The metal-body Honor 9 features a 5.15-inch 1,080p display and runs on HiSilicon’s top chipset, the Kirin 960.
Image: VMall/Huawei
Huawei has taken the wraps off the Honor 9 smartphone, refreshing last year’s cheap but powerful dual-camera Honor 8 running on Kirin processors.
The Honor 8 was the first of Huawei’s Honor line of smartphones to launch in the US, offering some stiff price competition to more established players.
The Honor 9 brings a few key upgrades to its predecessor, including a larger capacity battery, larger camera sensors, more RAM, and more storage.
The metal-body smartphone features a 5.15-inch 1,080p display and runs on HiSilicon’s top chipset, the Kirin 960, which also powers Huawei’s flagship Mate 9 and P10 smartphones.
It also comes with a huge 6GB RAM with either 64GB or 128GB storage. That’s double the storage and RAM in the Honor 8.
The Honor 9 also gains the Mate 9’s 20-megapixel and 12-megapixel dual cameras on the rear, up from the Honor 8’s 12-megapixel and eight-megapixel setup, and features a slightly larger 3,200mAh battery. The new device also has an eight-megapixel front-facing shooter.
The phone will support Huawei’s recently announced Huawei Pay mobile payments platform.
GSMArena reports the Honor 9 will be available at several Chinese retailers on June 16. The 64GB model costs ¥2,700, which converts to $397/£312, while the 128GB model costs ¥3,000 or $441/£347. The smartphone will be available in grey, blue and gold.
It’s not clear whether Huawei will give the Honor 9 a wider release, although it is holding an event in Berlin on June 27 where it is expected to announce the new handset.
Huawei has grown to become the world’s third-largest seller of smartphones behind Apple and Samsung, according to analyst firm IDC, but it has yet to make significant progress in the US.
More on smartphones
Is your iPhone’s battery draining fast?OnePlus shows why OnePlus 5 won’t be an iPhone copycatAudiophiles, tweakers, models and more: 10 types of people who will love the HTC U11Short of iPhone space? iOS 11 can auto-delete unused apps but keep the dataSamsung’s Galaxy J3, J5, J7 refresh: Battery boost plus more RAM in 2017 phones