HONOR ends 2017 on an affordable note with the HONOR 9 Lite

We are less than two weeks away from the new year, so you’d think that Huawei sub-brand Honor would sit back and relax as far as smartphone announcements are concerned. Alas, you would be mistaken, as the sub-brand unveiled the HONOR 9 Lite during an event in China earlier today, as reported by NDTV.

Starting our tour on the front, you’ll find a 5.65-inch 18:9 IPS display with a 2160 x 1080 resolution. Interestingly, the phone features 13 MP and 2 MP camera combos up front and around back. Given the secondary camera’s low resolution, we assume it will be used to augment the primary camera for portrait images rather than act as a telephoto or wide-angle lens.

Under the hoor, HUAWEI’s in-house octa-core Kirin 659 chipset and either 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM power the HONOR 9 Lite. The phone sports either 32 GB of 64 GB of built-in storage, though the microSD card slot supports up to 256GB of extra storage. Alternatively, you can use the microSD card slot as a second SIM card slot, should you find yourself near international waters.

Tragically, the HONOR 9 Lite opts for Micro USB rather than the newer USB Type-C. We get that the phone is positioned as an affordable option, but with the transition to the USB Type-C standard slowly becoming a thing, devices that still rely on Micro USB stand apart more than ever.

Moving back to the positives, the HONOR 9 Lite runs HUAWEI’s EMUI 8.0, which sits on top of Android 8.0 Oreo. The company’s skin has been criticized for aesthetically moving away from what we’re accustomed to seeing, though HUAWEI has toned things down with recent iterations.

Overall, the HONOR 9 Lite is a curious device, and here’s why.

There are three configurations: a 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage variant for around $182, another with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage for $227, and a third with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage for $273. At those prices, the HONOR 9 Lite somewhat encroaches on the HONOR 7X‘s territory, and that phone comes with a slightly larger display and battery.

That being said, whereas the HONOR 7X uses aluminum on the back, the HONOR 9 Lite uses glass. It’s up to you to determine how much of a difference that makes, but the HONOR 9 Lite will be available in China starting December 26. After that, it will head to 14 other countries, including Russia, India, and the UK.