HONOR X9d - A Lot of Tough for Not Many Bucks

Compromise.

Not everyone has $2000+ to drop on a phone. 

So if you've just dropped yours. Or drowned it. Or cracked it. Or just lost it... What features are you prepared to give up in order to keep the price down?

Bearing in mind, if your new phone isn't dust or waterproof or particularly robust, it might only be a matter of time before you're having to replace it again. So you won't have saved any money at all.

However, if you work or play in demanding environments - building sites, outdoors - or you're just a bit of a klutz, destroying your phone might just be an unfortunate inevitability.

But it doesn't have to be.

The HONOR X9d is built to take a knock. Or two. Or all of them. And it'll cost you less than eight-hundred bucks.

Let's talk what this phone doesn't do shortly but first; its strengths. Which are mostly about its strength.

These days, most flagship phones carry an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. Essentially, that means you can submerge the device in question down to a metre or so for up to half-an-hour.

The X9d can do that too.

Some other devices carry an IP69 rating. This means they can resist high-pressure, high-temperature jets of water. Why you would want to steam-clean your phone is a bit of a mystery, but...

Yes, the X9d can do that too. In fact, throw in IP66 and IP69K too. What the hell?

Okay then. How about the SGS rating that proves triple resistance against drops, water and dust? Has it passed the IEC 62262 impact resistance test?

Apparently. And I haven't even heard of some of those before.

The X9d isn't just built to keep water, dust and extreme temperatures out, it'll definitely take a knock or two. The display is covered by "ultra tough tempered glass" - and also a factory-fitted TPU screen protector which HONOR insists on putting on these devices, even though the aluminosilicate glass underneath is probably more scratch-resistant and much harder to crack.

There are six layers of cushioning built into the handset which has earnt it a 2.5m drop-resistance rating.

Remember, this isn't just HONOR talking. These are highly-regarded, independent tests.

It's indisputably one of the most durable phones I've ever reviewed.

To capitalise on the amphibious abilities of such a device, you'll even find an underwater mode in the camera app, as you'll see me demonstrate in the video below. While in this mode, you can use the physical buttons on the side of the phone to take still pictures or videos - complete with sound.

The camera setup is where we start to see a little of the trade-off in order to bring the price down. The dual array on the rear module consists of a 108MP main shooter and a 5MP wide lens - perfectly respectable and still capable of 10X digital zoom and 4K video. But you're not quite achieving the masterful low-light performance, or consistency of colour and contrast between lenses that you would expect from a much more expensive flagship like the HONOR Magic8 Pro I reviewed earlier in the week.

In saying that, regardless of whether you're using the rear-shooter or the 16MP selfie-cam, you still have access to a mind-bending array of effects, filters and post-shooting AI editing tools. As a quick example I just clicked off a shot from my desk of a badly lit picture on the wall, about 3 metres away from where I'm typing right now. In this first shot, there's a lot of reflection in the glass, essentially obscuring that part of the picture completely.

Using HONOR's on-board AI eraser, I was quickly able to remove almost all the reflection, as if by magic, in a matter of seconds.

So I certainly have no issue with the performance of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 CPU, or the Adreno A810 graphics chip, both supported by a healthy 12GB of RAM.

Just like the Magic8 Pro, the X9d sports both an in-screen fingerprint sensor and face unlock - and just like its flashy cousin, I've found these to be quick and reliable. Meanwhile, this phone costs $1600 less.

In fact, as I go about my day using the X9d as my primary handset, I find myself not really missing that previous flagship at all.

Okay, it doesn't charge wirelessly and there's no eSIM capability - which I'd usually find pretty frustrating. But with its enormous 8300mAh li-ion polymer power cell, the X9d actually outperforms the Magic8 Pro in terms of battery life. I really only need to plug it in to charge every third day or so.

Finally, the X9d looks a lot more premium than its price-tag would suggest. My review device is Sunrise Gold, which features a fetching coral-coloured cloud effect on the matte back panel, brushed gold-coloured side rails and a classy gold ring around a rear camera module that doesn't protrude very far at all.

It's also available in Midnight Black - yawn - or you can go for Reddish Brown, which is gutting for me because that's undoubtedly the option I would have gone for if I was given the choice - because after all, who doesn't want a red phone?

I'm aware there are other phones out there that claim to be extra tough - perfect for the pocket of a tradie on a building site or clamped to the handlebars of a mountain bike in the weekend. Trouble is, most of those look like a brick... and operate just about as smoothly as a brick does too.

The HONOR X9d isn't that.

It looks like an expensive phone. Runs like an expensive phone. Has more battery life than most expensive phones and has been independently tested to be straight out tougher than most other phones. 

If eight-hundred bucks is all you have to spend (or all you WANT to spend) you're not cutting too many corners here to get a phone that'll go the distance.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the HONOR X9d.

HONOR Magic8 Pro - Shaking Up the New Zealand Market

For a very long time, Kiwis looking for a flagship handset really only had a choice of two brands - unless you were prepared to import something else directly from overseas, which your telco may or may not have supported once you got it up and running.

Then, slowly but surely, more and more Android devices from different brands started appearing on New Zealand shelves, giving us access to different cameras, faster charging times and various other features we'd been missing out on while the rest of the smartphone world moved forward.

More recently, you even got a choice with foldable phones and late last year, HONOR finally found its way to our shores with the Magic V5, impressing me with one of the most polished foldable flagships I'd come across to date.

Now HONOR keeps the momentum going with a more conventional flagship form-factor.

The HONOR Magic8 Pro is a very solid piece of kit, straight out of the box. Quite literally. My first impression was one of serious heft - it's quite heavy and the circular rear camera module positively dominates the back of the phone.

But that doesn't worry me because the reason this phone feels heavier than it looks is HONOR has packed so much into it. I'm not exaggerating.

There's a big battery for starters - 7,100mAh - which puts the 4,500-5,000mAh cells more commonly found in other flagship phones to shame. Not only will it absolutely cruise through two full days on a single charge, it's lithium polymer - so it won't heat up when charging. Which is good, because you can charge it at a whopping 100W. Even more amazing, with the right charger, you can juice up wirelessly at 80W! That's significantly faster than most other handsets charge using a cable.

All the controls are on the right-hand side, which means you can keep a decent grip on this thing without accidentally putting yourself on mute. That includes a dedicated AI button, towards the bottom, which doubles as a customisable shortcut button if you double-tap. I've got it set to quick-launch the camera, for example. Meanwhile a single long press brings AI Screen Suggestions to the fore - making it easy to circle-to-search or bookmark an "AI Memory" - kind of a snapshot of whatever you're doing so you can come back to it later.

Between the brute-force of the latest generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform chip, the 12GB of RAM and that beast of a battery, you can imagine how this handset scythes through even the most demanding tasks and 3D graphics manipulation like a hot knife through butter - except, without getting hot.

But it's the camera setup that probably deserves the most attention. Again, here, HONOR has held nothing back. The primary, rear-facing array consists of a 50MP Ultra Night main sensor, a 50MP Ultra Wide and an impressive 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto lens. It's this last component that really sets the Magic8 Pro apart from the rest; night-time and low-light shooting has come a long way on smartphones recently, but it's rare for that to be just as true for more specialised zoom lenses.

HONOR has achieved a massive jump in long-distance night shooting, thanks in no small part to something called CIPA 6.5-stop image stabilisation. Essentially, what this means is each shot is kept stable - even for the longer exposure pics after dark - so you still let the extra light in without any of the blur.

As you'll see me demonstrate in the video below, that also results in some crazy-stable action shots too.

Colour reproduction is also next level, and you even have the option to tweak things further, post shooting. Although, as you can see from my açaí bowl in the sunshine the other morning, no post-production fiddling was required. The Magic8 Pro's AI recognised I was taking a food shot and automatically created a masterpiece; I just had to point and click.

Similarly, the portrait options are also outstanding. I'll let doggo here speak for himself...

Continuing the theme of "all that, and a cherry on top" - HONOR hasn't pulled any punches with the forward-facing selfie-cam either. The 50MP high-res sensor is teamed with a 3D depth-sensing camera which means you can professionally fix focus on your selfie videos and shoot them in 4K at 60fps.

It also means the Magic8 Pro performs perhaps the fastest face-unlock of any phone I've used to date.

Alternatively (or as well as) you can rely on the 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor built into the screen - and I do mean "rely on" - it's been nothing but speedy and consistent every time.

The screen - as you would expect after everything else - is nothing short of sublime. 6.71-inches with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and capable of dazzling HDR brightness; up to 6,000nits.

Yet here HONOR shows masterful restraint, with a host of AI controlled screen adjustments to ensure less exposure to blue light, taking the temperature down in dim conditions, reducing eye fatigue and even relieving motion sickness and preventing screen-induced myopia.

Oh, you get great speakers on this phone too. I mean, who even cares about phone speakers these days? Well, Honor does, apparently. Genuine spatial sound reproduction for a more immersive gaming or streaming experience and the bass response actually isn't terrible - and for a phone, that's saying something.

Seriously, HONOR has poured about every high-end ingredient they can into the Magic8 - even the water and dust-proofing is like nothing I've seen before - not just IP68 and IP69 but now there's something called IP69K, which as far as I can make out, means you can spray it with hot lava out of a fire hose and it'll just shrug it off.

Which is why I'm mystified they still ship the handsets with a factory-fitted screen protector. I scratched the screen protector on the first day I used it. Useless. Meanwhile, the actual screen beneath is protected by HONOR NanoCrystal Shield and has a five-star SGS drop resistance certification. Needless to say, I've now peeled off the so-called protector and the phone has been blemish-free ever since.

People complain about paying more than $2,000 for a flagship phone, but when it's as feature-packed as the Magic8 Pro, I reckon this one's a bargain.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the HONOR Magic8 Pro.