Honor X9e Pro Review: Two-Day Battery, Tough Build

Durability has always been the X9 series’ selling point, and I got to put some of its claims to the test with the latest X9e Pro. And by test, I mean properly abuse it. I dropped it repeatedly onto sandy, rocky ground, had an archery arrow fired directly at its screen, and even dunked it in salty seawater. The phone survived all of this without any apparent damage, which is impressive for a mid-range smartphone, though as we will see, there are limits to how much abuse it can take.

The X9e Pro is the successor to last year’s X9d, which was already an exceptionally durable mid-range smartphone. Honor has made some meaningful upgrades this time around, with the biggest being the absolutely monstrous 11,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, up from the X9d’s 8,300mAh cell.

Charging has also been bumped from 66W to 80W, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset has been replaced by the newer Gen 5, and the display is slightly sharper with a much higher claimed peak brightness of 10,000 nits. The drop and water resistance have also improved, although the 108MP main and 5MP ultrawide cameras remain largely unchanged.

But these upgrades also come with a higher price tag. At AED 1,499, the X9e Pro is AED 200 more expensive than its predecessor. This model comes with 24GB RAM and 256GB Storage. You can also get a 28GB model with 256 GB storage for AED 1,799.

For pre-orders placed between 23–29 October 2026, you get the Honor Watch X5 Play and a 12-month Damage Protection + 24-month Battery Guarantee for free.

After you pre-order, you’ll get the Honor Choice E6i for free, plus 6-month Damage Protection + 24-month Battery Guarantee. Existing HONOR X9 series users get a free 24-month HONOR Care warranty.

Overall, the X9e Pro remains a solid mid-range phone. Performance is decent and perfectly adequate for daily use; the cameras are nothing to write home about, and the speakers are average at best. But the display is good, the build quality is excellent, and the battery life is simply phenomenal, easily lasting more than two days without needing a charge. It doesn’t necessarily punch above its weight in every category, but its exceptional durability and battery endurance make it worth considering.

How Tough Is the Honor X9e Pro?

I wasn’t particularly fond of the X9d’s design, which I thought was trying a little too hard to look premium with all the gold trimmings and faux-leather finish. Thankfully, Honor has made some changes with the X9e Pro, and I think it looks considerably better than its predecessor.

The X9e Pro comes in four colours: Dawn Gold, Midnight Black, Reddish Brown, and Royal Purple. I received the Dawn Gold version for review, and I quite like it. The back has a smooth, satin-like finish that shifts between a darker gold shade and a much lighter, almost silvery gold depending on how the light hits it. It looks rather nice in person, and while the phone is still made primarily out of plastic, the overall fit and finish gives it a reasonably premium feel.

The circular camera housing has also received a bit of a makeover. The large back glass panel is surrounded by a finely textured silver ring with a dotted pattern that’s reminiscent of a luxury watch dial. There’s also a raised gold outer ring with ridged edges, much like a wristwatch bezel, which adds nice detail to the design. It’s a rather large camera module that protrudes quite a bit from the body, but I think the mix of textures and colours works well together.

What’s more impressive is that Honor has managed to fit an enormous 11,000mAh battery into a chassis that’s just 8.1mm thick and weighs 203g. That’s surprisingly light for a phone carrying such a massive battery, and in the hands it doesn’t feel any different from your typical large-screen smartphone. It’s comfortable to hold, doesn’t feel particularly slippery, and isn’t overly bulky or cumbersome.

But the main attraction is the X9e Pro’s durability.

Honor has upgraded its Ultra-Bounce Anti-Drop Technology to version 4.0, which uses a reinforced internal structure, shock-absorbing materials, and a special adhesive bonding system to distribute impact forces across the body rather than concentrating them in one area. The company claims the phone can survive drops from up to 3m onto smooth surfaces, and around 1.2m onto rougher terrain. It also carries an SGS 5-Star certification for drop resistance under harsh conditions.

I had the opportunity to put these claims to the test during a three-day trip with Honor, and I wasn’t particularly gentle with the phone. I smashed it against the ground on sandy and stone-littered surfaces, and it shrugged off the abuse without any apparent damage.

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But I didn’t stop there, so during an archery session, we decided to shoot some arrows at it. These were proper archery arrows with blunted tips, but they are more than capable of causing some serious damage. After a few missed attempts, our instructor landed a direct hit on the screen, and the phone survived that too.

Some colleagues from other media outlets went even further with their tests, and aside from a few scratches and damage to the pre-installed screen protector, their phones largely survived the ordeal.

The water resistance capabilities are equally impressive, at least on paper. The X9e Pro carries IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings, meaning it can withstand dust, water immersion, and even high-pressure, high-temperature water jets. Honor also claims it can survive immersion in up to 10m of water under controlled conditions, compared to the X9d’s 1.5m rating.

So, naturally, we took the phone out to the sea and dunked it in some incredibly salty water. We submerged it several times for around a minute at most, then took it snorkelling to test its underwater capabilities further. The phone survived, although the stereo speakers did sound a little cooked afterwards. Thankfully, Honor has included a handy water-draining feature that ejects any remaining liquid from the speakers, and using that brought the audio back to normal.

However, I would strongly advise against regularly taking the phone into the sea. While my unit survived the saltwater treatment, a colleague from another outlet wasn’t quite as lucky. Their SIM card and tray were fried, the fingerprint sensor stopped working, and there was some other damage as well. So while the X9e Pro is remarkably resistant to water, particularly freshwater, it’s certainly not foolproof against saltwater corrosion. IP ratings are achieved under controlled laboratory conditions and aren’t a guarantee the phone will survive every underwater adventure.

Honor has also included a dedicated Underwater Photography mode, which lets you take pictures and videos using the physical buttons rather than relying on the touchscreen, which is obviously difficult to operate underwater.

On the front, you have a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a 2788×1280 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and a claimed brightness of 10,000 nits. It’s largely the same experience as the X9d, with vibrant colours, deep blacks, good contrast, and enough sharpness to make everything from reading articles to watching videos look great. There is also 3840Hz PWM dimming and Honor’s usual eye-protection features to help reduce eye strain.

The 10,000 nits brightness figure sounds ridiculous, but it’s worth noting that this is a peak-brightness claim achieved under specific conditions, not something the display can sustain across the entire screen. Still, outdoor visibility is excellent. During the trip, I used the phone extensively under direct sunlight, taking pictures, recording videos, and generally navigating around the OS, and I never once struggled to see what was on the screen. Even under harsh daylight, the display remained perfectly legible.

As for the stereo speakers, they are plenty loud but don’t sound particularly good. The audio lacks clarity; there’s almost no bass to speak of, and the overall sound is slightly tinny. They are perfectly serviceable for watching Instagram reels, YouTube videos, or listening to the occasional voice message, but if you want to properly enjoy music, you will be better off using headphones or earbuds.

Are the Honor X9e Pro’s Cameras Any Good?

The Honor X9e Pro features a dual-camera setup with a 108MP f/1.7 main sensor with OIS and PDAF, accompanied by a 5MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. On the front, you have a 16MP selfie camera. The camera app offers 0.6x, 1x and 3x options, with the latter relying on digital zoom as there is no dedicated telephoto lens.

Unfortunately, the cameras are mediocre at best. Even in broad daylight, where the main camera should be at its best, the results are rather average. Pictures have decent colours, depth, and exposure, but heavy oversharpening gives everything an artificially processed look. Despite all that sharpening, there is a noticeable lack of fine detail, especially when you examine the pictures up close.

Zooming doesn’t help matters either. The image quality starts to deteriorate as soon as you move away from the native 1x view, and while 3x can produce usable results, anything beyond that sees a substantial loss of detail and sharpness. Low-light pictures fare similarly. The camera does a reasonable job of gathering light, but aggressive processing and a lack of detail preservation remain, resulting in pictures that look acceptable on the phone’s screen but don’t hold up well under scrutiny.

Video recording isn’t much better. Video is limited to 1080p at either 30fps or 60fps, and the results are again rather average. The image tends to wash out in bright daylight, with a noticeable loss of overall picture quality. The footage also stutters quite a bit when panning the camera, and the stabilisation is merely adequate, doing little to smooth out more deliberate movements.

For AED 1,599, these are strictly okay cameras. They are good enough for casual pictures, the occasional video, and sharing content on social media, but if photography is one of your main priorities, the X9e Pro won’t impress you much.

How Does the Honor X9e Pro Perform?

The X9e Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chipset, a modest upgrade over the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 found in the X9d. It’s not a particularly powerful processor, nor is it designed for demanding tasks or high-end gaming, but it does the job well for everyday use.

MagicOS 10 runs pretty smoothly on the hardware. Apps take a little longer to load, and the animations don’t have the snappiness of a flagship phone, but I didn’t notice any stutters or annoying slowdowns during regular use. Scrolling through social media, browsing websites, switching between apps, and other general tasks worked smoothly. Honor seems to have optimised MagicOS quite well here, especially considering the X9d occasionally suffered from sluggishness and stutters.

In benchmarks, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 shows some substantial improvements over its predecessor, particularly in multi-core and graphics performance.

Geekbench’s multi-core sees the biggest improvement at 58%, while 3DMark Wild Life and Steel Nomad Light are up by 26% and 22%, respectively. Oddly enough, single-core performance has regressed by around 15%, although it doesn’t seem to affect everyday usability. The improved graphics scores are welcome, but the chipset is still firmly mid-range, so don’t expect to max out demanding games.

Sustained performance is good. In 3DMark’s Wild Life Stress Test, the X9e Pro achieved 99.6% stability across 20 consecutive loops, with its highest and lowest scores coming in at 4,791 and 4,770, respectively. That’s barely any throttling, although it’s fairly typical of a lower-end chipset that doesn’t generate as much heat as its more powerful counterparts. The temperature rose from 38°C to 44°C during testing, and while the phone became noticeably warm during benchmarks, I never noticed it heating up during normal use, including extensive photography and video recording during the Honor trip.

On the software side, the X9e Pro runs Android 16 with MagicOS 10, which is largely the same experience found on Honor’s more expensive phones. It’s still one of my favourite Android skins, with a polished interface and some genuinely useful features. Magic Portal remains a personal favourite, allowing you to press and hold text or images and drag them directly into compatible apps for quick sharing. You also get Honor’s usual AI features, including AI Writing, AI Translation, and AI-powered photo editing tools, with no major differences from other recent MagicOS 10 devices.

Unfortunately, Honor has also stuffed the phone with a ridiculous amount of bloatware. Apps like UAE Pass, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok come pre-installed, and the phone encourages you to download even more games and apps during setup. Dedicated folders called Top Apps, Games, and Popular Apps are also filled with suggested downloads, which are annoying to remove. I mean, I understand that these promotions probably help subsidise the cost of a mid-range phone, but Honor really needs to relax a little.

Is Honor’s AI Image to Video 2.0 Worth Using?

One of the more interesting features on the X9e Pro is Honor’s AI Image to Video 2.0, which uses generative AI to turn static photographs into short animated videos. The updated version supports five-second clips complete with generated audio, custom text prompts, multiple images, and a wider selection of templates.

I tried it with a picture of a giraffe I took during the Honor trip, prompting the AI to make it move a little, face the camera, and say hi. And surprisingly, it did exactly that. The animation looked reasonably convincing; the movement was natural enough, and the whole thing took less than a minute to generate. It was quite amusing to see a perfectly ordinary photograph come to life with so little effort.

Of course, the results will depend on the quality of your original image and how you prompt the AI. Human subjects can be particularly tricky, as the AI may generate missing facial details that don’t quite resemble the actual person, and any generated voice won’t necessarily match theirs either. So don’t expect every image to produce equally convincing results.

Still, it’s a fun feature to play around with, and with the right image and some creative prompting, you could probably come up with something entertaining for social media. I don’t see myself using it regularly, but it’s nice to have the option. The only catch is that it isn’t entirely free, and once the trial expires, you will have to pay to keep generating videos. Whether it’s worth paying depends on how much fun you get out of it.

Battery Life

The Honor X9e Pro comes with a massive 11,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, up from the 8,300mAh battery on the X9d, which was already on the higher side. Despite the increased capacity, Honor has managed to keep the phone relatively slim at 8.1mm and 203g, which is quite impressive.

Battery life is expectedly excellent, with the phone comfortably lasting two days on a single charge with regular use – and maybe even more depending on your usage. Even during the Honor trip, where I was extensively using the phone for photography, video recording, sharing content, and watching social media things, the battery held up rather well.

Honor has also bumped up the wired charging speed from 66W on the X9d to 80W on the X9e Pro, which is welcome considering the enormous battery it has to fill. It also supports 27W wired reverse charging, letting you use the phone to charge another device in a pinch.

Should You Buy the Honor X9e Pro?

The Honor X9e Pro is a solid mid-range smartphone that has two very compelling features: exceptional durability and an absolutely monstrous 11,000mAh battery. The latter is easily the phone’s biggest selling point, providing enough juice to comfortably last two days without worrying about charging. Combined with its impressive drop and water resistance, it can take a fair bit of abuse and keep going.

If you value battery life and durability over camera quality or gaming performance, the X9e Pro makes a pretty good case for itself. Just don’t expect the ‘Pro’ in its name to mean flagship-level anything.