HONOR has been a prominent name in the budget and mid-range segment in India with its ‘X’ series smartphones like the HONOR 6X, 7X, 8X, etc. being very popular. They are back to compete in the Indian market with the HONOR 9X and 9X Pro that were launched earlier in the mid-range segment and now, they have launched the HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S in the affordable budget range.
Starting at Rs. 6,499 and Rs. 9,999 respectively, the HONOR 9S and HONOR 9A can be good options at their price points and try to offer an all-round experience, especially, if you are looking for a device with an attractive design. Both smartphones are powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 chipset and offer a trendy design.
The HONOR 9A has a gradient reflective back along with triple camera setup. It has a 5000mAh battery and reverse charging which when coupled with the HD+ display should result in a very good battery life. Speaking about the display, it’s a 6.3-inch panel with a dew-drop notch. There’s a fingerprint scanner and support for NFC as well which is a first in this segment.
While the HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S caters to different price points and have different features and specifications, what’s common between the two is the fact that they run on Huawei’s HMS Core which stands for ‘Huawei Mobile Services’ and hence, they come pre-installed with AppGallery instead of Google Play Store.
That’s right. You don’t get to use the Play Store or other Google apps but in this post, we will tell you how you can still get all your favorite apps and make the best use of HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S.
AppGallery is already the world’s third-largest app store and it’s growing by the day with more app developers getting on-board to develop apps for the HMS core. AppGallery has seen exponential growth and has registered a user base of 10 Million in India already, and they expect more consumers to use AppGallery through the newly launched HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S smartphones. According to HONOR, 95% of the top 160 apps and 85% of the top 500 apps in India are already available for users to download on the AppGallery, and can also be accessed through the ‘Search’ option in AppGallery which is powered by Petal Search.
In the past six months, HONOR has received 1 million new registrations for AppGallery, and given the growing user base, they plan to expand the list of available apps to get the top 5000 apps in the country on the store so that users don’t miss out on their favorite apps. Additionally, AppGallery integrates a four-step security feature that detects malicious behavior of apps, scans for security vulnerabilities, performs privacy leak checks, and makes sure that the app reviews are left by genuine users.
If you have recently got yourself the new HONOR 9A or HONOR 9S or are planning to buy one of these smartphones soon, there are multiple ways in which you can install your favorite apps on your new HONOR smartphone. Let’s go over them one by one.
Table of Contents
Phone Clone
Phone Clone is an app that comes pre-installed on the HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S and as the name suggests, it will help you transfer all your data from your previous smartphone including apps, games, photos, videos, documents, etc. onto your new HONOR smartphone. This is the easiest way to get all your apps since you won’t have to manually download them and you can directly start using your new phone just like your old one.
The way to use Phone Clone is to download the app on your old smartphone through any of the app stores that are present. Then, open the Phone Clone app on both your old smartphone and your new HONOR smartphone.
Then, tap on the ‘This is the new phone’ option on your HONOR smartphone and select the ‘This is the old phone’ option on your old smartphone.
Once they are connected, you will see an option to select all the content you want to transfer from your old phone to the new phone so make sure you select all your required apps and media.
After selecting the required data to transfer, select the ‘Transfer’ button, and wait for the process to complete. You’ll now have all your data from your old phone on your new HONOR 9S and HONOR 9A.
AppGallery
In case you do not have an old smartphone and the HONOR 9A or HONOR 9S is your first smartphone, don’t worry, instead of using Phone Clone, you can use the AppGallery to download your required apps. AppGallery is the official app distribution platform for Huawei and HONOR smartphones and contains curated content from various categories like Media, Entertainment, Games, Tools, Kids, etc.
In order to find and install apps through the AppGallery on your HONOR 9A or HONOR 9S smartphone, launch the AppGallery app and sign in with your credentials.
Once done, you will see a familiar interface with apps segregated into different categories. You can browse through the list of apps manually or you can use the integrated search bar to search for the apps you need and download them. The AppGallery also makes sure that your installed apps are updated to the latest version as and when they’re available.
Petal Search
Petal Search is the official search app for HONOR and Huawei smartphones from where consumers can search news, music, videos, weather, or any app they wish to download and is an all-in-one solution to all your application needs and information that you may need from the internet. The advantage of Petal Search is that if you cannot find the application that you want on AppGallery, Petal Search will suggest links to the application’s website from where you can download the APK file of that particular app and install it on your HONOR smartphone.
Quick Apps
AppGallery also comes with a feature to use Quick Apps, which are essentially apps in a lighter form that do not use much of your internet data and hence is suitable if you have an unstable internet connection or you don’t have a lot of bandwidth. They also don’t take up a lot of storage on your phone. Quick Apps allows you to download about 2,000 apps by using just 1GB of the phone’s storage space.
Both the HONOR 9A and 9S come with Android 10 out of the box and if you are familiar with the Android Operating System, you can even download APKs from external sources like APKMirror or APKpure for specific apps that you may not find on AppGallery. AppGallery continued to grow and features apps such as Hotstar, Paytm, MX Player, Byju’s, Zomato, Grofers, Flipkart, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Hungama, Jio news, Jio browser, MapmyIndia. Even the government’s Aarogya Setu app for Covid-19 contact tracing is available on AppGallery, so your health is never compromised.
The latest HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S smartphones will go on sale starting 6th August on Amazon and Flipkart respectively and will be available at a discounted price of just INR 8,999 and INR 5,999 during the first sale offer. While HONOR 9A offers an additional 10% instant discount on using HDFC Debit and Credit Cards, both HONOR 9A and HONOR 9S bring a no-cost EMI up to 6 months for consumers.