Honor X9d First Look – The tough get tougher, first impressions of Honor’s most durable phone
At launch managed to get a review sample of the Honor X9d to see what the fuss is all about. Here’s our Honor X9d first look and unboxing where we share our first impressions of their titular tough phone of 2025.
When it comes to crafting tough phones, Honor’s X9 series takes the cake with each successive generation becoming even more resistant to damage than its predecessors. The magic here is that they’re able to make it tougher while retaining a semblance of performance and functionality without compromising its design and ergonomics.
Where last year’s Honor X9c was able to shatter ceramic tiles and hammer in nails, the new Honor X9d was demonstrated to be able to survive direct hits from a nail gun and a stapler gun, emerge unscathed from a gravel-filled cement mixer.
The Honor X9d was even able to take a full-on direct hit from a plasma gun that blasted it with a high pressure cocktail of heat and expanding gasses at point blank range.
Honor X9d first look – Build and design
In terms of build and design, our Honor X9d first look sample has subtle differences compared to its predecessor the Honor X9c that we reviewed last year. While the broad strokes of its design are retained, namely the circular camera housing on the back and the rounded corners, Honor has gone for a more refined, classier look this time round.
Gone are the kitschy metallic hues and polished mirror sheen of the X9c with the Honor X9d featuring a more muted, more premium matte brown finish dubbed Reddish Brown.
This works out to a deep maroon finish that has a subtle faux leather texture complemented by bronze hued trim around the camera housing and the sides with the Honor logo embellished in gold on the backplate.
Rather than looking gaudy, the combination of the matte brown backplate and gold trim actually makes the phone more premium than what its price tag would imply. Perhaps the only gripe here is that the bronze side trim on our Reddish Brown seems especially prone to being a fingerprint magnet.
Alternatively, the phone can be acquired in Midnight Black, Forest Green and Sunrise Gold colourways though the signature paint job for this generation of phones is the aforementioned reddish Brown.
That quibble aside, our Honor X9d first look sample has a large 6.79-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a respectable 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and has Eye-care tech which includes flicker-free 3,840Hz PWM dimming to ensure that it’s easy on the eyes especially when doom scrolling at night in bed.
Honor X9c first look – The phone has a brighter 6.79-inch AMOLED display that peaks at 6,000 nits peak brightness and retains a 16MP camera in a punch hole for selfies.
Of note here is that Honor has improved the screen brightness substantially, with up to 6,000 nits peak brightness versus the 4,000 nits of its predecessor. Perched in a single punch hole up top is a single 16MP selfie camera which is essentially unchanged from the one used in the X9c. 
The right side features a volume rocker and power button while the left is otherwise unremarkable with the top featuring a set of holes for one of the two speakers on the phone with a corresponding one at the base of the phone alongside the SIM card tray and the USB-C port.
Interestingly, the Honor X9d includes a ‘One tap Dust and Water Ejection’ feature that automatically expels dust and water from its speaker ports on command.
This was demonstrated in a special preview where the phone was liberally dusted with flour which was then ejected via sound waves emitted from the speaker.
The rear of our Honor X9d first look unit hosts a dual camera array which consists of a single 108MP camera with OIS paired with a secondary 5MP ultra wide angle camera riding shotgun that is essentially unchanged from its predecessor.
@hitechcentury We put the new @honormalaysia Honor X9d 5G to an extreme, gruelling survival test with impressive results! #honorx9d #hitechcentury #fyp #malaysia ♬ original sound – Hitech Century
Where the Honor X9d experiences the most radical upgrades though isn’t in its appearance but its durability. To date, the phone is the industry’s first smartphone to receive the SGS Triple Resistant Premium Performance Certification. To wit, the Honor X9d also has a combined IP69K +IP68 and IP66 certification as well which is the highest level of water and dust resistance in the industry.
This means that the Honor X9d has been certified to survive 2.5m drops and has an IP69K dust and water resistance rating that allows it to withstand splashes, rain and high pressure jets of water as well as the ability to keep fine dust particles out.
Honor X9d First Look – Belying its modest price point, the phone has a large 108MP main camera that has optical image stabilisation to handle most of the grunt work paired with a secondary 5MP ultrawide angle camera.
According to Honor, the new X9d uses a multilayer cushioning design with a ballistic grade damping layer for improved shock absorption on the chassis such that it is 112% improvement in impact durability over X9c. While there is no specific mention of what grade of glass is used on the X9d, its resistance to scratches and impacts has been improved substantially.
In essence, the Honor X9d is tougher and more robust in almost every way than the prior X9c. Even better, they’ve managed to achieve this feat while including a whopping huge 8,300mAh li-Ion polymer battery quoted to offer up to 3 days of battery life.
What makes it particularly impressive is that the Honor X9d achieves this feat while being 0.2mm thinner than its predecessor the Honor X9c which had a smaller 6,600mAh battery.
The Honor X9d is also the first phone in the series to offer reverse wireless charging, allowing it to double as a power bank in dire scenarios. This is on top of 66W wired fast charging.
Honor X9d first look – The box contained a comprehensive set of accessories that include a casing, a charger, a USB-C cable and a pre-applied screen protector.
Honor has also generously provided a full set of accessories with our Honor X9d first look sample for the Malaysia market featuring a 66W wired fast charger with an UK-style plug, a USB-C cable, a protective case as well as the usual SIM eject pin, warranty paperwork and a pre-applied screen protector. This set of kit may be specific only to certain regions though and it’s best to check ahead of purchase.
In terms of hardware, Honor has kitted the phone out with a number of hardware update to keep it current, bumping up the chipset to a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 octacore processor running Android 15 and MagicOS 9.0 under the hood.
This is paired with 12GB RAM as standard, augmented by an additional 12GB of virtual honor RAM Turbo of the onboard storage, with your choice of either 256GB for RM1,499 or 512GB storage (RM1,699) capacities.
The Honor X9d makes for an impressive showing out of the starting gate with a posher looking design, improved toughness and a full array of accessories too. Stay tuned for our full review! You can also check out the Honor X9d on their official page here.