Play Huawei... for now: Firm aims Googletastic Honor 9X at young 'uns

This morning, at a launch event in Amsterdam, Honor formally unveiled its latest handset: the 9X. Typically, the release of a mid-range handset from an explicitly youth-focused brand wouldn't elicit much attention from these pages, but this is different. As you undoubtedly know, earlier this year the Trump administration …

[Timmy B]

Nope.....

Tried one Honor phone - the 6X - and it was terrible. No firmware updates and when it decided to die the service department was terrible and ended up lying to me about water damage. They may be cheap but they are still terrible value.

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

Re: Nope.....

Tried one Honor phone - the 6X - and it was terrible. No firmware updates and when it decided to die the service department was terrible and ended up lying to me about water damage. They may be cheap but they are still terrible value.

I've been using an Honor 9 for about 18 months and I have to say I've been nothing but impressed. The updates to Android have been timely and quickly done. It's now happily running android 9 and EMUI 9.1. EMUI isn't too bad and once you've removed the irritating hi-search, it's no better or worse than any other phone manufacturers skin. Plus all the bundled bloatware can be uninstalled quite easily, unlike most. And even now, I can still just about make it last two days on a single charge.

My wife got a Galaxy S8 around the same time and while that is noticeably slowing down, crashing and becoming more frustrating, the Honor is working just as well as it always has. I would absolutely love to get the 9X, but the only thing which stops me is that my 9 is still working brilliantly and doesn't need replacing.

I can't comment on their customer service though, I've never had cause to contact them.

[LeahroyNake]

Re: Nope.....

Similar here but I have the 9 Lite. Latest security updates 1st September 2019. My work Galaxy s6 is only patched to April 2018 :/

[Evil_Goblin]

Re: Nope.....

In exactly the same boat with my Honor 9 here, great phone

[Chromanin]

Re: Nope.....

Same here. Honor 9, happy with hardware, software acceptable. Only gripe is that regular software updates stopped in July, and no one has been able to provide me with a clear understanding on what is going to happen now. Unfortunately, this makes Honor unsuitable for the future. Shame.

[lybad]

Re: Nope.....

I just got rid of my 9 - not because of any real issues with it, more the concern over Trump blocking further OS updates (even security).

So I went off and got a Mi 8 when it was on offer. It's also a decent phone for the money, but not quite as solid as my 9 was.

[tiggity]

Don't underestimate mobile gaming

One area that is popular on mobiles is GPS based gaming (genre that is only viable on a mobile device)

e.g. Pokemon Go, Harry Potter, Wizards Unite Jurassic World Alive, Ingress etc. (Have a look - there are masses of them). Lots of these also can use AR, which is processor intensive.

These things all have frequently updated graphics & GPS hammers battery big time, so optimisation for these sorts of games, if it actually works, would get some interest amongst mobile gamers.

Most gamers have external powerpacks (non vacuum related Anker mention) but preference is always to have good battery life and so avoid having a flapping lead connecting phone to powerpack

[LeahroyNake]

I think I need glasses.

No idea why I read the following sentence the way I did but......

Thanks to a miracle of timing, it is able to ship the device with the usual shite of Google apps.

[Aussie Doc]

Re: I think I need glasses.

And there's me thinking a Freudian Slip was worn under a see-through blouse

[Anomalous Cowturd]

Unfortunately for Honor/Huawei...

...my 2015 vintage Honor 7 is still running fine after four years.

Updates stopped after a couple of years, but I rarely install new software on it, and surfing is done through Opera Mini.

The battery still just about lasts a day, and I have a Huawei original to replace it when it dies. (Cost a tenner.)

Apart from a better camera, why would I upgrade?

[MiguelC]

Re: Unfortunately for Honor/Huawei...

My daughter's now using my Honor7, and she seems pretty happy with it. My wife's using a Honor10 lite and likes it a lot. Guess I'm the black sheep now, having switched to a Samsung :)

Regarding flashy backs, I only saw the back of any phone while putting it in a protective case. Most people seem to do the same, I wonder why they insist in using backs as a distinctive mark

[caffeine addict]

Re: Unfortunately for Honor/Huawei...

Considering how anyone sane puts a case on their phone, I wonder why they insist on making backs fragile, and thinking we'd rather have 2mm shaved off the depth rather than having a more usable battery.

My Nokia8 is an insanely svelte feeling 7mm thick. Which goes up to 17mm when it goes into a top-grain leather case. An extra 3mm would fit in a lot more mAhs.

But I guess that's a rant for a different article...

[_LC_]

Castrated

This is one of those models, which - according to GSMarena - has been (artificially) castrated. It has an 48 MP camera, but can't record in 4k. What a bummer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Castrated

Recording in 4K is about more than just resolution. Sensor speed, hardware HEVC encoder, and high bandwidth to storage are also factors/requirements.

[_LC_]

Re: Castrated

It is. However, this "shortcoming" is due to a forced differentiation of products (high-end vs. mid-range). You can easily verify this by comparing it to MediaTek SoCs. Most of them are much slower, in every aspect (RAM, flash, etc.), but still support 4k.

[Anonymous Coward]

Honor 9X: cheap, solid phones

50 quid is cheap, 230 squid is not. But then, whatever, it's just another phone...

[dajames]

Re: Honor 9X: cheap, solid phones

50 quid is cheap, 230 squid is not.

More "inexpensive" than "cheap" ... but they'll be below £200 in a few months when a newer shiny thing comes along, and that's almost "cheap" for a decent smartphone.

I'd be worried about updates, though. Will the Donald's anti-Huawei tantrum prevent them (or Honor) releasing Android (as opposed to HarmonyOS) updates for the 9X, or will the device allowed to run newer and newer Android versions because it was originally released with one?

[macjules]

How many Huaweis are there to say goodbye?

Is there by chance an El Reg index of ways that you can get "Huawei" into a sentence? I think we should be told. "Huawei to Hell" remains my favourite so far.

[lybad]

Re: How many Huaweis are there to say goodbye?

I always liked to think of it as from the north east - that's the north east of the UK, being somewhere round Newcastle, rather than the proper north east which is round about Aberdeenshire.

The why-aye phone company.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another fan here

I have an Honor View 10, and it's the first phone I've owned that makes me happy to own it; the performance and battery life are excellent.

I may well look at getting this and giving my current phone to my daughter.