Honor 9i, Honor Play Series Smartphones Expected to Launch on June 6; Honor 9i Variants Spotted on TENAA

Huawei-owned brand Honor has announced a smartphone launch event for June 6 in Beijing, China where it is expected to unveil a new handset in the Honor Play series and two variants of the upcoming Honor 9i. Two Honor phones have also been spotted on Chinese certification portal TENAA that indicate an impending launch.

The company is teasing the launch of a new variant of the Honor 9i as its next budget smartphones, with a notch shown off. The launch is set for June 6 in Beijing. This could be a successor to the original Honor 9i launched in October last year, and that didn't have a display notch. As for the mysterious smartphone in the Honor Play series, the company hasn't revealed much on that front except that it will arrive with certain AI-based capabilities much like most recent Honor smartphones.

Two Honor phones with model numbers LLD-AL20 and LLD-AL30, both of which could be variants of the Honor 9i, have been spotted on TENAA. As per the listings, the phones will arrive in Black, Gray, and Blue colour options. Dimensions of the handsets are 149.2x71.8x7.7mm and weight is 152 grams. Additionally, there is a dual camera setup on the back with a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor. On the front, the handsets sport a 16-megapixel selfie camera. Connectivity options include Bluetooth, USB, and 4G VoLTE (including support for India, with Band 40).

Display size of the smartphone is 5.84 inches with a 1080x2280 pixels resolution and a 19:9 aspect ratio. The phone runs Android 8.0.0 Oreo, features 4GB of RAM, and an octa-core SoC clocked at 2.36GHz. There is a 2900mAh battery on board. Sensors include accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and fingerprint sensor. The specifications are similar to that of the Huawei P20 Lite. There is a minor difference in specifications listed on TENAA, with the LLD-AL20 listed with 64GB of storage, while the LLD-AL30 has 32GB and 128GB storage. Both are expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB).

Honor's budget smartphone segment has been seeing a lot of activity recently. This week, the brand launched the Honor 7S, an almost-rebranded version of the Honor Play 7, in Pakistan. Additionally, the brand also announced the Honor 7A and Honor 7C in India this month with availability expected to commence from this week.