Today Honor officially launches the Honor 9 Lite for western markets. The launch follows that of the Honor 7X and V10 last month which were the company’s first models to sport 18:9 screen aspect ratios. The Honor 9 Lite follows the trend and also introduces itself as a slightly smaller 5.65” diameter variant.

New Honor 9 Lite
  Honor 9 Lite Honor 9
SoC HiSilicon Kirin 659

4x Cortex-A53 @ 2.36GHz
4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.70GHz

ARM Mali-T830MP2
@ 900MHz
HiSilicon Kirin 960

4x Cortex-A73 @ 2.362GHz
4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.844GHz

ARM Mali-G71MP8
@ 1033MHz
Display 5.65-inch 2160x1080 (18:9)
LTPS IPS LCD
5.15-inch 1920x1080 (16:9)
LTPS IPS LCD
Dimensions 151.0 x 71.9 x 7.6 mm
149 grams
147.3 x 70.9 x 7.45 mm
155 g
RAM 3GB LPDDR3 4/6GB LPDDR4X-1833
NAND 32GB 
+ microSD
64/128GB
+ microSD
Battery 3000 mAh (11.55 Wh)
non-replaceable
3200 mAh (12.32 Wh)
non-replaceable
Front Camera Main Sensor: 13MP

Secondary Sensor: 2MP
8MP F/1.8
Rear Camera Main Sensor: 13MP

Secondary Sensor: 2MP

LED flash
RGB Sensor: 12MP, 
f/2.2 - 27mm eq. 

Monochrome Sensor: 20MP 
f/2.2 - 27mm eq.

 LED flash
Modem HiSilicon LTE (Integrated)
2G / 3G / 4G LTE
SIM Size 2x NanoSIM (dual standby) or 1x NanoSIM + microSD
Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, BT 4.2, GPS/Glonass/BDS 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2 LE, NFC, GPS/Glonass/BDS
Connectivity USB 2.0 microUSB
3.5mm headset
USB 2.0 USB-C
3.5mm headset
Sensors capacitive fingerprint, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, ambient light, proximity, Hall effect, barometer
Launch OS Android 8.0 with EMUI 8.0 Android 7.0 with EMUI 5.1
Launch Price EUR 229€ / GBP £199 EUR 450€ / GBP £380

The internals of the Honor 9 Lite shares much with that of the Honor 7X. Both are powered by a 16nm Kirin 659 chipset sporting two clusters of quad-core A53’s running at respectively 2.36 and 1.7GHz. There is a large performance jump between little-core only SoC and ones which employ bigger CPU core microarchitectures so this is still a mid- to low-end device. The phone comes with 3GB of LPDDR3 and the GPU is also a lower-end Mali T830MP2 at 900MHz.

The screen is the most defining characteristic of the Honor 9 Lite as it quickly adapts the trend of “full view” smartphones, meaning it sports a 18:9 screen that has a very high screen-to-body ratio. The screen itself is of a standard FHD+ (2160x1080) resolution which matches that of the 7X and V10 and comes at a 5.65” diagonal. The phone is advertised to still have the handling of a traditional 5.2” phone as the width comes in at 71.9mm, only one millimetre wider than the Honor 9.

Both the front and the back of the phone employ 2.5D glass, with the back glass covered in a special nano-coating to give it a mirror-like effect.

Unique for the Honor 9 Lite is however the introduction of a quad-camera system. The rear sensors employ the 13MP + 2MP configuration that was revealed on the Honor 7X. The secondary 2MP sensor is meant to capture depth information that the imaging pipeline can use for better bokeh effects. This configuration is now also employed on the front face of the Honor 9 Lite which should open up new options in regards to selfie captures.

In terms of connectivity the lower-priced device has to make some concessions as it lacks 802.11ac capability which is present on its non-Lite counterpart. Beyond the Chinese variants of the phone today’s announced European model offers all the required European LTE frequency bands for optimal operation in that market. Like the Honor 7X, the 9 Lite comes with a microUSB port.

The Honor 9 Lite becomes available from Amazon and various UK retailers starting today, at the affordable prices of EUR 229€ or GBP £199.

Gallery: Honor 9 Lite

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  • BedfordTim - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    They lost me at glass back.
  • Alistair - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Buy a one year old flagship instead. They lost me at the A53 as usual. Buy anything with an A72 or A73 (even 2 cores) instead. Even an old model.
  • arvindgr - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Every aspect of the phone is nice and fine, except micro USB. Even WiFi ac is forgivable for its budget. I'm for sure not buying Non-USB-C that launches in 2018!!
  • Ian Cutress - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    So the argument here (from honor) is that for this price segment, the crowd are still heavily invested in microUSB cables and chargers and so forth. At this price segment, dropping $5 on additional A-to-C cables is a substantial cost, and so the market pressures push them to microUSB.

    I did then iterate that quote about 'if you ask the customer, all they want is faster horses', and that honor actually needs to push if they want to see Type-C adoption in this space. Alas, none of the product design team were at hand.
  • BuckMcDuck - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Agreed. I was really interested in 7x and now this. But micro usb... gah, I can't tell you how many bad micro usb cables I have. The connector just doesn't last.
  • Excelsior - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link

    Yes! I can't stand Micro usb anymore. No matter the quality of the cable, they inevitably break or wear out, including the port on the phone sometimes. At some point the phone manufacturers need to stop worrying about removing the 3.5mm jack and switch everything to Type-C.
  • notashill - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    When did Huawei drop their name from the Honor phones?
  • Ariknowsbest - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    At least on my last year's model it says powered by Huawei on the back next to the CE logo. Its like Toyota and Lexus
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