It’s not often that we see rugged smartphones advertised as something with sleek and premium looks, as witnessed with devices like the Samsung Galaxy Active and Nokia XR handsets. This is something that Honor wants to change though, especially with the launch of its new X9c. A sequel to last year’s Honor X9b, the X9c combines an attractive design with some much-needed durability which isn’t usually found in a lot of smartphones these days.
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A Durable Design?
As far as first impressions go, the Honor X9c looks like pretty much any other modern smartphone – up front is a curved OLED display which a 1224 x 2700 pixel resolution, and gets rather bright at up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness. For comparison this is twice of what the iPhone 16 Pro is capable of, which maxes out at 2,000 nits. Honor says that along with the rest of the phone’s body, the display is designed to be resistant against most scratches. Speaking of the phone’s body, it’s designed with IP65M dust and water resistance, with the “M” designating 360-degree protection against jets of water.
It’s also apparently drop-resistant, and Honor claims that it’s been tested to withstand drops on concrete from up to two metres in height, or around 6.6 feet. The X9c is also designed to withstand extreme temperatures from -30C up to 55C, which is pretty impressive.
Internal Specs and Cameras
Now as for what’s under the hood, the handset runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset, a midrange processor that’s well below the level of performance that’s usually seen on flagship chips like the Snapdragon 8 series. That’s not to say that it’s terrible though – it’s accompanied by 8GB of RAM and maxes out at 12GB, with several storage options ranging from 256 to 512GB. Powering the phone is a 6,600 mAh battery, which comes with support for 66W wired charging speeds. The phone does come with Honor’s proprietary Magic OS interface, as well as its own apps and software.
As for camera hardware, there’s a main setup on the back with a 108MP sensor, accompanied by a 5MP ultra-wide shooter. Meanwhile, there’s a 16MP front-facing camera which handles selfies and video calls. Video recording maxes out at 4K resolution at 30fps for the main setup, while front video recording is limited to 1080p at 30fps.
Price and Availability
At the moment, the Honor X9c can be purchased in select Asian markets such as Malaysia and Singapore to name a couple, although availability for Europe and the United Kingdom remains to be seen. It starts at around 300 EUR (when converted), and comes in Titanium Purple, Titanium Black, Jade Cyan colour variants. While it doesn’t come with the most impressive performance setup, the main selling point of the X9c is arguably its durability, which we imagine will be quite popular with folks after a phone that can take a reasonable amount of daily wear and tear.
