The Honor Play 9A was unveiled today, a
budget-conscious entry to the company's lineup. It houses a large 5,000mAh
battery - that's 1,000mAh more than the Honor 9X and Play 3 have - but is
missing their 48MP camera. The 9A has a 6.3" LCD on the front with 720p+
resolution (20:9 aspect ratio), it covers 70% of the NTSC color space. Nestled
in a teardrop notch on top is an 8MP selfie camera with 1080p video recording
capabilities.
Around the back is a 13MP main camera
(f/1.8 aperture) that also shoots video in 1080p. Next to it is a 2MP depth
sensor for portrait shots (there's no ultra wide cam, check out the Honor Play
3 if you need one). Also here is the rear-mounted fingerprint reader.
The Honor Play 9A is powered by a MediaTek
Helio P35 chipset (eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores + PowerVR GE8320 GPU). It's
hooked to 4GB of RAM and runs Android 10 with Magic UI 3.0.1 on top. The phone
comes with 64GB of storage by default with an option for 128GB. A standard
microSD card can be placed in the dedicated slot to add up to 512GB more.
The 5,000mAh battery charges over an
outdated microUSB port and only reaches speeds of 10W. There's a 3.5mm
headphone jack and an FM radio receiver on board too. The phone also features
Huawei's Histen 6.0 audio tech. If you go headphones-free, the loudspeaker
(backed by a Smart PA amp) promises 88dB of thumping music.
In terms of connectivity, the Play 9A is a
dual SIM phone with 4G and VoLTE support. There's also 2.4GHz Wi-Fi b/g/n and
Bluetooth 5.0 (but no NFC). The Honor Play 9A is currently available for
pre-order on vmall.com (follow the Source link). The 64GB version goes for CNY
900 (US$ 125 or € 115), but you can get the 128GB version for CNY 1,200. Both are
available in Night Black, Blue Emerald and Jasper Green. There's no word on if
and when the 9A will be available internationally.
For comparison, the Honor Play 3 starts at
CNY 1,000 and has a 48MP main camera, 8MP ultra wide and a faster Kirin 710
chipset.
