Honor is set to launch a new smartphone in Malaysia soon, but it’s not their shiny new Magic Vs foldable. Instead, it’s the Honor X9a 5G, the latest member of their X9 series of midrange smartphones that first debuted back in March of this year.
They didn’t share much about the device itself though, nor did they reveal when exactly they plan to launch the Honor X9a 5G in Malaysia other than confirming its imminent arrival. However, they did make some pretty bold claims about one part of their upcoming midrange smartphone: the display.
According to Honor, their new device will be packing an ultra tough OLED curved display. So tough in fact, that it’s apparently even tougher than Huawei’s Kunlun Glass that’s on the Mate 50 Pro. While perhaps not as famous as Corning’s Gorilla Glass series or Apple’s Ceramic Shield, when Rory got a chance to take a look at the Mate 50 Pro, he was actually quite impressed with how tough it was as it could withstand a number of drops from around shoulder height.
The Honor X9a 5G though has supposedly already been tested in and excelled at 33 different drop tests which include marble and concrete floors. Honor has apparently adopted a 0.65mm ‘super reinforced’ glass on the display for better drop resistance. This could make the Honor X9a 5G’s curved display not just the toughest curved display on an Honor smartphone, but the toughest on any smartphone especially if their claims of it being stronger than Kunlun Glass are true.
Furthermore, the Chinese company states that the Honor X9a 5G will also come with software designed with the curved display in mind. They say that the AI anti-mistouch algorithm will be able to adapt and avoid reacting to accidental touches, something that users of smartphones with curved displays have often criticised about.
That being said, those familiar with Honor’s catalog might be having a sense of deja vu looking at the Honor X9a 5G. While no other country including China has gotten hold of the Honor X9a 5G yet, Honor does have a midrange smartphone in China that also packs a tough curved OLED display, the Honor X40 5G.
The Honor X40 5G was launched in China back in September and features a 6.67-inch, FHD+ curved OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage, along with a 5,100mAh battery. While the back has the same camera ring layout, the Honor X40 5G has the flash on the top of the ring, with a 50MP main camera and a 2MP portrait camera on the side, while the Honor X9a 5G seemingly has a different layout with the flash at the bottom.
It’s not too much of a surprise to see the similarities though, as Honor Malaysia has previously stated that they would be bringing the Honor X40 5G to our shores with a different name and some mild upgrades; the Honor X9a 5G is likely this renamed and revamped Honor X40 5G. There’s no pricing details for the Honor X9a 5G yet of course, but we do know that in China, the Honor X40 5G starts at CNY1,499 (~RM934), which could would be a very competitive price if the Honor X9a 5G can repeat that.
