Honor X9d
The Honor X9d aims for something a little wild in the smartphone jungle of 2025. Specs-wise, it’s the maverick you didn’t know you wanted. First, let's get the headline acts out of the way: this thing packs a monster 8,300mAh battery and rocks the world’s first IP69K rating on a phone. That means it not only survives splashes, drops, dust storms, and probably an overenthusiastic toddler, but can take high-pressure water jets straight to the hull… Honestly, short of using it as a hockey puck, please don’t. It should handle most drama. That battery? It’s so huge, folks joke you could use it to jumpstart a scooter. Honor claims three days’ use, and for once that doesn't sound like “optimistic on-paper math.” When I took it hiking, I left my charger at home on purpose. Did I worry? Briefly. Did I run out of juice? Not even close.
The big, flat 6.79-inch AMOLED display is plenty roomy for streaming and gaming. A friend described it as “the IMAX for TikTokers.” It boasts insane brightness: 6,000 nits peak. The kind of brilliance that hurts your eyes when doomscrolling in bed, then helps you read maps under a blinding sun at noon. I did both for science. The 120Hz refresh rate feels smooth, but at this point, anything less would have been a letdown.
Under the hood, it runs on the new Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip, which, in plain speak, means it feels snappy unless you’re trying to edit full-length films on it, which, who is? With 12GB RAM and up to 512GB storage (no, you can’t slap in a microSD card, so choose wisely), there’s more than enough muscle and space for a few years of memes, baby elephant videos, and the odd embarrassing karaoke clip you’ll regret later. The phone runs Android 15 skinned with Magic OS 9. It's fluid, customizable, and colorful enough that I sometimes wish for a “boring mode” just to tone it down on a Monday.
Let’s talk about the cameras because yes, megapixels aren’t everything, but the 108MP main sensor does a fantastic job making your everyday snaps look epic. Maybe not quite “I’m a National Geographic contributor now” tier, but dramatic sunsets, pets mid-zoomies, and the obligatory food shots all turn out especially crisp. Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) means fewer blurry disaster selfies, and the bonus ultrawide lens (5MP) nails landscape shots. A cousin asked if it could photograph goldfish underwater, so we tested the underwater mode, yep, it works. The selfie cam is 16MP, no complaints from my Zoom-weary coworkers. Bonus: the camera app's editing suite is packed enough to delay your install of a third-party editor by, say, a month.
Now, for the price. In Europe, it hovers around 300 EUR, and in India, expect a launch just north of ₹22,000, give or take, depending on RAM/storage[Myr 1,499 ($356) for 12+256GB, a bit more for the 512GB trim]. It’s squarely midrange, but with its rugged build and power-pack battery, it feels aimed at thrill-seekers, chronic forget-to-chargers, or the “my phone is my lifeline” crowd. When I handed it to my clumsiest friend, he managed a knee-height drop in two minutes. The phone shrugged it off. He dropped it again later, on purpose this time. Still fine. If you’ve ever bought a phone just to see it shattered within a week, you'll know the relief.
If there’s a catch, it’s that there’s no wireless charging or headphone jack. Minor annoyances, unless you’re a die-hard old-schooler who refuses to go Bluetooth. And at 193g, it’s solid in the hand, neither featherweight nor tight-jeans-jeopardizing chunky.
In short, the Honor X9d is like that rugged, ever-reliable friend who maybe overpacks for the weekend trip but ends up saving the day. Waterproof, drop-proof, and battery-for-days all for the price of a “flagship” half its stamina? If your phone always lives hard, the X9d is worth a close look.
