Every smartphone manufacturer has a target audience and offers features specific to that certain group. For example, Apple caters to those looking for no-nonsense phones while Samsung stuffs its devices with all the features that customers may want to use. Honor, which made a comeback under the name HTech, has launched its second smartphone in India – Honor X9b, and is looking to carve an identity of its own.
The Honor X9b is priced at Rs 25,999 and will be available for purchase in Sunrise Orange (Vegan leather) and Midnight Black colour options. We used the smartphone for some time and here’s our first impressions.
Honor X9b design and display
With Honor X9b, the company seems to be prioritising durability over everything else. For weeks, the company has promoted how tough the phone is. The social media is filled with posts suggesting the Honor X9b is “Sakht Phone”. It is a good-looking phone and seems to have taken inspiration from a bunch of premium offerings in the market with a slimmer and sleeker appearance with a good in-hand feel.
The phone gets a 6.78-inch AMOLED display (2652×1200 pixel) with 120Hz refresh rate which seems to be becoming a new normal for smartphones in this price segment. It is a sharp, bright 3D curved-edge display that looks decent and offers the smartphone a premium look. What’s important about this display is the company’s Ultra-Bounce technology.
HTech says that this technology has shock-absorbing material at the back of the display that absorbs impacts from drops of up to 1.5 metres, making the phone durable. This seems to address one of the pain points of a typical Indian smartphone user who usually fears about getting their display damaged. On the back is a centrally-aligned circular camera module with dual-golden ring design. The company is calling it Matrix AI Vision camera.

Honor X9b hardware and software
Honor X9b is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 SoC, which is manufactured using the 4nm fabrication process. With an efficient chipset, an AMOLED display and a large battery, the phone is expected to offer longer usage time. It comes in a single 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant.
As far as software is concerned, the phone runs MagicOS 7.2 which is based on Android 13. The skin looks pretty much like the ones offered by various Chinese smartphone manufacturers and is loaded with some pre-installed apps.
Honor X9b camera and battery
Honor X9b sports a triple rear camera with an 108MP main sensor (with f/1.75 aperture lens), a 5MP ultrawide shooter (with f/2.2 aperture lens) and a 2MP macro camera (with f/2.4 aperture lens) which seem to be okay given the competition in the segment. It is claimed to offer 3x Lossless Zoom capability. On the front is a 16MP camera for selfies and video calls.
The phone sports a 5,800mAh battery with support for 35W charging. The company is also throwing its durability card here as well, claiming that the battery will be “As Good As New After Three Years’ of Use”.
What we think
Honor X9b opens a new space for smartphone manufacturers to innovate – phone’s durability. Cases and tempered glasses are being used to protect phones but they surely add some thickness to the phone. Honor X9b competes in the already crowded market of affordable smartphones which offer a similar set of features but Honor X9b is adding a durability factor in the mix to woo potential customers.