Honor 8X Review; Exceeding Expectations

Ciara Alarcon
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INTRODUCTION:

Honor is known for releasing powerful smartphones with an affordable asking price. Impressively, as a Huawei sub-brand, Honor is consistently producing counterpart-device that shares almost identical features with Huawei’s handsets. For instance, Honor recently brought its new Honor 8X in the Philippines, reminding us of the Huawei Nova 3i.

Honor 8X Review; Exceeding Expectations
Honor 8X Review; Exceeding Expectations

Our team luckily got a chance to play around with the Honor 8X. During our time spent with the device, we couldn’t help ourselves but compare it with Huawei- smartphones. So, continue to read, and see what more it can offer. Let's dig deeper here!

PHYSICAL:

Looking at the Honor 8X, you could assume that its built was patterned to the Huawei Nova 3 line. The device is one of the most good-looking handsets at its price point, too. Dressed with a glass-like back panel, it disguises as a premium smartphone as it showcases a trendy physique. It comes with a dual-tone design on its back, as well, making it unique compared to this year's color gradient trend.

Its front is dominated by a 6.5inch panel with slim bezels, and a notch on top of it. This houses its earpiece, front camera, and sensors. Putting it head to head with the Nova 3, you would easily notice that it has a smaller notch than the latter. Well, we need to consider that the Nova 3 comes with dual front snappers, while the Honor 8X is armed with a single camera setup for selfies.

See Also: Honor Offers Hot Deals This Holiday Season

Volume Rocker, and Power/Lock Button
Volume Rocker, and Power/Lock Button

Its volume rocker and power/lock button are sited on the right cheek of the unit. Its left side, on the other hand, accommodates its triple-card tray that can sit two nano-sized SIM cards, and a microSD card. With this, users are allowed to expand their storage up to 256GB.

Found on the top is its secondary microphone, while its 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port, speaker, and main microphone are located on its chin.

Dual-tone Design
Dual-tone Design

Flip the device on its back to see its unique dual-tone color. Personally, this appeared refreshing to us, knowing that almost all of the new smartphones have already embraced the trendy gradient color design. Its back flashes its dual rear cameras and LED flash, which are aligned vertically. It boasts its fingerprint scanner, and branding, too.

Having a tall body, we’re impressed that its keys are thoughtfully placed somewhere we could easily reach it. All of them also functioned well.

Just like other glass-like smartphones, the Honor 8X is a fingerprint magnet. So, it’s really advisable to use a protective case to avoid turning this good-looking device into a mess. Unfortunately, Honor didn’t provide one.

DISPLAY:

Going back to its display, the Honor 8X flaunts a 6.5-inch Full HD+ IPS panel with 2340 x 1080 pixels and 19.5:9 aspect ratio, which translates to 397ppi. Athough it has a good brightness level, it is unfortunately inconsistent when exposed under direct sunlight. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed watching videos and playing games using the device. It has sharp, vivid, and balanced color, too.

Its display settings include Eye Comfort mode that allows users to filter out blue light, and relieve visual fatigue. When this mode is enabled, the screen will have a warmer light. Users can also adjust its color temperature.

Navigation Keys
Navigation Keys

It offers a View mode, as well, letting users to adjust its icon and font sizes. For us, we prefer having it at its smallest level to complement its huge display. Seriously, we don’t want our icons and fonts appeared like its screaming, right?

Moreover, if you’re one of those consumers who hate having a notch on top of their device’s panel, then this might be a good news for you, as Honor allows users to hide its notch through its display setting. Meanwhile, we never had a problem dealing with it. And honestly, you’d get used to it eventually.

SOFTWARE:

The Honor 8X loads EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo O.S. It comes with numbers of pre-installed apps such as Game Suite, Mirror, Compass, and Theme apps. The device is loaded with Google apps, as well, leaving users with just 53.97GB internal storage (from 64GB).

The unit comes with colorful icons. By default, it has no app drawer, but Honor lets users to have one via display settings. You can also organize your apps by simply creating an app folder.

EMUI 8.2 Based on Android 8.1 Oreo
EMUI 8.2 Based on Android 8.1 Oreo

Navigating the device is easy, too. Swiping down in the middle of the panel would reveal your recommended apps. Doing so would even allow users to search through their contacts and messages. Meanwhile, a long press to its home button will bring you to Google Assistant. The device can also minimize its display so users can easily enjoy one-hand usage.

Swiping down from the top, however, will take you to its notification bar and some shortcuts.

PERFORMANCE:

Let’s admit it, just like Xiaomi, Honor produces capable smartphones even when its handsets were tagged with affordable price tags. For instance, the Honor 8X carries a Kirin 710 octa-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz. This was the same chipset found inside the Nova 3i – which sells for Php15,990. This new chip comes with 12nm mode, and has four 2.2GHz Cortex-A73 cores and another four low-power 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 cores. This promised to increase its speeds by 75% in single core and 68% in multi core.

Moreover, the device is complemented with Mali-G51 MP4 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and up to 128GB of internal storage.

Benchmark Results
Benchmark Results

Tapped as our daily driver, the Honor 8X didn’t let us down. It has a smooth performance even when we’re always switching from one app to another. Compared with other smartphones at its price point, we could say that Honor was able to make it a real standout device. It also didn’t lag when we were heavily using it.

Our main mobile activities include non-stop communications, continuous social media browsing, multimedia, and casual gaming.

Jumping off to its gaming performance, the Honor 8X managed to put itself as a go-to smartphone of consumers who are looking for a gaming device, which won’t cost an arm and leg. Of course, it won’t deliver a flawless gaming experience but it would surely satisfy your gaming needs.

We enjoyed playing games using the handset, however, we’d suggest users to turn down their graphics settings to have a seamless playtime.

Gaming
Gaming

The Honor 8X also has Gaming Suite feature, which includes options for Game Acceleration, Do Not Disturb, and 4D Smart Shock.

When Game Acceleration is on, the device’s settings will be optimized for gaming. The downside, the handset would consume more power, and may heat up. Its Do Not Disturb mode, on the other hand, offers Uninterrupted Gaming or Zero Interruptions. The former would block all on-screen notifications except for call, alarm, and low battery alert; while the latter would block everything.

Meanwhile, the 4D Smart Shock would provide haptic feedback during gameplay, resulting to a more immersive gaming experience.

CAMERA:

One of its key selling points is found on its photography department. Geared with AI capabilities, the Honor 8X could enhance photos – whether selfie, portrait, scenery, or more.

Camera Settings
Camera Settings

The unit is mounted with a 20-megapixel f/1.8 main shooter, and 2-megapixel depth sensor. It comes with PDAF, Master AI, and LED flash. For selfie, it boasts an impressive 16-megapixel f/2.0 snapper with AI Face Beauty. For comparison, the Nova 3i sports a 16-megapixel + 2-megapixel dual rear cameras, and 24-megapixel + 2-megapixel front shooters. You can check some of our sample photos here.

Related: Honor 8X versus Huawei Nova 3i

The Honor 8X is also packed with various camera modes such as Aperture, Night, Portrait, Pro, Slow-mo, Panorama, AR lens, Light painting, HDR, Timelapse, Beautification, and some filters.

Sample Photos:


Night Mode
Night Mode

Low-light (Outdoor)
Low-light (Outdoor)

Outdoor with AI
Outdoor with AI

Outdoor
Outdoor

Outdoor
Outdoor

  Indoor (Lowlight)
Indoor (Lowlight)

Selfie with Beautification
Selfie with Beautification

The Honor 8X could produce great images in places with good lighting, while its exposure works great, as well. The photos have vibrant and rich colors, but we could somehow notice some noises most especially when we zoom it. What seems to be its weakest point, however, is its low-light performance. Good thing, it features a Night Mode that helped us took decent photos with right exposures.

It comes with AI capabilities that could recognize up to 22 different scenarios. While we understood that its job is to level up its color, we couldn’t help but think that it overdone almost all of our shots. Hence, it appeared less realistic.

Its front camera, on the other hand, performed well. It shared the same sentiments we had on its main shooters, though.

CONNECTIVITY:


Triple Card Slots
Triple Card Slots

The Honor 8X is a dual-SIM device that supports LTE connectivity. Unlike the Nova 3i, it has triple-card slots that could really accommodate two nano-sized SIM cards plus a microSD card. In case you’re running out of data connection, the device also supports WiFi 802.11 b/g/n. It has basic connectivity features, too, such as Bluetooth v4.2, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, and BDS. All of these worked well during our tests.

Not like other latest smartphones, the Honor 8X still has a 3.5mm audio port. Nevertheless, we’d appreciate it more if it wasn't equipped with a dated microUSB 2.0.

BATTERY:

Powering up the device is a 3750mAh battery that supports fast charging. Really, the Honor 8X was able to join our lists of smartphones that could really accompany us on our daily mobile tasks.

The Honor 8X is being bragged for its gaming performance, and camera features. But for us, the device’s most striking offering is its stamina.

3750mAh Battery
3750mAh Battery

Tapped as our daily driver, the phone could last longer than nine hours. Our daily activities include basic communications, continuous social media browsing, and casual gaming, while it remained connected to WiFi or data.

When heavily used, most especially when gaming, the Honor 8X could run for almost six hours. We just have to note that its brightness level was set at its lowest level, while its volume was at 50 percent.

Impressively, when used as our secondary phone, the Honor 8X could last for almost two days and a half.

Since we could not run it on PCMark Battery Life Test, we did our video loop test where it took 13 hours and 57 minutes before running out of juice.

CONCLUSION:

Honor was able to step up the game of its segment. Packed with notable features that are usually found on more expensive devices, the Honor 8X came prepared to battle out its rivals through its impressive overall performance.

The Honor 8X is obviously geared with balanced offerings, noting that it didn’t compensate any of its features to maintain its low asking price.

Frankly, consumers who are after photography-centric smartphones might cross out the Honor 8X. However, looking beyond this could change your mind, considering that it has great display, smooth performance, and long battery life.

Priced for only Php12,990, the Honor 8X exceeded our expectations, and would surely leave our lab on a high note.

Honor 8X Specs (Philippines):

  • Dual SIM, dual standby, supports LTE connectivity
  • 6.5-inch FHD+ (2340 x 1080) capacitive touchscreen display, 396 PPI
  • Dimensions: 160.4mm x 76.6mm x 7.8mm
  • Weight: 175 grams
  • EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo
  • 64-bit 2.2GHz octa core CPU, Mali-G51MP4 GPU, HiSilicon Kirin 710 chipset
  • 4GB RAM
  • 64GB/128GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB via MicroSD card, uses dedicated slot
  • 20MP f/1.8 + 2MP dual rear cameras with PDAF, Master AI, and LED flash
  • 16MP f/2.0 front camera with AI face beauty
  • Multimedia Player
  • FM Radio
  • Bluetooth v4.2
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
  • GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
  • Micro USB 2.0 with OTG function
  • Sensors: fingerprint, accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
  • Battery: 3750mAh with fast charging
  • Colors: black, blue, purple, red
  • Others: face unlock
  • Price: Php12,990

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