Honor 8X Review: The Newest Best Mid-Ranger?

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor just launched the successor to its wildly-popular Honor 7X in India. The Honor 8X, which is priced starting at Rs. 14,999, aims to continue the legacy of its predecessor and it definitely seems like a pretty capable device right off the bat. For a mid-range device, the new Honor 8X brings a ton of exciting features to the table, including an impressive 6.5-inch nearly bezel-less display, a capable dual camera setup and a very premium design. If you’ve been following our coverage then you’d probably already know that we’ve had the device for some time now and we’ve been testing it extensively to see how it performs.

So if you’re in the market for a new mid-range device and have been considering the Honor 8X, then you’re probably eager to know more about the device before you go ahead and buy it. In order to help you make an informed decision, we’ve put the new Honor 8X through its paces and without much further ado here is our in-depth review of the Honor 8X:

Honor 8X Specifications

In case you aren’t already familiar with the Honor 8X’s specifications, here’s a quick look at what all the device brings to the table:

Dimensions	160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8mm
Weight	175g
Display	6.5-inch FHD+ IPS LCD
Processor	HiSilicon Kirin 710
RAM	up to 6GB
Storage	up to 128GB
Rear Camera	20MP f.1,8 + 2MP
Front Camera	16MP f/2.0
Battery	3,750mAh
Operating System	EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo

Honor 8X: What’s In the Box?

The new Honor 8X ships a minimal bright blue box, with Honor 8X written up front and more details about the device mentioned at the back. Much like most other mid-range devices from other Chinese manufacturers, the Honor 8X ships with the usual bunch of things. Here’s everything you’ll find within the retail packaging:

• Honor 8X (with pre-applied screen protector)
• A clear case
• A 5V/2A charging brick
• A USB Type-A to micro USB cable
• A SIM ejector tool
• Paperwork

The Honor 8X doesn’t ship with a pair of earphones, even though it does include a headphone jack. This means that buyers will have to use their own earphones with the device or buy a decent pair in case they don’t have one already. Other than that, the Honor 8X ships with pretty much everything you’d need, including a screen protector and a case, to start using the device without worrying about accidentally scratching/shattering the display or the glass back.

Honor 8X: Design and Build Quality

Compared to last year’s Honor 7X, which had an aluminum body and a notchless display, the company has taken a more modern approach with the Honor 8X’s design and build quality. The new Honor 8X has a more premium glass sandwich design with 2.5D curved glass on the front and back, and a sturdy metal chassis in between.

On the back, Honor has gone with a ‘aurora glass body’ which has been constructed using 15 layers that refract light and colors differently from different angles, giving the device a cool shimmery appearance. In order to differentiate the Honor 8X from other manufacturers who’re implementing a similar design on their devices, the company has divided the glass back into two different types of finishes that make the device look pretty great when held in the landscape mode.

Moving on to the front of the device, the Honor 8X features a 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and an 85% wide color gamut. The device have minimal bezels on either side, a small notch up top and a rather slim chin at the bottom, giving it a 91 percent screen-to-body ratio. To be honest, the display on the Honor 8X looks absolutely brilliant when compared to other mid-range devices, especially while watching videos or playing games.

To achieve such a slim 4.25mm chin on the Honor 8X, the company has made use of an advanced chip-on-film (COF) technology, that works somewhat like the display technology used on the iPhone X and folds the display connectors behind the screen rather than placing them within the chin of the smartphone. The front facing camera, earpiece and sensors are conveniently hidden within the notch, that doesn’t feel as intrusive as the notch on some other (more expensive) smartphones.

The power button, along with the volume rocker, resides on the right edge of the device, whereas the SIM card slot can be found on the left edge of the device. While the top is devoid of any ports and only features the secondary noise cancellation microphone, the bottom edge houses the single downward firing speaker, a micro USB port for charging and data syncing, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the primary microphone.

Overall, Honor has taken the device to a different level when it comes to its design and build quality. The Honor 8X looks and feels very premium, much more than any other mid-range smartphones in the market today. It’s worth noting that the device is a bit on the bulkier side and one-handed operation might not be as easy for people with small hands, however, Honor’s EMUI 8.2 has some enhancements for one-handed operation, which will definitely come in ‘handy’ if that’s the case.

Honor 8X: Display

Most mid-range smartphones these days feature great nearly bezel-less displays, but not all of them are able to get it just right. Even though it features an IPS LCD display, the Honor 8X gets as close to having a brilliant display as you can get at this price range. The device packs in a massive 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display that has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and minimal bezels on all sides. Honor claims that the display on the Honor 8X covers an 85 percent wide color gamut and it definitely looks quite vivid and crisp. Colors are fairly accurate, viewing angles are on point and watching videos in landscape mode on the device is an absolute pleasure.

The display also gets fairly bright, meaning visibility in direct sunlight isn’t a problem at all. The notch on the device is quite small, compared to a lot of other devices, and non-intrusive, but it isn’t as minimal as the waterdrop-style notch found on a growing number of modern devices.

Another interesting fact about the display on the Honor 8X is that it features a TÜV Rheinland certified Eye Comfort mode, which significantly reduces blue light emission thereby preventing eye fatigue and reduces irregularities in the user’s sleep cycle. This will be most beneficial for users who use their devices in bed at night right before going to sleep.

Honor also provides users settings to hide the notch, in case they want to, and it also provides users with the option to decrease the screen resolution to conserve battery if they’re running low. Users will also be able to alter the color mode and temperature of the display in case the default settings don’t fit their preference, which is a great addition that you won’t find in other stock Android or near-stock Android devices.

Honor 8X: Performance

The Honor 8X is powered by an octa-core Kirin 710 chipset which includes a Mali-G51 MP4 GPU, coupled with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. For the unaware, the Kirin 710 is a pretty capable in-house processor from Huawei that directly competes with the mid-range Snapdragon 660 from Qualcomm. While the Kirin 710 outperforms the Snapdragon 660 in CPU-heavy tasks, its older Mali-G51 MP4 GPU isn’t able to keep up with the newer Adreno 512 GPU on the Snapdragon 660. The differences can be clearly seen in the benchmarking results posted by the device:

Note: Honor loaned us the 4/64GB variant of the Honor 8X for the purpose of this review