Honor 9i vs. Moto G5S Plus – The Battle of Cameras, Design and Performance
At the beginning of October, Honor has launched their first smartphone that has four cameras. It was launched in India, taking the name Honor 9i.
It has a lot of interesting features and a great design that directly competes with Lenovo’s Moto G5S Plus. Let’s look at what they both offer, and which one is worth its price.
The Design
Moto G5S Plus and Honor 9i have a metal unibody case. This gives the two devices a premium look for a couple of mid – range smartphones. Honor 9i has a matte back and a more refined look. It also has minimal bezels, unlike Moto G5S Plus. Honor 9i comes with a 5.9 – inch display, while the Moto G5S Plus has a 5.5 – inch display.
Honor 9i has the upper hand when it comes to design.
Performance
Here is where Moto G5S Plus wins the fight. Real life tests in daily use show us a slow device which sometimes lags.
Moto G5S Plus has a Snapdragon 625 processor and 4 GB RAM, with a battery of 3,000mAh. It also has support for fast charging. It comes with a 64GB internal storage.
The Honor 9i has a Kirin 659 processor, 4GB RAM, and 64GB internal storage, having a better battery life: 3,340mAh. Honor claims that their phone can play 9 hours of video content and 7 hours of gaming before completely draining the battery.
Software
The Moto G5S Plus comes with Android 7.1 Nougat, a near stock build that is bloat-free.
The Honor 9i runs on Android 7.0 Nougat which has added EMUI 5.1 on top of it. Perhaps this is what makes the device stutter in the UI. It gives users a lot features though, and if you are an app enthusiast maybe you will overlook those few lags.
Cameras
Let’s get to the most important feature and why we would choose the Honor 9i.
There are two front cameras: 13 MP and 2 MP setup that will capture cameras with a depth of field effect – called bokeh shots. It comes with a flash that can automatically adjust the brightness, according to your surroundings, when you take a selfie. When tested, it didn’t show more than average results.
The rear camera setup has dual sensors: 16 MP – the primary one, and 2 MP the secondary one. Results showed that it is better than the Moto G5S Plus rear camera setup.
If you don’t care about bokeh shots, you could choose the Moto G5S Plus over the Honor 9i, as it has better front cameras and the rear ones will give a lot of detailed and dynamic shots.
Price
As for pricing, the Honor 9i had a bigger price, being $200 more expensive than the Moto G5S Plus. But now, the Honor 9i has got cheaper, as it is on sale. We’re looking at Rs. 17,999 (sells in India) for the Honor 9i right now. This would mean you would pay $278 for it.
Moto G5S Plus starts at Rs. 15,999 in India. Converted into USD, you would pay for a Moto G5S Plus around $247.
As you can see, there is no great difference between these two smartphones regarding their prices.
Is Honor 9i Better than the Moto G5S Plus?
Let’s see: it has great display, bokeh shots, great build and design, being better than the Moto G5S Plus from those perspectives.
But the Moto G5S Plus will strike back with its better performance, a great software experience and better rear cameras. Will you give all that for a bezel-less smartphone?
It all depends on what you expect from your smartphone.