Honor Band 9 Is A Bracelet With A Design And A Battery That Will Make You Fall In Love

For the last two weeks I have been testing the Honor Band 9, a smartwatch that stands out for its curved screen and long battery life of up to 10 days of actual use.

Despite the difficult situation in the product category, there are manufacturers who remain loyal to consumers who are committed to smart bracelets.

A clear example is the Chinese company Honor, which launched its Honor Band 9 in Spain in the middle of the year, a significant upgrade from last year’s Band 7 model, although in many respects it is reminiscent of another product launched a few months ago.

Honor, which has been struggling to become one of the top five brands in Spain since splitting from Huawei, has been expanding its catalog to include all kinds of products, such as the foldable Honor Magic V3, but in other cases it has reduced its offer, such as laptops, as it currently does not sell any in its store in Spain.

Design: it’s extremely comfortable, but I’m not convinced by the strap

In terms of design, I think the Chinese brand has excelled with the Honor Band 9, especially the body, although I have my reservations about the strap.

I tried the black version, which is discreet and a bit boring, but you can also choose two other much more striking colors that are available in Spain: light blue and purple (the latter is definitely my favorite).

I found the Honor smart bracelet extremely comfortable and most of the time I could say that I had forgotten that I was wearing it, thanks to its compact dimensions, just 9.49 millimeters thick, and the fact that it is super light, at only 16.3 grams, not counting the strap.

What I liked most about the design of the Honor Band 9 is, without a doubt, its rectangular body. For its recommended price of 59.99 euros, I think it is one of the best I have seen.

Although it is made of polymer (a nice way of saying plastic) and the lower part that comes into contact with the skin and houses the biometric sensors is plastic, the edges have a metallic coating that gives it a great feeling of resistance.

Personally, I found the plastic more comfortable on the skin than other bracelets and watches with aluminum bodies that I have tried, as it did not cause itching or discomfort, but be careful, this is a personal experience and you should be guided by your previous experience with this type of material.

In terms of design, if you remove the curved screen of the Honor Band 9, it is a device practically identical to the Huawei Band 9, which has also passed through the hands of the Computer Hoy team.

However, I can’t say that I really liked the bracelet.

The Honor Band 9 is sold with a silicone strap called TPU, which stands for thermoplastic polyurethane. It is comfortable for regular use, but it does not give the impression of being of high quality and, in fact, after a week of use, signs of wear began to appear on the strap and the clasp.

I am not at all convinced by the clasp system that Honor chose for the original bracelet. The 9 bracelet does not fasten and then fold over like most bracelets, but has an aluminum alloy clasp at the end; yes, it may be metal, but the color rubs off after a few days.

As the clasp is on the outside, there is a risk of it catching on something in your daily movements and opening the bracelet. In my experience, this has happened to me several times and I think it is a big alarm bell that justifies looking for other bracelets.

Another detail I don’t like is that the Honor Band 9 has no physical buttons. Unlike its predecessor, the Band 7, you can only use the screen to control it, which I find problematic when your hands are wet, for example.

Another thing that bothered me: the sensor that detects when you raise your wrist malfunctions and you often end up tapping the screen anyway.

Screen: its curved edges and brightness are a pleasant surprise

I wasn’t expecting to find a smartwatch with a screen as good as the Honor Band 9 for less than 60 euros.

Although the top and bottom edges are a little too wide, it has features of much more expensive devices, such as curved edges on the sides of the screen, something I already loved about the Pixel Watch 3 when I tried it and which improves comfort on the wrist.

Its screen is 1.57 inches, which makes it bigger than most bands, but not by much and very close to the dimensions of the Xiaomi Smartband 9, the latest model of the most popular family currently in Spain, which is 1.62 inches. However, the rectangular format gives the feeling that it is better used and more content can be viewed.

Honor has opted for an AMOLED panel that pleasantly surprised me, not so much for its quality — correct, with a resolution of 256 x 402 pixels and 302 PPI — but for a brightness that I found quite high and that is visible outdoors in bright light.

However, I didn’t like that the brightness was sometimes too high for my taste indoors. Unfortunately, Honor does not specify the maximum or minimum brightness in nits.

The choice of AMOLED screen allows the always-on display function to be used, although this significantly affects the battery life: of the 14 days promised by the brand, it is reduced to between 2 and 3 days.

Software: the Honor Health app is very visual and full of spheres

The Honor Band 9 works through the Chinese brand’s Honor Health app, which is common to the rest of its health wearables, so it can be useful if you have other devices from the same manufacturer and is not specific to this model, as is often the case.

I have to admit that Honor Health is one of my favorite health apps so far since I’ve been testing wearables, both for the way it displays information and for the features it includes.

My favorite feature is found in the Settings tab of the device, where there is a library of watch faces that you can use to customize the watch screen according to your tastes or style of the day. You’ll find more there than on the watch itself,

The Honor Health app is compatible with Android and iOS phones, so you’ll have no problem using it with any phone.

Perhaps the biggest problem I see at the software level with the Honor Band 9 is that it is quite limited in terms of the number of things you can do from the wristband.

For example, if you receive a WhatsApp message, you can see the text of the chat, but if you receive several, you have to go to your phone to see what they say. In return, you can control the music and use NFC, something that the Xiaomi Smartband, for example, does not have.

If you receive a call on your mobile, you can hang up from the Honor Band 9, but you can’t answer from your phone or headphones — the bracelet doesn’t have a microphone or speaker, as usual — which I thought was a shame.

Monitoring and sport: excels at sleep, although it lacks many sports

The Honor Band 9 follows in the footsteps of previous models and includes the main biometric and health monitoring functions that most users are accustomed to, with the odd surprise.

This smart bracelet can track exercise, heart rate, Sp02 oxygen saturation, stress, breathing and sleep monitoring. In all cases, I compared it with a high-end watch (Pixel Watch 3) and the records I obtained were quite accurate.

I especially liked the functions that are present in the competition but not in all watches, such as the physical age, which is still a physical test, or the exercise status, which gives you a percentage of fatigue to guide you if you are overdoing it in sports.

What I liked the least was that the brand promises 96 training modes, but only 11 of them can be accessed directly from the watch. Also, no matter how hard I looked for them, I didn’t find any of the sports I usually do, like tennis or badminton, but you’ll be even more surprised when I tell you that I didn’t see football either.

The Honor Band 9 is water resistant up to 5 ATM, making it suitable for swimming and other non-immersion water sports. The brand recommends showering with hot water while wearing the bracelet.

Battery: Lasts up to two weeks and is one of the strengths of the

The battery is undoubtedly one of the strengths of wearables from brands such as Huawei and Honor, and the Honor Band 9 is no exception.

The brand claims that the bracelet has 14 days of battery life with normal use. Although it hasn’t lasted as long as the brand promises, I’m still pleasantly surprised by the great autonomy of this device.

In my analysis, I used it more intensively because I constantly receive notifications from my personal and work email, WhatsApp and Telegram, probably hundreds a day. This means that the autonomy with normal mode and the function of raising the wrist to unlock at home was between 8 and 10 days.

Of course, there is one thing I didn’t like: the sensor that detects when you raise your wrist works quite badly, and you often end up touching the screen anyway.

The battery life is greatly reduced if you are one of those who prefer to use the always-on screen function. In this case, in my experience, the battery lasts between two and three days with the screen always active, so it is clear that it is not one of the best optimized in comparison with normal use, although its duration is still generally correct.

Conclusion: is the Honor Band 9 worth it?

I think it’s an interesting model if you’re looking for an alternative to the more well-known models, if you have more Honor devices and, above all, if you value the autonomy of these devices and want to get the most out of the Honor Health app to monitor your physical condition.

In terms of sport and value for money, the 59.90 euros it costs means you can find other bracelets with a lower recommended price, such as the Xiaomi Smartband 9, which costs 39.99 euros, and others that have more sports modes that may better suit your lifestyle.

However, if you can find the Honor Band 9 at an attractive price, it is a bracelet with a lot to offer and has everything necessary for those interested in health functions such as precise sleep monitoring without having to resort to a smartwatch.