Honor will soon be launching its first pop-up selfie smartphone in the country. While the Indian market just got two new mid-range pop-up smartphones, it will soon be getting another one, the Honor 9X. The recently launched Vivo Z1 Pro has also been dominating in the market since launch, spurring up a new price war in the mid-budget smartphone segment.
While Z1 Pro targets Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 Pro in the segment, it will also challenge the new Honor 9X as well.
The new Honor 8X successor has great good features onboard on a budget, while the Vivo Z1 Pro also breaks a few barriers in its segment. The new 9X smartphones do have a lot of good to challenge others in the entry mid-range segment with its top features.
We have divided the primary categories into six sections to compare Vivo Z1 Pro and Honor 9X: design and build, display, hardware, software, camera, battery and pricing.
Let’s begin.
Contents
Design & Build
Honor 9X comes with a polycarbonate body on the out, made to look like glass. It’s quite light and also feels premium in the hand. The smartphone features a gradient finish on the out with some cool colour combinations, made out of high-quality plastic.
In comparison, the already hit Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a high-quality polycarbonate body. It’s fully plastic, but does feel premium to an extent. The colour schemes on Vivo Z1 Pro also feature gradient styled designs.
Both the devices are notchless. Honor 9X has a pop-up sensor, while Z1 Pro sports a punch-hole.
Honor 9X has the rear camera module at the left side corner without any physical fingerprint sensor at the back, and the Vivo Z1 Pro has a physical fingerprint sensor with the camera module on the top left rear corner.
Honor 9X features a side-mounted fingerprint scanner as Samsung Galaxy S10E. It does help the device to remain clean and attractive just like its rivals.
Both the devices are quite comfortable to hold without being very large, the weights are okay, overall ergonomics are great, the build quality is good and perfectly made.
Display
Honor 9X sports a 6.59-inch Full HD+ OLED display with a screen resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. The display is quite vibrant with minimal bezels on the sides with a little chin down under and a physical fingerprint scanner on the side. The device has used a pop-up scanner on top to achieve a higher screen to body ratio.
Plus, the OLED helps with the best of darks without any shadowing.
In comparison, Vivo Z1 Pro has a similar-sized 6.53-inch Full HD+ display which offers a screen-to-body ratio of 90.77 percent with a screen resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. It has a punch-hole and does look good.
But it’s just a Full HD+ panel if compared to Honor 9X. Both the displays are great, and you won’t be able to find any noticeable difference at large.
In broad daylight, you won’t face any issue using both the devices. But if you go deep and try to look closely, the OLED panel does offer some extra advantage to Honor 9X. In terms of viewing experience and and angles, the new Honor pop-up smartphone will get an extra point here.
Hardware & Storage
The newly launched Honor 9X runs on HiSilicon Kirin 810 SoC, a new in-house Huawei chip based on cutting edge 7nm architecture. Honor 9X will be available in multiple variants ranging between 4GB and 6GB RAM variants with 64GB and 128GB internal storage.
The new Kirin 810 SoC does offer some top-level performance on a budget.
While, the popular Vivo Z1 Pro runs on a slightly improved version of the existing SD 710 chip, Qualcomm Snapdragon 712, manufactured on an 10nm architecture. It couples with Adreno 616 GPU.
In terms of daily performance, both Vivo Z1 Pro and Honor 9X can run mid-end games with ease along with extensive multitasking. There won’t be any noticeable difference in daily use.
There won’t be any noticeable difference in daily use given the memory-heavy apps and social media. Both Kirin 810 and Snapdragon 710 will offer good experience in terms of extended gaming and extensive multitasking. But, given the need for extra performance, the Honor 9X will have an edge here.
Kirin 810 delivers AI performance at par with other flagship chips as Snapdragon 855 or Kirin 980.
Finally, the respective UIs will play their own roles to boost up the real-world smartphone performance. Both these smartphones can be expanded up to 512GB via an external microSD card.
Software
Honor 9X runs on Android 9 Pie with EMUI skin on top. The newly improved UI does offer some refreshing features compared to the previous OS with an easy-to-use overall structure and few tweaks. Based on the latest Android 9 Pie, the EMUI packs in a bunch of user-friendly features and functions.
On the other hand, Vivo Z1 Pro also runs on Android 9 Pie with Funtouch 9.0 UI on top.
The new Vivo UI has been upgraded, and the current Funtouch UI have some great features and functions. In all, both come preloaded with bloatware and customisations.
Camera
Honor 9X comes with a dual camera setup at the back featuring a 48MP f/1.8 primary sensor and a 2MP depth sensor. The additional third lens is available with the Pro variant, the 9X Pro. It features the third 8MP wide-angle lens. Upfront, Honor 9X sports a 16MP f/2.2 pop-up camera.
In comparison, Vivo Z1 Pro features a triple camera setup.
Z1 Pro features a 16-megapixel primary sensor coupled with a 8-megapixel super-wide secondary sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.
Upfront, Z1 Pro has a 32MP super selfie camera inside the punch-hole.
Both Vivo Z1 Pro and Honor 9X do a fair job offering a great dynamic range with almost accurate colours irrespective of lighting conditions. Though, Vivo Z1 Pro will have some in some areas with the additional imaging sensor.
Vivo Z1 Pro can take good detailed and sharp pictures in bright light with accurate colours. In poorly lit conditions, Vivo Z1 Pro manages to click decent photos with almost accurate details and colours.
Battery
Honor 9X is backed by a 4,000 mAh battery unit with a Type-C port. The chip supports fast charging support, but we don’t know whether Honor will ship a fast charger with the smartphone in India or not. In comparison, Vivo wins big here.
Z1 Pro has a mammoth 5,000mAh battery. The Vivo Z1 Pro also supports 18W fast charging. It takes around 2 hours to charge fully from 0 to 100 percent. Vivo Z1 Pro ships with the fast charger inside the box.
Pricing & India Launch
Honor 9X has been launched in China at a very affordable starting price of CNY 1,399 (around Rs 14,000) for the base model with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. The mid-end model with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage has been priced at CNY 1,599 (around Rs 16,000).
Finally, the top model with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage has been priced at CNY 1,899 (around Rs 19,000).
In comparison, Vivo Z1 Pro is available in three models starting at Rs 14,990 with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. The mid-end variant comes with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage costs Rs 16,990, which matches the base Honor 9X model. Finally, the top Z1 Pro model with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage is priced at Rs 18,990.
Vivo Z1 Pro comes in three colour options: Sonic Blue, Sonic Black and Mirror Black. The Vivo device is available exclusively via Flipkart.
CONCLUSION: Honor 9X vs Vivo Z1 Pro
Backed by sleek and flagship-level features, both Vivo Z1 Pro and Honor 9X have something good to offer at a budget pricing. The newly launched Vivo Z1 Pro targets the under 15,000 crowd, while Honor 9X will be targeting the mid-range space in the country.
Vivo Z1 Pro does have some great features to challenge the likes of mid-budget bestsellers like Redmi Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 Pro.
In India, Honor 9X may start at Rs 14,999. While there’s a lot of rivals available in the same range, the new chip will help Honor to stand out in the crowd.
If we go head to head, Vivo Z1 Pro does excel in a few departments when it comes to battery, the three camera system and the new punch-hole display. It would suit you if you don’t like mechanical sensors.
But again, Honor 9X will get some edge in terms of premium experience.
The new Honor smartphone has almost everything on-board you would need on a mid-range premium smartphone. The presence of an OLED panel, a top-range chip at a budget price, pop-up sensor and a few other features does help Honor 9X excel in the space.
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