The Toughest Phone in the Philippines Is Here! It’s Called the Honor X9b!

We… we want to test that claim someday.

The X9a, touted by the company as a “phone with a toughened screen”, has surprisingly, a successor. Well, the phone sold well and is received well too by known creators so it just makes sense to make a sequel. The Honor X9b continues the tradition of being the toughest phone Honor can make.

According to Honor, the X9b has a “three-level protection” consisting of a new cushioning material with micro-sized pores that can absorb up to 1.2 times the impact when dropped. Honor calls this as “Ultra-Bounce Anti-Drop Display”. The company is not fooling around when they said tough. There was a community event just two days before the debut where the phone’s display was tortured, such as being a literal punching bag, getting ran over by a Hummer, and using it to smash tiles. A blind test was also made and Honor asked passersby to smash the phone with a ceramic tile. The tile got halved while the phone remained intact.

Onto the spec sheet, it does improve on the Honor X9a in many ways, such as using a 1.5K OLED screen instead of FullHD+, 2160Hz PWM Dimming, and a more powerful and efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset based on a Samsung 4nm process. The predecessor used the Snapdragon 695 which, granted, is pretty popular among many manufacturers, but the SD6G1 features a smaller process node that, theoretically, helps it become more efficient.

The primary camera was also improved. The X9b uses a 108MP primary sensor versus 64MP on the previous phone. The battery is slightly larger here too (at the cost of 5W charging rate), at 5800mAh. Of course, it charges via a USB-C port (version 2.0) and headphone jack? We haven’t heard of that one since 2017!

Aside from the display, camera, and chipset improvements, the new X9b comes with a new Sunset Orange colour too made with synthetic leather. The orange heavily reminds us of the Huawei Mate 40 which makes sense because, although Honor is now independent from Huawei, they still have their DNA as they originated from them. The design is also heavily reminiscent to it.

The Honor X9b comes in a surprisingly good price range too. It has 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM to boot and only costs you PHP 16,999. Plus, if you prefer to go on a telco plan, it is available via Globe Plan 1299 with a minimum cash out of PHP 3,300. When you pre-order, you get a FREE pair of Honor Choice Earbuds X5 and a gift box. If you ever land yourself this gift box, let us know what’s inside. We’re curious.

Also yes, the phone is available via Home Credit with 0% interest. It costs similarly at PHP 16,990 and you also get the same freebies mentioned above that is worth PHP 4,000. Hurry! The offer is only available until January 19.

Sunset Orange not your type? Midnight Black and Emerald Green are also options.

Also, if you do have the phone and are still skeptical of its toughness, you can try to test that yourself. Note that “toughest” does not mean “unbreakable” or “indestructible”. It will still be destroyed with enough pressure and force.

SPECS:

• 6.78″ 1.5K (2652x1200px) AMOLED, 120Hz refresh rate, 2160Hz PWM Dimming
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 (4nm)
• CAMERAS:
  • 108MP (Primary), f/1.75
    • 4K Video Recording
  • 5MP (Ultrawide), f/2.2
  • 2MP (Macro), f/2.4
  • FRONT: 16MP, f/2.0
• MagicOS 7.2 based on Android 13
• 5800mAh, 35W fast charging
• USB-C, in-display fingerprint sensor
• 5G services, 4G LTE, Dual Nano-SIM Slot, Dual-band Wi-Fi
• Sunset Orange (Leather), Midnight Black, Emerald Green
• PRICE:
  • 12/256: PHP 16,999