With the ever-increasing competition in the budget and flagship segment of smartphones, companies are now looking for more and more opportunities to showcase their portfolio. With these new developments, the mid-range of the smartphone market seems to be growing more and more populated with new entrants almost every week. Today we are going to take a look at two mid-rangers which are recently commanding a lot of attention from quite a lot of people. The phones are Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) and the Honor 9 Lite.
Display
The Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) sports a 5.99-inch IPS LCD screen with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. On the other hand, the Honor 9 Lite, sports a 5.65-inch IPS display along with Full HD+ 1080 × 2160 pixels resolution and a similar aspect ratio of 18:9. Although both the phones come with exact similar resolution and aspect ratio, the Honor 9 Lite lags a bit in screen size.
Performance
The Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC under the hood which comes coupled with Adreno 509 GPU for graphics. The phone will sell with three variants in the market which will be - 3GB RAM/32GB storage, 4GB RAM/64GB storage, 6GB RAM/64GB storage. On the OS front, the phone runs on Android 8.1 Oreo which comes without any bloatware or customisation and provides a stock Android experience. The Honor 9 Lite comes powered with the octa-core Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC which comes in 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB storage options. For the OS, the phone runs on EMUI 8.0 which is based on top of Android Oreo.
Camera
The Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) comes with a dual camera setup on the rear which consists of a 13MP primary shooter and a 5MP secondary shooter. The phone’s 6GB RAM variant gets an upgrade on the camera front too with the dual camera setup sporting 16MP+8MP sensors. On the front, the phone comes with an 8MP sensor for selfies. Secondly, the Honor 9 Lite ships with a dual camera setup on both the front and rear, the specifications of both the dual camera setup is 13MP+2MP. The dual camera setup on both sides of the phone makes it a unique one in the market, with the Honor 9 Lite being the first phone to do so in this price range.
Pricing
The Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) goes for sale starting May 3 and will be available exclusively via Flipkart. Its 3GB RAM/32GB storage variant will come at a price tag of Rs 10,999, the second variant with 4GB RAM/64GB storage will be priced at Rs 12,999, and lastly, the 6GB RAM/64GB storage will ship for Rs 14,999.
The Honor 9 Lite’s 3GB RAM/32GB storage variant will start selling for Rs 10,999 while the 4GB RAM/64GB storage variant will come with a price tag of Rs 14,999.
Verdict
On paper, the Zenfone Max Pro (M1) boasts better specs than the Honor 9 Lite. The beefy 5000mAh battery and stock Android presence make the device a de-facto option for many. But the Honor 9 Lite is possibly the best-looking device in its price range.
