Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once. Show Expertise Smartphones, Photography, iOS, Android, gaming, outdoor pursuits Credentials
So far, the Honor 9 Lite seems to be plagued by few of the compromises you'd usually get when buying a budget phone. It looks good, it's got plenty of power, and a big screen. It even goes a step beyond with a total of four cameras to capture the moment. That's a whole lot of phone and at only £200, it's unquestionably affordable. There's no official word from Honor yet about if or when the phone will hit the US and Australia, but for reference, that price converts to $280 and AU$353, respectively. The design is probably my favourite thing about the phone. Its deep blue colour is a signature hue of almost all of Honor's phones, but it sets it apart from the typical grey or black phones you'll often find at this price. The back is covered in a sheet of shiny glass, giving it a much more premium aesthetic than you might expect for the low price. Admittedly, that glass is a total fingerprint magnet, and it might make it more susceptible to breaking if dropped, but that may be a worthwhile tradeoff if you want a great-looking handset. Andrew Hoyle/CNET The front is dominated by a 5.6-inch display with extremely slim bezels around the edge. Its 2,160x1,080-pixel resolution makes it pin sharp too. I spent a few days with the Honor 9 Lite, and was able to run CNET's usual battery of performance benchmark tests. In those results, it performed well, beating many similarly priced phones, such as the Nokia 6. As you'd expect, it's not a match for premium phones like the Galaxy S8 or, indeed, Huawei's own Mate 10 Pro. What I don't know yet is how well it performs in everyday life. That's something I'll be able to evaluate after we've given the phone the full review treatment. The phone has dual camera setups on both the back and front. Each side has a main 13-megapixel sensor with an additional sensor designed purely to capture depth information. It helps to give that DSLR-style depth of field to portraits, and by having it on the front too, you can capture selfies with an attractive 'bokeh' blurring around your face. Honor 9 Lite front-facing camera test Andrew Hoyle/CNET The effect worked adequately in our early tests. In this example image, it's clear to see how the phone has blurred the background around me, but the 'cut-out' of my face isn't neat, resulting in parts of my hair being blurred into the background. Overall the shot is at least good enough for a Facebook post. Honor 9 Lite camera test Andrew Hoyle/CNET Shots from the main camera are about what I'd expect from a phone at this price; good enough to for some holiday snaps in bright sunlight, but lack the overall clarity and punchy colours you'd get from a higher-end phone. If top-notch photography is important to you, it's looking like you may want to consider a different phone. I'll give the Honor 9 Lite's cameras a more thorough test when I'm able to review it fully There's no waterproofing of any kind, which is one of the main compromises you'll have to make in opting for a budget handset. Even Honor's pricier View 10 isn't waterproof, and you'll need to splash out many hundreds more to get the waterproof Huawei Mate 10 Pro. The 9 Lite also charges using the rather outdated micro-USB, rather than USB-C. That's perhaps not much of an issue, as it will at least mean it's compatible with the stack of micro-USB cables you've likely got cluttering up your drawers at home. In terms of specs, there's little that competes with the Honor 9 Lite at this price. The Nokia 6 costs around the same but its sluggish performance lets it down, and I personally prefer the glossy blue of the Honor. The Motorola Moto G5 Plus was our budget champion of last year, but its higher price, bulkier design and lack of a neat multicamera setup means the Honor 9 Lite is well placed to usurp the Moto's position. We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test. Battery life
The 3000mAh battery in the Honor 9 Lite lasted around 7 hours on PC Mark battery test. While the PC Mark scores are impressive, the phone in casual usage lasts close to one day but struggles if used for more than basic tasks. Meaning, if you are a heavy user of social media apps, YouTube or games, the phone will require a charge much before the day ends. Sadly, there is no support for fast charging, which is disappointing. Also, Honor should have gone with a USB Type-C port instead of microUSB for data syncing and charging. Since, there's no fast charging supported on the phone, the 10W charger takes around 2 hours 25 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%.  It offers battery saving modes and resolution adjustment to boost the battery life. Those concerned for battery life have an alternate to save some juice when the phone is not in use. If we look at the existing competitors of the Honor 9 Lite, both Redmi Note 4 and Mi A1 perform better in battery department. Camera
As mentioned, the USP of this phone is its quad-camera module. It has two cameras on the back and two on the front, both have a pair of 13MP primary sensor and 2MP sensor to capture depth. The key role of dual cameras on both sides is to capture portrait shots as expected. Looking at how Honor is touting the camera on Honor 9 Lite, it competes directly with the current best-- Mi A1. We compared both the phones side by side, where the Mi A1 won the camera battle without a hitch. The Honor 9 Lite can click some good pictures in daylight, but it was inconsistent. The Honor 9 Lite fails to produce true-to-source colors, and they often look under-saturated. But it still does a good job at reading the scene and adjusting light. In artificial light, the Honor 9 Lite captures vibrant and punchy colors and reads with considerable amount of details. The only issue here is with the white balance, which the Honor 9 Lite often messes up. Portrait shots in day light from the Honor 9 Lite look good, but it misjudges the edges in some photos. Also, when compared to the Mi A1, the burring effect on the Honor 9 Lite looks unnatural. The autofocus speed in normal mode is snappy, while it slows down a little in portrait mode. Like most other budget phones, the Honor 9 Lite cannot be trusted in low-light, especially when the light source is far from the subject. Front camera on this phone is the best among its competitors. The dual camera setup does a good job at producing punchy colours and tones. Selfies look attractive and it also has a bunch of modes to make you look good. The Honor 9 Lite has clean and easy to use software. It offers a bunch of modes and settings that can be accessed simply by swiping left or right from the main screen. This has all the basic functions, enabling easy controls. But 40% of the screen is covered by black borders, which leaves limited space for the viewfinder. You get the camera switching button, flash controls, wide-aperture mode and moving picture mode on top of the screen. Whereas, the gallery shortcut, shutter button and video switch is at the bottom. It also has a Pro mode that lets you tweak settings like ISO, exposure, focus etc. There's a pro video mode, night shot, time-lapse, filters, watermark, light painting, panorama and more. It also has shortcuts for touch to capture, capture smiles and object tracking. Is honor phone camera good?Best HONOR Phones for Photography With the all-new millisecond AI Motion Sensing Capture, HONOR Magic5 Pro can intelligently select the best shot among multiple shots within 1.5 seconds before and after pressing the shutter. The HONOR X8a released in 2023 is a very powerful camera phone. How many megapixels is the Honor 9 camera?The Honor 9 has an 8 MP front-facing camera and its dual rear camera setup consists of a 12 MP RGB lens and a 20-megapixel monochrome lens. What is the camera quality of Huawei Honor 10 Lite?The Honor 10 Lite has a dual camera setup on its rear with a 13-megapixel, f/1.8 camera (flanked by a second 2-megapixel one) which really struggles to offer much in the way of detail or dynamic range. Photos can also occasionally suffer from excessive processing that makes their colors look overly saturated. Does Honor 50 Lite have a good camera?The 1/1.7” 64MP main camera significantly improves resolution and contrast for clear pictures day and night. Capture more elements with the 8MP wide angle camera. Shoot as close as 4cm with the independent macro camera. Bring more convenience to your life. |
