Unboxing the Honor X9, a budget smartphone boasting impressive gaming smarts and some of the best battery life around. Here's a full hands-on review ahead of the UK and Europe launch, including my camera tests, gaming on Genshin Impact and a tour of the Honor X9's best features.

The camera tech is fairly straightforward on this budget phone, offering a 48MP primary sensor and no ultra-wide option. It's pretty good as long as lighting conditions aren't too tricky, although not the greatest around for video capture.

Sadly the Honor X9 doesn't offer a stereo speaker setup, headphone jack or expandable storage, unlike many budget smartphone rivals. And oops, it's still running old Android 11.

Thankfully the rest is all good news. Performance, especially for gaming, is as solid as the Poco X4 Pro with that Snapdragon 695 SoC. You can smash through Genshin Impact, PubG etc no worries at all. Battery life is also sublime, while the Honor X9's 6.8-inch LCD screen is bright and crisp (if not quite a match for OLED tech). MagicUI 4 offers a pleasingly stock Android experience still, and it's all wrapped up in a premium style design.

Honor X9 Unboxing Chapters:
0:00 - Skip it
0:44 - What's in the box?
1:14 - Design
2:51 - Software & features
5:18 - Display & audio
7:35 - Performance & gaming test
8:57 - Battery life
9:49 - Camera test