But demosaicing is something a lot of phones can do and probably that's why Honor is trying to one-up those with the 48MP AI Ultra Clarity option, which improves the photo quality through supersampling. It takes six seconds to snap a single photo and you must keep the phone steady, but it will be worth it. The 48MP AIUC samples have much more detail than the regular 48MP images and if you downscale these to 12MP - those are superior in detail to the regular 12MP shots, especially in high intricacy areas such as foliage. Samples coming up in a bit! Battery life, by the way, is a slight improvement on the Honor 9X but not massively so. In our test, it lasted 13hrs 26mins before giving up. Unsurprisingly, the 5,000mAh cell on the Moto G8 Power lasts quite a bit longer: nine hours longer, to be precise. Honor 9X Pro review: Camera Various connectivity options on the Honor 9X Pro include WiFi - Yes Wi-Fi 802.11, ac/b/g/n/n 5GHz, Mobile Hotspot, Bluetooth - Yes v5.0, and 4G (supports Indian bands), 3G, 2G. Sensors on the Honor 9X Pro include Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, Compass, Gyroscope.

The regular Honor 9X is pretty much indistinguishable from the Motorola and Xiaomi handsets, but the Honor 9X Pro pulls clear on Geekbench in both single-and multi-core testing. Impressive. The default 12MP photos from the main camera are sharp and detailed. We observed accurate (if a bit subdued) colors and the dynamic range was always great and we never used HDR. Areas of high complexity such as foliage and building blinds are not as nicely presented and what appears to be overly aggressive noise-reduction process smears some fine detail. There are noticeable oil-painting-like areas here and there. Sadly, the 9X isn't suited for low-light photography. Taking it and the Pixel 3a out to Kings Cross one evening, the Honor is neither effective at dealing with bright light sources, nor at revealing detail hidden in the darkness. A big contributor to this is that you can only use night mode at an 8MP resolution, unlike the Pixel 3a which lets you use its maximum 12.2MP in its Night Sight mode.

HONOR 9X Pro review: The big picture

These narrow boats show up fairly well, making what was a scene lit only by distant lights on the other side of the canal look like a grim afternoon. However, the Pixel 3a conjures up something that looks like it was taken during a bright day. If you were looking for something that still looked like it was taken at night, maybe the Honor is more to your taste, but I really like how the Google phone was able to show me colors and detail I never would have been able to with my own eyes. This, to put it mildly, is unfortunate. Because if this stylish smartphone had all the trappings you’d expect software wise, it would surely get our seal of approval. As it is though, it’s impossible to recommend. Honor 9X Pro review: What you need to know I took the 9X and the Google Pixel 3a out for daytime and nighttime photo comparisons. Although the Pixel 3a isn’t the same size as the Pixel 3a XL, the more relevant competitor to the 9X, the camera software and hardware is identical, so the comparison remains fair. The low-light photos are satisfying with good color saturation, balanced exposure, and gentle noise reduction. There is enough detail, though we've seen Huawei and Honor phones do a bit better. It’s not the brightest we’ve seen, only reaching 370.8cd/m2 in our test. That’s not a disaster in the greater scheme of things, but it does mean you may struggle on a particularly bright day. Still, for the price, this is a very fine display indeed. Honor 9X Pro review: Performance

Finally, the electronic stabilization is always-on and does a very good job. We would appreciate an option to turn it off though.

HONOR 9X Pro specs

The Honor 9X Pro is powered by the 2.27GHz octa-core Kirin 810 processor, which is interesting because it’s not one we’ve tested before. That’s not as weird as it sounds. Kirin is also owned by Huawei, so the chips typically only appear in the company’s own handsets, be they Huawei- or Honor-branded. BTW, I can use all apps perfectly now and of course, I find no differences between using the Google store on the HONOR 9X Pro and other phones. It’s better indoors, too. Though all phone cameras struggle with low-light conditions to some degree, budget and mid-range handsets suffer the most. Still, once again, the Honor 9X Pro has the upper hand: images are considerably less noisy, less blurry and have more detail.

Trying out Asphalt 9: Legends was not as bad as you may think. Sure, there’s a graphical downgrade that makes all the car models look a bit jagged around the edges, but the game still runs smooth and responds to the touch controls without delay. The 9X managed to stay pretty cool during my play session, too, despite the heavy processing that would have been going on. Yes, if you can find an APK file for the app you want to install you can potentially sideload it – as indeed we had to with our regular benchmarking tests above – but this is risky and a real pain. It seems unlikely anyone would knowingly buy a phone without the Google Play Store in 2020, unless it happens to have Apple branding. Just next to the fingerprint sensor is the tri-lens camera array. It’s housed in a bump, but it’s a small bump compared to similar mounts on other phones, and wasn’t as inconvenient as a result. There are obvious weaknesses with the Honor 9X, including a camera that falls flat in low light and just so-so performance.. However, the large notchless display, good battery life and solid camera performance (in normal lighting conditions) make this one of the better Android values we’ve tested.For an affordable smartphone, the Honor 9X has a big screen. It’s a 6.6-inch display, which is a little on the large side for a smartphone, so unless you have rather big hands it may be hard for you to properly use the device.