Honor 8X Review: The Most Stylish Phone For The Price Range

In just a short amount of time, the sub-brand of Huawei, Honor, has already released quite a few handsets in the affordable to mid-range segments. The Honor 8X is among the recently released devices with a starting price of Rs. 14,999. In this segment which Xiaomi is dominating, will the Honor 8X be able to stand out? Here is our review of the Honor 8X.

Stylish

In the first glance, one thing you may agree with us is that it is one of the best-looking handsets in its segment. A glass body, near a bezel-less display with a gradient color scheme, make the Honor phone look a lot more premium than other phones at the same price range.

While the Honor 8X comes in three colour options, it surely looks the best in the blue color option. The gradient color scheme as Honor claims it’s pretty unique and helps the phone stand out. However, its glossy back panel can be a smudge and fingerprint magnet. But you can still use a clear case packed with the Honor handset that can protect it and offer extra grip.

Near bezel-less

Another feature that set the Honor 8X apart is its Full-View display with minimal bezels surrounding it. Honor 8X also follows the notch trend with one at the top, and it also has a slimmer chin compared to its rival handsets at the bottom.

You can play games or enjoy watching videos with its 6.5-inch Full-HD+ display. With a decent color reproduction, the phone also displays sharp text and also has decent viewing angles. There are also options of tweaking the color temperature or reducing the resolution of the display to save up battery life. You can even hide the notch in the Settings with the options of putting black bars on both sides of it.

Decent Performance

While the unique selling point of this Honor 8X is still style, the Chinese phone maker doesn’t comprise its device's performance at all. The handset features a Kirin 710 12nm SoC coupled with up to 6GB RAM. There are a total of three options: 4GB RAM/64GB storage, 6GB RAM/64GB storage, and 6GB RAM/128GB storage.

In terms of performance, the Honor 8X’s specs can well-handle the daily tasks easily. Even though the phone delivers a smooth experience, you may sometime get some stutters with some particular apps. The smooth performance can be due to EMUI 8.2.0 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. The UI of Huawei has been becoming leaner and came with less bloatware as well.

The handset can also run heavy games like Asphalt 9 with relative ease. But to ensure a consistently smooth experience, you may have to lower the graphics setting a little bit. Similar to other Honor handsets, it will also have GPU Turbo feature. And it tends to heat up a little bit during gaming, but not to the level of uncomfortable.

The Honor 8X has a 3,750mAh battery, which seems lackluster for a device with a 6.5-inch display. However, similar to recent Huawei and Honor devices, its battery life is much better than average. And that is with my regular usage of typical office tasks, messaging apps and also a little bit of gaming and video. Besides, it lasts much longer than Apple's iPhone XS. Among its Android competitors, the Honor 8X is surely not a class leader, but it's still very solid.

Not-so-impressive cameras

The camera is the aspect that I don’t really like in the Honor 8X. At the back, the handset features a dual camera setup with a 20MP primary sensor and a secondary 2MP depth sensor. The cameras are also supported by AI which Honor claims to help users take better shots. In the front, there is a 16MP fixed-focus sensor located in the notch.

In the ideal lighting conditions, its cameras can take pretty decent shots even though it still needs a bit more clarity. The AI can also a good help in taking photos that look exciting, but I think it sometimes oversaturates the photos.

Honor also offers Night mode that supports taking photos in low-light situations, but you have to hold the handset stable for around 5 seconds, but it is actually not that helpful.

Its front-facing camera for selfie actually takes better photos in good lighting conditions. There is also Portrait mode for the front camera that allows you to take selfies with blurred background.

Other things you should know

The handset comes with several extra apps but some of them are unwanted, like some games that were already popular only years ago. Others are some regular apps like compass, torch app, digital manual, and phone manager.

The most unusual extra apps are pretty silly, in classic Huawei/Honor form like the Party Mode which lets users share tunes with other Honor devices by making a Wi-Fi hotspot. All of the devices will then play the same shared tunes through the speakers. And the Karaoke Mode allows users to monitor their singing through a headphone, using the device's mic. It is n

Is it a good purchase?

With the starting price of Rs. 14,999, this Honor handset is competing in the segment which is already filled with many options, including some notable names like Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro, Realme 2 Pro, Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1.

Again, the highlight of this Honor 8X is its design, which obviously targets people who want a stand-out device. The full-screen display with a glass design and gradient color really make the phone stand out with a more premium look and feel than its competitors. In addition, even with excellent design, Honor still doesn’t compromise the handset’s performance at all. However, its camera is something that we don’t like in this phone.

If you are looking to buy a new phone within the price range of Rs. 15,000, the Honor 8X would be a good option for you. But I have to say that the higher variants of this handset don’t offer the same level of value. Those higher variants fall into the price range where you can have better choices like the Xiaomi Poco F1 or the Honor Play.