Review of Honor 8X - an incredibly beautiful smartphone

Design

Honor 8X looks luxurious.

I'm talking specifically about the red color that came into my hands. There are also blue and black ones - they are less spectacular, but also good.

But probably no other can compare with the rich ruby color of the case: it is bright, juicy, deep. The iridescent glossy back of the smartphone looks so elegant and impressive that you just can’t take your eyes off it for the first few days. Yes, perhaps this color is more suitable for the female half - but this does not make the smartphone any less beautiful. I would go with him myself. Honestly.

There is a special strip made for the two rear cameras and the logo, which are located on the left side of the body: we saw something similar on the old Lenovo Vibe Shot camera phone. But if there the stripe was matte (and metallic), then here it is also glossy, only in different shades from the main color.

There is a small flaw in the case - it gets very dirty.

There are plenty of fingerprints on the back, from almost any touch. Dust also sticks to it. And this is sad, because such beauty is quickly spoiled by all sorts of external manifestations. And I really don’t want to cover it with a cover.

We also keep in mind that the smartphone is quite slippery.

Moreover, this is unnoticeable when it is in your hands, but plays a big role when the device is lying somewhere. A tiny slope of the surface - that's all, the phone slowly moved along it. So the risk of falling increases if you place it poorly.

Let's move on to the front side, which also looks very cool.

Yes, there is a visor, but it was made minimally wide, so it is not very noticeable. There are frames around the screen, traditionally for Honor and Huawei, although they are not wide. The good news here is that the lower chin is not much wider than the other strips around the screen (the thickness is only 4.25 mm). It is so thanks to COF technology, which allows the charging socket to be placed not in the body itself, but under the screen - hence the compactness. I don’t rule out that the chin can still be called wide - but we’ve seen much wider and worse ones: in the same Huawei Nova 3 or Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite.

Therefore, everything looks neat and consistent, not a single element spoils the overall impression. Although, of course, I would like to see the frames on all sides narrower - then it would be generally ideal.

Display

I already talked about the frames and bangs, now let’s turn our attention directly to the screen itself.

The 6.5-inch matrix with FHD+ resolution offers high-quality and clear images. We won't find any pixels or other problems here.

There is, however, the opportunity to lower the resolution to HD+ to save battery power - in this resolution, of course, the quality deteriorates. The phone can do this itself using the “smart screen” mode.

I also really liked the Honor 8X display for its colors and saturation. You know, sometimes it happens that the colors are rich and bright, but slightly “hit” the eyes. Here this negative point is not present, and the color temperature is still bright and cool. But whoever doesn’t like it, you can traditionally adjust it in the settings.

The display itself is very bright, so it will be more than enough in the sun. But there is also a fly in the ointment.

Sometimes there are problems with auto brightness.

I already encountered the same problem with Huawei Mate 20 Lite. The brightness is not always reduced to the desired level in dark rooms, and can blind the owner of the smartphone. In such cases, if Honor does not get used to it over time, you will have to turn the slider manually.

Otherwise, the device’s display left only positive impressions. And not only because of the quality of the picture, but also because of the small, unobtrusive visor - thanks to it, a lot of useful information can be placed on the sides. So everything is not only beautiful, but also practical.

⇡#Shooting quality

The Honor 8X, like any other smartphone in the same price category, does not pretend to be a camera phone, although the presence of two lenses on the rear panel may mislead the inexperienced user. So, you don’t have much hope for the second matrix: its resolution is only 2 megapixels, and it is needed, in fact, only for better separation of the foreground from the background and subsequent software blurring of the background. Well, all the main work falls on the second module with a resolution of 20 megapixels and an aperture ratio of ƒ/1.8.

By class standards, the device takes photographs quite well. There are no problems at all in obtaining good, detailed images during the day, including in dull cloudy weather.

The device does not give up even if you need to take a macro photograph of some flower or other relatively small object: everything is in order with sharpness at the focus point, and there is a beautiful blur around it. You can bring the lens quite close to the subject.

The dynamic range is not particularly wide, but the automation tries its best to “pull out” overexposed or underexposed fragments of frames. In the second case, however, the situation results in a drop in sharpness in dark areas and the appearance of noise.

If, when shooting outdoors, the camera forgives the format of working in the “point and shoot” mode, then this will no longer work indoors. There is no stabilizer, so you need to hold the smartphone firmly and levelly in your hands, and be sure to remember to select the desired focus point. If you also slightly manually adjust the exposure using the slider, then the amount of noise will be minimal, and the sharpness will drop slightly compared to daytime photos outdoors.

Well, taking photographs at night with a phone, of course, becomes quite difficult. Sharpness drops significantly, a lot of noise appears, and attempts by the built-in noise reduction to smooth them out sometimes make the frames frankly plastic. And the Honor 8X struggles with complex mixed artificial light. However, this is all completely normal and expected for a smartphone for this kind of money.

The front camera with a resolution of 16 megapixels is very decent. In the dark, of course, you shouldn’t expect cool self-portraits from her, but in daylight and with sufficient artificial light, selfies are only pleasing: the color rendition is normal, and the detailing is absolutely wonderful. The main thing, again, is not to rush anywhere and do not forget to choose a focus point, since there is autofocus here.

There's not much to say about video shooting. Yes, you can record videos in Full HD resolution at 30 frames/s, but this is all more of a “capture the moment” kind of thing. During the day the quality is decent, in all other cases it’s so-so.

Specifications Honor 8X (JSN-L21)

6.5-inch display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels (FHD+, 19.5:9, 397 ppi)
Huawei Kirin 710 processor (4 cores Cortex-A73 2.2 GHz + 4 cores Cortex-A53 1.7 GHz)
Mali-G51 graphics
RAM 4 GB
storage 64/128 GB
support Micro SD cards up to 256 GB
two rear cameras 20 + 2 MP (f/1.8, video recording 1080p 60 fps)
front camera 16 MP (f/2.0, video 1080p 30 fps)
battery 3750 mAh
OS Android 8.1 Oreo + EMUI 8.2 shell
sensors: accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, light sensor, distance sensor, fingerprint scanner
Connectors: Micro USB (OTG works), 3.5 mm headphone jack
Dimensions: 160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8 mm, weight 175 g

Wireless interfaces:

2G, 3G, 4G LTE (bands: 1 / 3 / 7 / 8 / 20)
two Nano SIM cards
Wi-Fi 802.11 (a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4 GHz/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, NFC
GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou

What's good about this? First of all, the presence of NFC is cool that another average person has received a contactless payment module. And also the presence of an audio output for headphones, which, fortunately, was not removed from the Honor 8X. And they installed a separate tray, for two SIM cards and SD at once. Beauty! The only thing that’s a little disappointing is Micro USB instead of the modern and cool USB Type-C.

As for unlocking methods, there are two of them.

And they work without any complaints at all.

The fingerprint scanner, located on the back of the case, works quickly and stably: the finger is always read, the screen is activated almost instantly (maximum 1 second).

With face unlocking, everything is also fine: reading again takes no more than a second, and no jambs were noticed with it. True, the process itself is not very convenient: first I pressed the power button, then the face was counted, and then I swiped to unlock the screen. But the first action can be eliminated if you activate the function of turning on the screen when you pick up the smartphone.

⇡#Hardware and performance

Honor 10X Lite has a version of last year’s HiSilicon Kirin 710, but made not using a 12-nanometer process technology, but a 14-nanometer process - Kirin 710A. The clock frequency of the processor cores included in it is also slightly lowered: these are four ARM Cortex-A73 with a clock frequency of 2.0 GHz and four ARM Cortex-A53 with a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz. The graphics subsystem is the same - ARM Mali-G51 MP4.

There is no catastrophe due to a slight decrease in frequencies and a less advanced technological process - the Honor 10X Lite remains at a more or less acceptable level in terms of performance, but is still inferior to key competitors, just as it is inferior to the slightly more expensive Honor 30i. It is curious that it is also slightly behind last year’s Honor 9X - it has the same hardware platform as the Honor 30i (Kirin 710F). It’s not for nothing that the word Lite is used in the name...

The Honor 10X Lite does not have any serious gaming potential, but the operating system runs quite smoothly, applications open reasonably quickly, and processes run reliably.

Interestingly, despite the average susceptibility to throttling - in the CPU Throttling Test, the peak clock frequency dropped to 74% of the maximum - Honor 10X Lite still outperforms competitors, including more expensive ones, in this indicator. In the middle class, it is common to throttle, and the 10X Lite, fortunately, does not show maximum zeal in this. Honor and praise to him for this.

Honor 10X Lite is offered in a single version of built-in memory: 4 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128 GB of UFS 2.1 flash memory. Large storage capacity is one of the main factors influencing the choice of this particular smartphone, especially since memory can be added using a standard microSD card with a capacity of up to 512 GB - in this case, it is preferred over branded NM ones. And you won’t have to sacrifice your second SIM card for this.

Performance

The role of the chip here is played by the brand new Kirin 710, a mid-level processor. In combination with 4 GB of RAM (of which 2.5 GB is free), the result is excellent performance: everything is smooth, playful, without freezes or glitches. Applications launch quickly, and the device handles multitasking well.

But I cannot confirm good performance with numbers from synthetic tests. Again. If anyone has read our reviews of Huawei Nova 3 or Mate 20 Lite, you will have seen that there were big problems with the benchmarks due to the firmware of the devices.

And Honor has this problem - benchmarks are not installed in any way.

So the problem, which was already pretty boring to me, has moved from Huawei to Honor smartphones. This, of course, will not affect the users of the device in any bad way - it’s just that none of us will know how many points our today’s hero gets in AnTuTu or Geekbench. For the time being.

Now let's see how the 8X performs in heavy toys.

PUBG

World Of Tanks

PUBG Mobile runs only on medium graphics settings, but it does so quickly and with virtually no problems. Sometimes there are sudden jerks in the picture, but there are no serious freezes or lags. In half an hour of active play (statistics for some reason show a full hour of use), the device consumed 9% of its charge - a good indicator.

In World Of Tanks it is also better to play on medium settings, everything runs smoothly there and there is nothing to complain about at all. At high settings it is also possible, but after a while the brakes and freezes begin. In half an hour of battles in “tanks,” the smartphone lost only 7% of its battery charge.

Verdict

Overall, I found the Huawei Honor 8X cameras interesting. Yes, the main module is quite simple and without good software, it would be of little use. But here there is a rather interesting camera software that takes quite good pictures in the evening and at night. During the day, the photos are quite comparable with the cameras of other smartphones in this price segment, for example, with the camera of the Xiaomi Mi A2, with which there will be a full comparison.

Out of the box, the Camera 2 API is active, which means you can shoot in RAW, for example through Lightroom Mobile or OpenCamera, and also use Google Camera mods. By the way, I have already tested one of them and it works quite well, but there are some nuances.

In terms of video recording, everything is quite simple. There is no digital or optical stabilization in the smartphone, and therefore the video is of very mediocre quality, even at 1080P 30FPS. Even the H.265 codec, which is included in the stock camera application, cannot save it. A video recording mode in 1080P 60 frames per second is also available, it works quite well, and the picture turns out to be nice in color, but autofocus is a problem. In this mode, it does not want to focus normally, especially at infinity.

There is no 4K video recording here. Overall, the device is interesting, especially for its price and the cameras cannot be called its weak point, but if high-quality video recording is critically important to you, then you should take a closer look at other devices in this price range.

Where to buy a smartphone:

Huawei Honor 8X Global Version

RUB 12,807

in stock

Buy

Aliexpress.com

Software

Here I would like to touch on one aspect of the EMUI shell - it allows you to replace the usual touch control buttons with one single key. Essentially, it's similar to the control from the iPhone. It is quite convenient to use, but at first it is unusual.

Everything works using presses of different duration levels, as well as swiping left/right on the button itself (to open the recent applications screen, for example). All possibilities are shown in the screenshots above.

Video recording

Regular video is recorded in a maximum of FHD 1080p (60 fps). If anyone wanted to make videos in 4K, this is not the place. But Honor 8X is still in the middle segment, so it’s not surprising. The video comes out clear and detailed, but when viewed from a computer, there is a slight loss of quality. The main problem is the lack of a stabilizer for maximum resolution, so the picture shakes quite a bit.

The slow motion mode here is absolutely the same as in the Huawei Mate 20 Lite. The same two slow motion modes are available: 120 fps and 480 fps at HD 720p resolution.

At the same time, the best image quality awaits us at 120 fps, but the mode has its own standard disadvantage:

Presence of sound during recording.

The sound, of course, slows down along with the picture. And it’s better not to listen to what comes out as a result - you’ll just find a slow-motion cacaphony of noise and rattling.

Slo-mo 480 fps offers a slightly worse picture quality, but there is more slowdown, and there is no sound. It turns out that both modes have their shortcomings and neither one can be called more favorable for shooting.

What else is remarkable about Honor 8x

Separately, it is worth noting the presence of NFC and the ability of the smartphone to connect with nine others, creating something like a stereo system for louder sound playback. This function can even partially replace portable speakers at friendly gatherings

At the same time, the sound of the smartphone itself does not cause a storm of emotions. It's just the sound of a smartphone, nothing more. Good, solid, but the sound of a smartphone.

The capacity of the built-in battery is 3750 mAh, and it discharges very evenly. Even with active use, you will return home in the evening with a reserve charge.

To safely unlock your smartphone, finger scanning and facial recognition are provided. The first method works very quickly and the second is a little slower, but it allows you to hide the notification until the owner of the smartphone looks at the screen.

This was my first impression of the smartphone. We continue to study him and if in a week or two he shows a different side, we will definitely tell you about it.

Sound

I really enjoyed listening to music on headphones with the Honor 8X. The sound is clear, without unnecessary noise or wheezing, the lows and highs are perfectly audible. Yes, the sound is not exactly ideal, but you get pleasure from listening to the tracks, and this is the most important thing. In addition, the native player offers many effects for improving and changing the sound - they are shown in the screenshots below.

But the external speaker is frankly weak.

The sound is somewhat noisy and muffled. The bass is practically inaudible, and I would define the overall quality as “below average”. It is unpleasant to listen to, and there is no way to improve this parameter in the native player - all effects and settings are intended only for headphones.

Autonomous operation

With a good load (Internet, social networks, calls, games, camera, music, payment with a contactless module several times, GPS), the smartphone showed good autonomy for its battery - I remind you that the battery capacity is 3750 mAh.

9:00 — 19:00

19:00 — 21:30

Starting from 9:00, the device worked actively and by 19:00 it retained as much as 29% of the charge. The screen operating time was 6 hours. The indicator is not bad, and there is definitely enough honor for a standard working day. The smartphone was almost completely depleted by 21:30, leaving only 10% of the battery's energy. The screen operating time at this moment was 7.5 hours.

As for charging, they didn’t give me a native AC adapter, so I can’t give exact numbers. The manufacturer itself reports that it will take 150 minutes to fully recharge the Honor 8X, that is, 2.5 hours. In my opinion, this is too long, even taking into account the fact that there are no fast charges here.

⇡#Autonomous work

Honor 8X has a non-removable battery with a capacity of 3750 mAh. By the standards of large smartphones, the figure is slightly higher than the “hospital average.” In practice, this gives a reliable full day of battery life from very early morning until very late evening. If you lower the brightness below 50% and forcefully limit the appetites of particularly voracious applications in the settings, then you can probably squeeze even more out of this battery. In our traditional HD video playback test with maximum brightness, the device lasted exactly 8 hours.

There is a lot of debate on the Internet about whether the gadget supports fast charging or not. Formally, it is not stated anywhere, but in fact, the Honor 8X charges from 0 to 60% in an hour using the native adapter included in the package, and the indicator travels from 0 to 90% in 95 minutes. Not a record, but fast enough. The remaining 10% is gained significantly more slowly - in 45 additional minutes, so it will take you 130 minutes to fully charge your smartphone. Just remember that instead of the seemingly almost ubiquitous USB Type-C, Honor 8X is for some reason equipped with an archaic microUSB connector.