At an event today, HUAWEI’s HONOR brand along with the HONOR 30S and the Kirin 820 5G SoC also announced a budget smartphone – HONOR Play 9A, the successor of last year’s HONOR Play 8A. The HONOR Play 9A flaunts a 6.3-inch HD+ display with a 20:9 aspect ratio and 1600 x 720 pixels. It is powered by the Octa-Core MediaTek Helio P35 SoC paired with 4GB RAM plus up to 128GB of internal storage.
The storage can be expanded up to 512GB through microSD. The rear design is a step up from the HONOR Play 8A and this time the camera module has seen a refresh too. It also now sports a physical fingerprint scanner to the back which was lacking on the HONOR Play 8A.
Coming to the optics, the Play 8A sports dual rear cameras which is a combination of 13MP f/1.8 (primary) + 2MP f/2.4 (depth sensor) and the front-facing camera is an f/2.0 8MP shooter. It runs on Android 10 on top of Magic UI 3.0.1 but does not ship with Google Mobile Services (GMS). Lastly, it packs a 5000mAh battery with support for 10W charging through a micro USB port.
Honor Play 9A specifications
- 6.3-inch (1600 × 720 pixels) HD+ 20:9 display
- 2.3GHz Octa-Core (ARM Cortex A53) MediaTek Helio P35 12nm Processor with 680 MHz IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU
- 4GB RAM, 64GB/128GB storage, expandable memory up to 512GB with microSD
- Android 10 with Magic UI 3.0.1
- Dual SIM (nano + nano + microSD)
- 13MP f/1.8 (primary) + 2MP f/2.4 (depth sensor)
- 8MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture
- Dimensions: 159.07 × 74.06 × 9.04; Weight: 185g
- Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS + GLONASS, micro USB
- 5000mAh (Typical) / 4900mAh (Minimum) battery
Pricing and Availability
HONOR Play 9A comes in Black, Blue, and Jasper Green color options. The 4GB RAM + 64GB storage version is priced at 899 yuan (US$ 127 / Rs. 9535 approx.) and the 4GB RAM + 128GB storage version is priced at 1199 yuan (US$ 169 / Rs. 12720 approx.). It is already available for order in China.