The Honor Note 9 has been the subject of numerous leaks ahead of its official launch, and now a new rumor cites the phablet as having the unannounced HiSilicon Kirin 670 SoC (System-on-Chip). This contradicts previous leaks, including the one from just a few days ago, which suggested the device would be sporting a refreshed version of last year’s Kirin 960, namely the Kirin 965 chipset. The latest rumor also gives more details about the Kirin 670, saying that it will be made on the 12nm manufacturing process and have four 2GHz Cortex-A53 cores with the Mali G72 MP4 GPU. No further information has been given about the new chip and it’s currently unclear when is the Chinese company planning to announce it, provided that the SoC actually exists.
Leaks and rumors about the Honor Note 9 stem back to March this year when a supposed real-life image of the new device from the Huawei subsidiary emerged. The original leak showed the metallic back of the handset along with a rear-fitted fingerprint sensor. It’s thought that the phone will have bezel-less sides, very slim bezels at the top and bottom of its front side, 2.5D curved glass, and physical controls on the right edge of its case. Leaked specifications so far have included a 6.6-inch display with QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440, 6GB of RAM (possibly more options), and at least 32GB of flash memory. The Honor Note 9 is expected to have a dual rear camera arrangement with two 12 or 13-megapixel sensors and a dual-LED (dual tone) flash unit. An 8-megapixel front-facing shooter has also been tipped, as well as a 4,600mAh or 5,100mAh battery.
The device is anticipated to be running the Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS skinned with Huawei’s Emotion UI at launch, and previous leaks have implied that it will be updated to Android O in early 2018. The Honor Note 9 will succeed the Honor Note 8 and could be officially announced as early as this month. However, it now seems more likely that it will be announced at IFA Berlin in early September and may hit the market by October. More information on the smartphone is likely to be available soon.