While most rugged Android phones usually come with designs that reflect their intended use as durable smartphones, Honor’s new X9c Smart comes with a lot of the essentials that keep it safe from most knocks and bumps, but it also features a design that’s not clad in plastic and rubber, and doesn’t necessarily scream “utilitarian”. In fact, you might not even realize that it’s meant to be used mostly caseless, at least at first glance. The phone was initially spotted on Honor’s Malaysian website, although we’re hoping it will be released for more regions soon.
So what else does it come with? Well, let’s take a quick look at what Honor is offering with the X9c Smart.
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Touted by Honor as being resistance to drops, water and scratches, the Honor X9c Smart looks an awful lot like most modern phones from Honor – this includes the large circular camera bump on the rear panel, the clean sides and overall just a “regular” looking smartphone. Weighing just 193 grams, the phone features Honor’s Ultra-Bounce Anti-Drop technology, which the company claims is able to withstand drops of up to two metres, which is pretty impressive, at least on paper. It’s also got 360 full-body rinse protection which should ideally hold up against accidental splashes and sprays.
As for the display, the X9c Smart comes with a 6.8-inch LCD screen with a 1080 x 2412 pixel resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. Honor isn’t too clear on whether or not the phone uses some type of scratch-resistant glass, although we wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case. Inside, the phone runs on MediaTek’s Dimensity 7025-Ultra chipset, and comes with 16GB of RAM alongside 256GB of internal storage, which is pretty decent especially for a 2024 device. There’s also a rather large 5,800 mAh battery inside, and it does come with support for 35W charging speeds.
As for software, the Honor X9c Smart features MagicOS 8.0, which is based on Android 14. As with the rest of Honor’s phones, MagicOS 8.0 comes with several pre-installed apps and software services from Honor, and there’s also a handful of apps from third-party developers as well. You also get access to exclusive Honor software functions such as Parallel Space, the Magic Capsule notification system (think Dynamic Island), as well as Honor’s Magic Portal UI feature.
In addition to its 16MP front camera, The Honor X9c packs a dual rear camera system which features a 108MP main camera with an F1.75 aperture and a 5MP wide-angle camera with an F2.2 aperture. Video recording is supported in 1080P resolution, and the camera offers up to 10x digital zoom for closer shots. A variety of capture modes are also available, including Highlights Capture, Moving Photo, AI photography, Aperture, Night, Portrait, Pro, Panorama, HDR, Filter, Time-lapse Photography, High-res, Capture smile, and document scanning, to name a few.
Honor still hasn’t revealed the handset’s pricing, but given that the Honor X9b cost between 200-300 quid, we’re expecting similar pricing for the X9c Smart.
