The Honor 8 Pro and Honor 9 are awesome smartphones recently launched by Huawei. The latter is a lot less expensive than the former. Presented below is a comparison between the two devices.
- Screen and Build
The Honor Pro is a much bigger device as compared to the Honor 9. It comes with a big 5.7 inch display, while the Honor 9 sports a 5.15 inch screen and dimensions of 147.3 x 70.9 x 7.45 mm. The back of Honor 9 is a 15 layer design with a 3 dimensional curve that gives it extra depth.
The Honor 8 Pro also offers a better sharper viewing experience than the Honor 9. The display has a 2560 x 1440 pixels Quad HD resolution which is better than the full HD 1920 x 1080 display of Honor 9. Both smartphones have an IPS LCD panel with 16 million colors output capacity. The display panel on Honor 9 has 2.5D glass. The phones also feature an Eye Comfort mode which filters blue light and provides a really comfortable viewing experience at night time.
Single hand use is comparatively easier on the Honor 9 than the pro. But certain features that come with the Emotion interface, like shrinking of apps and desktops to the bottom of display via an easy gesture, allow for easy one-hand use of even the bigger phone. The Honor 9 has a glossy finish, while the back of the Honor 8 Pro has a brushed look. The latter is better as glossy body is prone to scuffs and fingerprint marks. Both smartphones do not have water-resistant feature.
- Performance specifications and Battery
Both the Honor 9 and Honor 8 Pro deliver similar performance levels. Both of them come with 4 GB of RAM and a Kirin 960 processor chipset that clocks at 2.4 GHz.
The Honor 9 comes with a minimum of 64 GB internal storage which can be expanded via a microSD card. The Honor 8 Pro comes in 64 GB and 128 GB variants along with support for external microSD card storage. People who like to take all their media collection with them, instead of streaming from different sites and apps, will find both the devices to be ideal.
The Honor 9 comes with a 3200mAh battery, which may last for a day with regular use. The Honor 8 Pro comes with a huge 4000mAh battery which can last for up to two days with normal use. The resource management and other clever features of Huawei UI ensure good battery life. Both devices have fast charging option.
The bigger battery and bigger screen means that the Pro at 185 grams is relatively heavier than the Honor 9 which weighs about 155 grams.
- OS and features
Both the phones feature Android Nougat OS with the own interface of Huawei, i.e., Emotion UI 5.1. The UI offers increased expansion of functionality such as useful shortcuts and efficient resource management.
Both the Honor 9 and Honor 8 Pro have fingerprint sensors that allows for effortless and quick unlocking of desktops. It is present on the back on the Honor 8 Pro, while a ceramic fingerprint scanner is placed in the front beneath the screen on the Honor 9. Thus, users can opt for gesture control function instead of the recent apps and back buttons. Long-press of the sensor leads to home screen access, a right or left swipe across it launches the recent apps menu, and a quick tap on it works as ‘back’ command. Users can quickly get adjusted to this new way of doing things, but it may not necessarily be a better option that the normal touch buttons.
- Camera
The Honor 8 Pro comes with a 12 megapixel dual lens camera at the back, with laser autofocus/phase detection and an f/2.2 aperture. Under good light conditions, the camera captures detailed and gorgeous photos with realistic reproduction of colors. It is however not that great in low light conditions. Also, the camera does not have Optical Image Stabilization. Hence, some judder may be experienced when shooting video whilst moving around. The Digital Image Stabilization feature does offer a fair reproduction of footage and users can shoot videos of resolution up to 4K. The Honor 8 Pro also sports an 8 megapixel camera at the front which can be used for taking selfies as well as shooting videos in full HD mode.
The Honor 9 sports a Leica-like dual lens primary camera at the back, with 12 megapixels color and 20 megapixels monochrome along with f/2.2 aperture. Photos under good light are stunning, but they may be grained and experience motion blur under conditions of low light. It can also shoot 4K resolution videos. The secondary camera is 8 megapixels with a widened aperture that offers enhanced functionality in low light.
