Smartphones are increasingly becoming feature rich and the more affordable. Features that looked high-end or premium just last year, are now standard features in the mid-range phones. Dual-Camera, Edge-to-Edge large display, premium build are some such features which were only seen in high-end of flagship segment, but the hook is that they are now available in phones under Rs. 20,000 and in this post, we are comparing two such potent phones, the Honor 9i VS Moto G5s Plus. The Honor 9i costs Rs. 17,999 while Moto G5s Plus costs Rs. 15,999. Both the phones are under Rs. 20,000 price bracket and offer great features for the price. Let us find out, which one is better and why? Let us compare both feature-by-feature and see which has more merit to claim the higher position.
Honor 9i VS Moto G5s Plus
Design & Build
In terms of design, both Moto G5s Plus and Honor 9i look very elegant and classy. They both use metal and glass design language. But because of a different display aspect ratio (18:9), the Honor 9i feels much slimmer as it is taller as compared to Moto G5s but less wide and lower in thickness as well. Both phones feel robust in hand and have a premium feel to them. I personally feel the Honor 9i is slightly ahead when it comes to design.
Display
The display is one area where Honor 9i outshines the Moto G5s Plus easily because of its tall and bright 5.9 inches 18:9 edge-to-edge display and very narrow bezels. The front of the phone is mostly display, which makes it look very premium; it looks akin to the phones available in price segments above it because of the display. On the other hand, Moto G5s Plus also features a good quality display panel with a smaller 5.5-inch size and conventional 16:9 aspect ratio, but it does not look as impressive next to an Honor 9i display. So for display, I have to give it to Honor 9i.
Camera
Moto G5s Plus gets a dual 13 MP Camera setup at rear with Dual LED flash while the Honor 9i gets 16 MP + 2 MP dual camera setup with PDAF and flash. But as per my experience with both the phones, I feel that Honor 9i does a much better job at creating the background blur effect (aka portrait effect or depth effect) compared to the Moto G5s Plus cameras. Also, the quality, in general, is slightly superior and more detailed on the Honor 9i.
Coming to the front-facing cameras, while the Moto G5s Plus offers an 8 MP front camera with LED Flash, the Honor 9i offers Dual front cameras- 13 MP + 2 MP at front with front camera portrait mode on the Honor 9i. The selfies taken with Honor 9i are way better in-depth effect as well as detailing. So if you love clicking selfies, Honor 9i is clearly the better bet here.
Performance
Moto G5s Plus has Snapdragon 625 Chipset with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB Internal memory. With almost stock build of android Nougat, it does perform very smooth without any disruption. I quite like the way it performs. The Honor 9i gets a HiSilicon Kirin 659 CPU with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB Internal memory. It uses EMUI software (feature rich UI by Honor) on top of Android Nougat. It is also very fast in terms of performance and at par with the Moto G5s Plus in terms of performance.
Battery Life
Both the phones offer a very good battery life, but Honor 9i lasts slightly longer compared to the Moto G5s Plus because of a more efficient chip and a larger battery capacity of 3340 mAh compared to 3000 mAh on Moto G5s Plus.
Verdict- Honor 9i VS Moto G5s Plus- Which Is Better And Why?
Although the Honor 9i costs around Rs. 2000 more than the Moto G5s Plus, it offers a better design, better display, better camera performance, similar overall performance and slightly better battery life. If I have to choose one of these two phones, I would definitely pick the Honor 9i.
