Honor Malaysia’s new budget phone doesn’t come with Google Mobile Services

Honor has introduced the Honor 9S in Malaysia which is their latest budget smartphone offering. It’s priced under RM400 and it doesn’t come with your expected Google apps and services.

The Honor 9S will be available from the 28th of September 2020 and it’s officially priced at RM359. It comes in 3 colours – Black, Blue and Red. If you’re interested, you can get it on HiHonor.com, Honor experience stores, Lazada and Shopee.

Those that purchase will receive a free Honor Thermo flask and 15GB of Huawei Cloud storage. Honor is also providing 10% off voucher for any beverage from Tien Tien Yogurt that’s valid from 1st October until 31st December 2020. According to Honor, all Honor users can receive 10% off at Tien Tien Yogurt by flashing their Honor smartphone.

The Honor 9S appears to be a rebadge of the Huawei Y5p which was introduced in Malaysia a few months ago. It has a 5.45″ HD 720p LCD display and it runs on a MediaTek MT6762R (Helio P22) processor. The device comes with 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage which is still expandable via microSD.

Although the rear camera bump looks like it has a multi-camera setup, the 9S is only equipped with a single 8MP main camera while the front gets a 5MP selfie shooter. Keeping the lights on is a rather small 3,020mAh battery that still charges via a microUSB port.

Out of the box, it runs on Magic UI 3.1 that’s based on Android 10. Unfortunately, there’s no Google apps and services for the Honor 9S. Instead, it ships with Huawei Mobile Services which relies on Huawei App Gallery to download and discover apps.

If you’re looking for a phone with Google Play Store that’s priced under RM400, you might want to consider the Redmi 9A and the Realme C11. Both devices come with a display of at least 6.5″ and has a larger 5,000mAh battery.

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