A sad turn of events for a promising smartphone

As you may or may not know, HONOR is a sub brand under the mighty Huawei umbrella. The brand has made it’s name in the online domain for it’s budget smartphones, offering users a mix of flagship quality and affordability. Naturally, the brand bums off Huawei’s flagship technology whilst also being used every now and then as guinea pig of sorts for features Huawei wants to test out.

It’s safe to say that much of HONOR’s success has come from being affiliated with Huawei and as you would expect with whats been going on lately, the problems plaguing Huawei are now spilling over to HONOR. The sub brand had big plans for their 9X device in Malaysia and understandably so, it’s predecessor sold like hotcakes here. Of course, this was back when the company’s outlook for 2019 was all sunshine and rainbows.

It is now October 2019 and one might argue that the Google ban affects HONOR in worse ways than it does Huawei. In order to get around the Google ban, the company has resorted to taking an old Huawei device, the Y9 Prime, and repackaging it to be sold as the HONOR 9X for countries outside of China.

While it’s definitely a ‘creative’ way to circumvent the ban (the company has had certification for this device long before the ban), you cant help but to feel that it’s rather deceptive; repackaging an old product and passing it off as brand new. It kind of sounds like something sketchy sellers on Lazada would do.

Of course, there are updates to the device, albeit slight ones. Instead of the 16MP main sensor for the camera, the repackaged device comes with a 48MP shooter and of course, aesthetic updates to make the device look different.

However, the chipset remains unchanged, so users will be getting the older Kirin 710F processor instead of the Kirin 810 it was originally supposed to come with. On top of that, the device will also sport a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner instead of a side-mounted power button scanner, which is honestly not only ugly, but also plain sad.

It’s an unfortunate turn for the once promising 9X. Does it deserve this fate? Not at all, but HONOR’s got to do what it can to survive, right? With their View 20 model being a big flop in Malaysia, We highly doubt the company will even release the View 30 here, so how well the 9X sells is going to be pivotal for HONOR.

It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of HONOR if Trump’s ban persists. The company recently launched it’s HONOR Vision TV, complete with Huawei’s much heralded (and maligned, depending on who you ask) Harmony OS. Could this be a hint at what the future holds for HONOR? We’ll have to see.

For now, we cannot in good faith recommend anyone buying the HONOR 9X device. You’re honestly better off with a Xiaomi or something.