Honor recently launched the 9N just a couple of days ago, and Xiaomi launched the all-new Mi A2. The Honor 9N packs the same specifications as the other devices in the price range by Honor, while the Mi A2 is the Redmi Note 5 Pro with some changes packed with Stock Android. Both the devices compete in the same range, and hence today we will be comparing them both against each other and will see the better one for your hard earned money.
Design & Build
Both the phone have the same future compliant design. The Honor 9N comes with the notch design on the front, while on the back we have the same honor design, while on the Xiaomi Mi A2 we have the same Redmi design while on the front we have the full-screen display.
Talking about the placements we have the power button and volume button both on the right side of the phone, on the back we have the fingerprint reader, on both the device the Fingerprint reader is placed at the same place, camera placement on the rear is changed mainly in orientation rest is the same with dual sensor unit. On the front, we have the notch which houses the sensors and front camera on the Honor 9N but on the Mi A2, we have the bezels both at the top and bottom.
Honor 9N is made with glass and metal design, while the Mi A2 is fully a metal unibody design, aesthetically the Honor 9N is a good looker, and amazes you by the looks, while the Mi A2 is with the design of the modern phone, but will not amaze you by the looks. Both the device feels the same and are made to operate the same.
Display
The Honor 9N comes with 5.84 – inch display while the Mi A2 is offered with a 5.99 – inch display unit. Both the units are of exactly the same size hence there is no issue with the size of the display, but the Honor 9N will cut through the videos if you are viewing them in the full screen due to the notch while there is no such issue with the Mi A2.
Do note that if you are using the Mi A2 then you will have to manually calibrate the screen so that you can also enjoy the colors and contrasts of the LCD unit, which you cannot do especially in the stock settings. Honor’s stock calibration for colors and contrasts are so good that you are not going to miss the color calibrator for the display.
Both the screens are bright and vivid out in the sun, while during the night the Mi A2 will hurt in your eyes as the unit will not go really dim, while the Honor 9N will also have such issue, we didn’t compare the screens side by side in the night hence cannot give a comparison of the levels.
Performance
Honor 9N is packed with the Kirin 659 which is a popular SoC for Huawei’s product in the recent past. The performance of the chip is comparable with the Snapdragon 636, hence it is for sure that The SD660 on the Mi A2 is going to perform better than the one on the 9N. Mi A2 can make it clear that you can easily game heavy to low-level games on the phone, with a good amount of multitasking, while on Honor 9N you will not be able to play the High-end games on the top graphics settings.
Day to day performance of the phone is quite good and you are going to have a nice time using both the phones with any kind of usage, do note that if you are using the Honor 9N with 3Gigs of RAM then you will have a couple of issues for the same.
Camera
The Honor 9N comes with a 13MP and 2MP sensors at the back while on the front we have a 20MP and 8MP sensors on the Mi A2. On the front side, we have a 16Mp setup on Honor 9N while on the Xiaomi’s unit we have a 20MP unit. Both the phones are able to reproduce the images quite good with up to 90% of accuracy on the colors, and average levels of contrasts.
The Xiaomi MI A2 is unable to get the best of the sharpness, especially on the stock camera app, while the Honor 9N’s stock camera app is great and works fine. With time Mi A2’s unit will get better, with time i.e. with software updates. Both the units are able to perform quite great especially in the night situations with a good amount of sharpness in the images. Especially in the night, the front camera of the Honor 9N performs better when compared to the Mi A2’s unit.
Pricing
The Honor 9N is priced quite attractively at 10,499 for the 3Gigs variant while the 4Gigs variant cost a bit higher. The Mi A2’s price is yet to be announced and is suspected to be around the 18,000 INR price bracket. Keeping the price difference in mind, the Honor 9N seems to be a better package with the pricing and performance kept in mind. But do note that on the log run Xiaomi’s MI A2 will be proven as a good bet due to the stock Android available for the phone and it is backed by the Google’s Android One program.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Mi A2 and Honor 9N both are good value phones, and are able to compete with most of its rivals, if you are looking for a long-term phone than the Mi A2 is a better bet while on the performance and value point of view the Honor 9N is a great piece. If you have money then you must go for the Mi A2, while if money is an issue then Honor 9N is a better product. Do read about our review for the Xiaomi Mi A2 & Honor 9N for better clarity.