October was a crazily busy month of numerous smartphone launches, not least including the Huawei Honor 8X which was among the very first to arrive. It might not have the same flagship status to compete with other contenders, but the Honor 8X offers exceptional value with good performance and beautiful design.
Honor is a sub-brand of Huawei, and some of us may struggle to understand the difference between the two, both of whom together seem to have too many models of smartphones. At its inception, Honor was meant to help Huawei compete in entry-level budget space, but their smartphones have since crept up the value tiers.
The Huawei Honor 8X has all the hallmarks of a premium 2018 flagship smartphone: bezel-less, notch, dual rear cameras, AI, and overall a beautiful design.
The huge 6.5-inch LTPS LCD display has 2340 x 1080 resolution with 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The display resolution works out to a good 397 DPI pixel density. This is one of the largest smartphone displays out there, and the 91% screen-to-body ratio is quite impressive.
The display is bright and has vibrant colours. I personally prefer the natural colours on the Pixel 3 smartphones, but the vividness of the Honor 8X’s display is probably preferred by most users.
The left side of the Huawei Honor 8X has a SIM card slot that accommodates dual nano-SIM cards and a microSD card, all at the same time. Most smartphones ask you to choose between the second nano-SIM and microSD, but with the Honor 8X, you can have all of them concurrently.
Around on the right side, you’ll find the power button and volume rocker.
I’m a little disappointed to still find a Micro-USB port at the bottom used for charging. Oddly enough it seems like USB Type-C seems to be reserved for flagship premium smartphones, though I don’t see why all new smartphones shouldn’t adopt it. Micro-USB isn’t anywhere near extinction yet, so fortunately this isn’t a problem.
Good thing, however, that the Huawei Honor 8X still offerrs a 35 mm audio jack. Also at the bottom, you’ll find the speaker grills.
That speaker does sound alright, with a good amount of volume, but its non-optimal position impairs the enjoyment of movies.
The back of the Huawei Honor 8X sports an interesting design. The two-tone all-glass glossy design is quite eye-catching. The vertical strip along the left edge will make this smartphone quite recognisable.
The fingerprint sensor on the back seems to be well placed and convenient to reach. There’s also facial recognition supported on this device, so you have a choice of unlock methods.
Then, there’s also the dual camera setup on the back. The primary camera has 20 MP resolution, f/1.8 lens, and phase detect auto-focus. The secondary 2 MP resolution camera is used solely for depth data.
Although the camera performance is generally decent, particularly with their AI software that makes appropriate adjustments for 22 automatically detected scenes, the lack of image stabilisation is its achilles heel. Low-light performance suffers.
On the front, the notch area accommodates a 16 MP resolution camera with f/2.0 lens. This camera is generally decent, but performance also suffers in low-light conditions.
Under the hood, the Huawei Honor 8X is powered by a Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor, 4 GB of RAM, and 64 GB of flash storage.
For connectivity, you get 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX, and positioning with GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS, and BDS.
The built-in battery has a 3750 mAh battery capacity.
There is no NFC or wireless charging supported. It also has no IP rating.
Testing with the Geekbench 4 benchmark, the Huawei Honor 8X shows to be an average performer, putting it in the same league as the Huawei nova 3i which sports the same processor:
- Single-Core: 1611
- Multi-Core: 5489
- Compute: 4168
Battery score of 4240 under Geekbench 4 is quite impressive, one of the longer-lasting smartphones I’ve tested.
The Huawei Honor 8X retails at S$348, and is available through authorised sellers and official online store at Lazada.
Conclusion
The Huawei Honor 8X is a great value smartphone with a beautify design, huge display, and excellent battery life.
Pros:
- Beautiful design
- Huge 6.5-inch notched display
- Long battery life
- Dual SIM and microSD
Cons:
- No IP-rating