Honor 8x – This Beauty is a Beast! [Review]

Honor 7x was a massive success in India and it became one of the best selling mid-range mobiles last year. Its successor, Honor 8x carries on the baton and strives to beat its records. But the landscape has gone through massive transformation. The competition is intense. Every mobile manufacturer has a decent offering in this segment. Will Honor 8x come out as a winner? Let us find out.

Design

Honor 8x looks nothing like Honor 7x. Honor has mastered the art of designing mobiles. Design is a key feature and differentiator in Honor mobiles. Honor 8x has a dual tone shining pattern underneath the glass back. It shines and shimmers in light like a crown jewel. Our review unit was the Blue, but I did get my hands on the Red variant and I fell in love with it instantly. Honor surely knows how to make their design stand out, tall in the maddening crowd of boring design.

At the bottom, we have 3.5mm jack, mic, micro USB port and a speaker. The top has a noise cancelling mic. The left has a triple card slot tray and the right has the power and volume buttons. The buttons have good tactile feedback, but there is no texture differentiation. The back has a dual camera arrangement with a mild bump. The fingerprint sensor is at the back and the front has a notch above the display. The notch houses the front camera, speaker and proximity sensor. There is notification LED, but no flash.

The mobile is made of glass and it has a metal rim. The edges are rounded and smooth. The mobile has no sharp corners and it is comfortable to hold in the hand. It is a stylish mobile and it will make heads turn. Honor 8x is a fashion statement and still it is a sturdy mobile.

Display

Honor 8x has an IPS LCD panel display which is 6.5 inch diagonally. It is a full HD display with over 91% screen to body ratio. Honor uses a similar technology like iPhone X where it bends the display circuits at the bottom, under the display to minimize the bottom chin. The notch enable the mobile to have a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The display is bright and vivid. It has good sunlight readability. Honor 8x had got TUV Rheinland certification for low-blue light radiation, which means that this mobile will not harm your eyes.

Camera

Honor 7x was known for its camera and Honor 8x carries on the legacy. It has a 20 MP primary camera with a 2 MP depth sensor at the back. The front has a 16 MP shooter. The mobile can shoot 4K videos. It has AIS for night mode shots. The night mode in the mobile can help you keep the shutter open for 3 seconds and yet click handheld pictures at low light conditions. Low light shots in Auto mode is not impressive, but the night mode makes a lot of difference.

Daylight shots are detailed and crisp. Exposure and white balance are spot on. Color reproduction is accurate. The front facing camera can also click some good selfies with natural skin tones. The camera app is versatile and it can be a good companion for the photography enthusiast in you. Honor 8x has got one of the best cameras in this segment. Check out the camera samples below.

Hardware and Performance

Honor 8X is powered by Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor and it has MALI G51 MP4 GPU. But the GPU gets a shot of Adrenalin with GPU force. Game play on this mobile is exceptionally smooth. I played about 10 games continuously withing 60 minutes and the systems showed no signs of throttling. No frame drop and gaming was buttery smooth. It has 4 or 6 GB or RAM with 64 or 128 GB internal memory configurations. My review unit is a 4 GB unit, yet I found that this is one of the smoothest mobiles in this segment, when it comes to performance.

Speakers are loud, not of very high quality, but it is very clear for games, media and conference calls. Network signal latching and switching was instantaneous. Fingerprint sensor is fast and Face ID is also reliable to a large extent under most ambient light conditions. Considering the fact that this is a mid-range mobile, its hardware versality and performance matches many flagship devices.

Software

At this time of writing the review, the Honor 8X is running on EMUI 8.2 with Android 8.1 on top and it might be soon updated to EMUI and Android 9 versions. Out of all the Android skins out there, EMUI and MIUI are the most sensible ones with tonnes of features and reliable stability. EMUI on Honor 8x is smooth in operation. The apps load fast and close effectively. Memory management is good. The UI has a bunch of features which is very useful and adds a lot of utility value. It has Ride mode, Simple mode, full screen gestures, phone manager utility and much more useful features.

Battery

Honor 8x is powered by 3750 mAh battery. It comes with a 5v 2A charger which can charger it from 0 to 100% in about 2 hours. On moderate usage, the mobile can last little more than a day. I get about 20-25% charge left when I hit bed. But if the mobile is used intensely, I get screen on-time of about 4-5 hours. I had the mobile on my car with GPS navigation turned on with 2 VoLTE SIM cards, and data connected to stream music to my car bluetooth, when I drove from Bangalore to Chennai. I managed to reach Chennai in 6 hours and 25% of battery left. That is impressive.

Verdict

Honor 8x will win your heart for being the most gorgeous mid-range mobile with high end performance. It has a good camera, not great, just because of the poor portrait mode processing. It is a stylish and powerful mobile. It has a bright, if not vibrant, display. It gives you impressive battery life and the processor used here is highly power efficient. It is priced sensibly, starting at Rs 14999. Go for it, if you are in the market looking for a reliable mobile in the market that stands out in the crowd with its aesthetic design.

Buy Honor 8X on Amazon