Honor X9c 5G review – Well, that’s just tough

8.0 Pretty solid

With an R11,000 price tag, you'd expect this phone to be... well, mid-range. And in parts it certainly is. There's a gimmick or two in here but its advertised toughness isn't one of them. It really should be hard to kill. Other features are hit-and-miss but they're easier to overlook than you might think. Overall, though, it's well-priced and well-featured enough that you'd be happy to own one.

• Design 8
• Performance 7
• Battery 9.5
• Camera 7
• Value 8.5
• User Ratings (10 Votes) 4.7

To stand out in the crowded mid-range segment, brands must do things… differently. Honor’s X9c, like its immediate predecessor, has taken the Chuck Norris route to grab your attention. It’s supposed to be rough, tough stuff – better able to shrug off mishandling than the average phone.

In that, the company has succeeded. It didn’t ship a 20mm steel ball bearing with our review unit for nothing. We weren’t supposed to whip it at the phone like Tesla showing off the Cybertruck but it does bounce right off if you conduct an impromptu drop test (terms and conditions apply). But for all that, it’s still a smartphone. There are other qualities the X9c should have to prove its worth.

A slab of marble is remarkably hard to destroy. That doesn’t mean we want to stick one in our pockets. Is this handset more than a shiny lump of stone?

Stone-bold stunner

Actually, if you examine the Honor X9c’s rear — at least in our Jade Cyan review model — you’ll see it looks like a section of veined marble. Assuming nature ever produced such a mineral with the same shade as mint cream chocolate filling, that is. The effect lends some depth to the phone’s back panel, which, despite its looks, is a smoothly textured plastic.

The overall design put us in mind of Samsung’s Galaxy S design refresh that started with the S8 and continued through to the Galaxy S10. It has the same curved edges arcing smoothly down to a solid frame. It might well have rolled out in the same production run. It didn’t, okay, but it does look like it.

The display feels like an altogether tougher affair than the back panel but we suspect the rear is stronger than it looks (just like Chuck). The usual port and button layout occupy the rear and right edges. If not for the unusual shade and roughly four-to-five-centimetre-wide central camera bump, it would be tough to distinguish the Honor X9c from any number of competitors.

The other bits

Internally the Honor X9c is weirdly impressive. If you discount the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset, which plunks this phone down in the midrange playground, the remainder of the hardware wouldn’t look out of place in a flagship. Our review unit included 12GB of physical memory and 256GB of onboard storage, though you won’t be able to expand that if you’re a data hoarder.

The battery is, frankly, a superstar. There’s a non-standard 6,600mAh cell hiding in there somewhere and we’re damned if we can figure out how Honor did it. The handset only measures 8mm thick (not counting the cameras) and it’s light as a feather. The claim of a three-day battery is a tiny bit optimistic if you’re a habitual scroller but it’ll last a good chunk longer than its 5,000mAh brethren. Topups are speedy too, with 66W wired charging facilitated by the accessories in the box.

The 6.78in AMOLED display is also a winner, particularly at this price. It lacks the vivid punch of Samsung’s screens but it’s still crisp and detailed. The 120Hz refresh rate helps there, but it’s not as supported by the processor as we’d like if this was a R25,000 handset. For this price, though? Heck, we can handle the odd hop, skip, or jump.

Can it do this?

Stepping down from a flagship to this phone cuts the price of entry to less than half. Does the same thing happen with performance? Well… yes. You’ll note the odd flutter as apps and games struggle to keep up. Being asked to tone down the graphics settings in True Surf was a new experience for us but we stepped them back up a little from the suggested setting with no issues. That said, the smoothness when swapping between or launching apps is occasionally marred as the Honor X9c’s chipset tries to keep up. It’s not unpleasant and, after a time, stops being noticeable, but when you’re used to really premium devices, it does jump out.

We hucked a few games at the phone, just to see what it would do. There’s not much heat generated when it’s under load but if you opt for something rougher — Genshin Impact or Fortnite — you’ll have to be quite conservative with your visuals. And expectations.

Beyond that? There’s almost nothing we did on a super-premium device that the Honor X9c couldn’t also manage. The odd hitch is more than made up for by Honor’s R11,000 price tag. We’re not saying you can’t crush this phone, performance-wise, but why would you want to?

Just one small problem…

The Honor X9c’s cameras do the job well enough. The company splurged on the main 108MP sensor, which snaps images that are plenty acceptable to most. The 5MP ultrawide is mostly a box-ticker, though we did find its presence handy for the Multi-View video mode that recorded with either the main and front 16MP sensor or the main and ultrawide at the same time. It’s a goofy thing but it makes for interesting stuff to share with your groups.

Image capture is also above board, though there’s a slight delay between pressing the shutter and processing completing than you’d get from a phone twice this expensive. But, again, look at the price. Image quality from all three cameras is high enough for most uses. If you’re populating a social media feed and don’t pay someone to touch up your makeup in between shots, it’ll do the job.

Honor also boasts a few AI-related features for its camera, with other minor functions scattered outside of the sensors’ purview. We found the ability to remove unwanted sections of a photo using AI to be a bit hit-and-miss. It’ll often identify what you want to trim out well enough (provided you have an active internet connection) but its fill function can be unpleasantly creative. Not every edited shot turns out that way but it’s hardly a fire-and-forget solution for poor composition or timing. It verges on being gimmicky but at least it’s a fun one.

Honor X9c 5G verdict

There are other minor niggles, mostly to do with Honor’s Magic OS 8 overlay. There’s a bunch of bloatware and folders that you can’t delete packed with links to more of it (and requirements that you accept the dreaded Terms and Conditions™). Shunt that aside, focus on the hardware, and you’ll find that the Honor X9c outperforms its price point by a decent margin.

Enough so that you’ll be pleased that you put down your hard-earned Rands to slip one in your pocket. With above-average specs, similar performance (thank you, 12GB of RAM), and Honor’s tribute to smartphone toughness, it’s worth looking at this one as your next all-rounder. But just remember, even though Honor says it is very hard to kill, the company also supplies a clear case in the box alongside the 66W fast-charging brick. You’re not supposed to break it. But if something happens…