HONOR 9 Lite with 18:9 display squeaks past TENAA

With HUAWEI sub-brand HONOR having a busy December so far, thanks to the V10 and 7X entering more international markets, the month looks to only get busier as the HONOR 9 Lite made its way through TENAA in China.

What’s interesting is that the HONOR 8 Lite, the supposed predecessor, went official back in February of this year. At the time, the HONOR 8 Lite looked to be a mid-range alternative to the HONOR 8, and the same can be assumed about the HONOR 9 Lite relative to the more powerful HONOR 9.

According to the TENAA listing, the HONOR 9 Lite sports an 18:9, 5.65-inch 2,160 x 1,080 resolution display, with two cameras on the front and two cameras on the back. Both arrangements feature a 13 MP primary sensor coupled with a 2 MP sensor, with the secondary sensor presumably aiding the primary sensor to create portrait images.

Elsewhere, even though the TENAA listing only mentions an octa-core chipset at the heart of the HONOR 9 Lite, odds are that chipset is HUAWEI’s in-house Kirin 659. The processor is paired with either 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage or 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, though a microSD card slot is present.

Finally, keeping the lights on is a 2,900 mAh battery that is recharged through the phone’s microUSB port. I get how the HONOR 9 Lite is supposed to be a more affordable alternative to more expensive offerings, but with USB Type-C finding its way into more and more smartphones, those that don’t feature the standard stand out for all the wrong reasons.

Speaking of price, the HONOR 9 Lite could be priced around $200, putting it in HONOR 7X territory. We might find out for sure on December 21, when HONOR is slated to hold a press event in China. We might learn more about the HONOR 9 Lite then, so we’ll keep sure to relay more information as we get it.