image stabilisation can make it more difficult to get sharp shots in low-light, and there are cameras with brighter apertures available. It appears as though the standard mode is optimised to give images with a good level of dynamic range.
The rear camera gives you aperture control and you can also shoot in portrait mode (with or without bokeh, and with or without beauty effects), these work reasonably well, although can look unnatural, and you can have other odd image artefacts appear in images. The front selfie camera(s) give you a portrait mode where you can switch bokeh on or off, as well as beauty effects. The beauty mode is said to be able to recognise the gender of the person in front of the camera, and then customise the effects. However, you don't get the same aperture control as the rear camera. "Selfies" taken with the front-facing camera can end up blurry if you are too close to the camera, as it features a fixed focus lens.
Digital Filters - There are 8 filters available, and a number of (face) effects, in the default camera app at the time of taking the photo, and you can also apply effects to images after you've taken them, or use any other app to take photos.
Huawei Honor 9 Lite ISO test images
ISO Noise Performance - Noise is well controlled up to ISO400 and detail starts to drop off at ISO800 with lower colour saturation. Noise becomes quite high at ISO1600, and this is best avoided. Using the lowest ISO settings is recommended where possible, and noise reduction seems a bit strong at all ISO speeds, reducing detail, and producing images that look a bit like a water painting when viewed at 100%. ISO50 to ISO1600 is manually selectable in Pro mode. Higher ISO speeds are available when shooting in auto modes, with the camera automatically selecting a higher speed when needed. Vignetting becomes apparent at ISO400/800 and above.
Huawei Honor 9 Lite White-balance test images
White Balance Performance - Auto White Balance (AWB) performs well under tungsten lighting with a good result. When using the tungsten preset, there is a very minimal difference. AWB performs well under fluorescent lighting, and the preset isn't needed here. Results under mixed lighting are very good. Detail is reasonable but suffers under lower light conditions.
Video - The camera records FullHD video at 30fps with stereo sound, compression is high, and video quality suffers as a result. You can use the LED light on the back during video recording. As there is no optical image stabilisation, it's difficult to get steady video while recording handheld.
Value For Money
The Honor 9 Lite offers excellent value for money, being available for £169, which makes it pretty incredible value for money. Other budget, entry to mid-level smartphones to look at include the following:
Honor 7X, 16mp+2mp (rear), 5.93inch 18:9 screen, £210 sim-free
HTC U Play, 16mp with OIS, 5.2inch screen, around £200 sim-free
Moto G5S Plus, Dual 13mp cameras, 5.5inch screen, £229 sim-free
Honor 9, 12mp colour, 20mp black and white, 5.15inch screen, £259 sim-free
LG G6, Dual 13mp rear cameras, 5.7inch 18:9 screen, £349 sim-free
Have a look at more smartphones in Best Budget Smartphones for Photography. You might want to buy a memory card and a case or bag to keep your camera safe and protected - have a look at our complete guide to camera bags.
Honor 9 Lite Verdict
The smartphone looks great, with a stylish design, good colours, and a large 18:9 screen. It also offers a good amount of storage considering the price. However, the camera(s) on the smartphone is a little disappointing. Video quality is quite low, and the lack of image stabilisation is particularly noticeable. The budget price is hard to argue with though, and for general use, the smartphone offers an appealing option.
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