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The glass back and four cameras of the Huawei Honor 9 Lite

We get hands-on with the affordable, luxurious Huawei Honor 9 Lite

Andrew Lanxon
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Andrew Lanxon
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1 of 12 Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Huawei-owned Honor is known for its 'cheap-but-good' handsets, so it's no surprise that its latest model -- the Honor 9 Lite -- packs in some great tech and charges little for it.

Beyond the slick-looking glass-and-metal design, this phone has a sharp 5.6-inch display and dual cameras on the back and the front.

It's due to hit shelves in the UK this month for around £200, and while wider availability is yet to be announced, that price converts to $280 and AU$353 in the US and Australia.

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The back of the phone has a highly reflective all-glass finish, broken only by the dual-lens camera unit and the fingerprint scanner.

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The 5.6-inch display stretches all the way to the edges, thanks to the skinny bezel. 

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The fingerprint scanner is easy to find when you're holding the phone.

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The main cameras on both the front and back shoot at 13-megapixel resolution.

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Thanks to the secondary depth-sensing lenses, a variety of depth-of-field effects can be achieved.

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It runs Android 8.0 Oreo with Honor's EMUI skin over the top.

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Two lenses on the front.

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Yup, that's definitely Oreo.

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It's no challenge for premium phones like the Galaxy S8 in the power stakes, but it's got enough grunt for social networking and some light gaming.

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It charges using the older micro-USB connection rather than the more recent USB-C.

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The 2,160x1,080-pixel resolution makes the screen look nice and crisp.

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