Huawei Honor 8X

Huawei has shown repeatedly that getting a good phone does not require spending a lot of money. The Honor 8X continues this tradition, offering exceptional value as long as you’re willing to overlook a few issues.

Despite its name, the Honor 8X is a departure from the Honor 8 in terms of design and internal components. The glossy glass back provides a modern and sleek appearance — though it’s a fingerprint magnet. Still, the sleek look combined with the metal sides and very slim bezels work together to make it look like a much more expensive phone.

The big showstopper here is the screen. Featuring a 91% screen-to-body ratio, the LTPS LCD panel measures 6.5 inches and sports a resolution of 2340-by-1080 pixels. This makes it sharper than the iPhone XR .

And while it might be a bit too large to use comfortably with one hand, its size makes it perfect for multimedia enthusiasts. The large screen is ideal for gaming, watching videos, and reading articles.

However, the screen isn’t without flaws. Reviewers noted brightness concerns when reading in direct sunlight.

You’ll see where Huawei cut corners when you look at the hardware specs. It’s equipped with a mid-range Kirin processor — not the tantalizing Snapdragon 845 you might see on more expensive handsets. But when combined with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM reviewers were happy with its performance and multitasking abilities.

Gaming posed some issues though as the phone includes a low-end GPU. While playing 3D games is possible, you must sacrifice a little quality to do so smoothly.

Thankfully, Huawei didn’t skimp on the battery. The 3,750mAh battery lasted experts a full day even with heavy use. Many reviewers felt most people could go two days without charging. 

At first glance, the specs for the 20MP rear camera impressed. It comes with the ultra-low light mode and dual lens system for forced “bokeh” found on Huawei’s P20 Pro. And yet, likely due to changes to hit the Honor 8X’s lower price, experts found these modes a little less effective. 

Still, for the price, most were thrilled with overall image quality. Daylight shots were sharp and detailed with good color reproduction. It even provided decent dynamic range in mixed lighting situations. Low light images came out good enough with the ultra-low light mode. Images were sharp with little noise. 

The caveat here is that the camera is fairly slow. So, you’ll need to stay still when snapping shots, otherwise you’ll see motion blur. There is also a bit of shutter lag so you might end up missing shots.

While it’s not perfect, most reviewers highly recommend the Honor 8X for people on a budget. Gadgets 360 states, “Not only does this phone look good, it performs great for its price…” Slash Gear adds, “Great battery life, decent performance, serviceable cameras and an eye-catching design, the Honor 8X has most of the things you need from a smartphone…”