A Short Review on the Honor 8X
October 16, 2018 • Android • honor • Reviews
Honor and its parent company Huawei has a practice of oversaturating the market with a superfluity of extremely similar models. At first look, Honor 8X seems like it is not any exception.
The phablet comes with a 6.5-inch notched LCD panel, the fairly new mid-range Kirin 710 chipset and a 3,750 mAh battery. These specifications however, are comparable to other Huawei models like the Huawei P Smart+ (nova 3i) and the Huawei Mate 20 Lite. Huawei Honor Play and the Huawei nova 3 also fit the overall description, albeit with the more powerful flagship Kirin 970 chipset. And there are also notch-free options with similar specifications, like the Honor Note 10 or the Honor View 10.
It’s as if Huawei is overwhelming customers with the number of choices despite the fact these models are not all offered on the same markets. However, one fact the stands out is that Honor 8X seems to bring the best value for money for the aforementioned hardware specs with it low price. The model is a great affordable mid-range option, but don’t expect to ‘wow’ you as there is lack of new novel features.
Using the Honor 8X is expectedly familiar. At 160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8 mm and weighing at 175 grams, the phone sits comfortably on the palm of the hand. Instead of the having Gorilla Glass, the back of the phone is made of plastic. Notwithstanding that, its body is sturdy to the touch. A case is recommended as the plastic back is more prone to scratches.
However, the back plate does have an interesting feature; the left portion of the area that houses the dual camera setup has a less-glossy texture. This feature helps it in differentiating itself from the rest of the Huawei and Honor models. It is also nice to see a thinner bezel and notch for the Honor 8X display. Colours that are available include Black, Blue, Red and Pink.
The fingerprint reader is located on the back side of the Honor 8X. It is a really accurate and responsive reader that unlocks as fast as 0.3 seconds. Honor 8X also includes face unlock. However, that one takes a longer time to unlock: 0.6 seconds on average.
The SIM tray can house a maximum of dual Nano SIM cards along with a microSD card. No hybrid setups and compromises in sight. The top side of the Honor 8X is practically empty, only housing a small secondary microphone. On the bottom - the main microphone, single speaker and a 3.5mm audio jack. Pretty great setup, only partially spoiled by the choice of a dated microUSB 2.0 port. Still, reminding ourselves of the price tag make this a lot easier to swallow.
Display
The 1080 x 2340 px resolution looks perfectly adequate on its 6.5-inch. The LCD portrays images with good clarity and details. The tall aspect ratio it comes in – 19.5:9 – like many of its siblings is rather similar to the typical cinematic video ratio.
Internals
Honor 8X is powered by Hisilicon's relatively new Kirin 710 chipset and this Kirin 710 is has an octa-core processor configuration, with 4x2.2 GHz Cortex-A73 and 4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 units. This combination brings its performance close to the flagship Kirin 960’s. Honor 8X comes is 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for the base model and 6GB with 64GB or 128GB on the better variants. These specifications along with the aforementioned chipset’s prowess, gives you a very capable setup. Honor 8X has also performed well within expectations with decent results for the benchmarks.
Camera
Honor 8X is armed with 20MP, f/1.8, 27mm equivalent wide-angle, together with a 2MP depth sensor configuration; a straight-forward phase detection autofocus system with a single LED flash.
Conclusion
The Honor 8X is simply solid mid-range phone, with an attractive low price. Despite that, it is hard to give it strong recommendation due to the fact that other Huawei and Honor phones with similar specifications exist and can easily be alternatives to the Honor 8X in the same price range.