Honor 8X First Impressions: Most underrated Budget smartphone right now?

Honor recently launched their latest budget-segment smartphone in India, Honor 8X. It comes sporting a gigantic screen with not too unique a design and a promising camera setup. The Honor 8x looks like most of the other Honor and Huawei smartphones currently available in the market at this price range. The Honor 8X competes with likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro, Realme 2 Pro and Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1.

Highlights of the smartphone include a 3,750mAh battery, 65-inch Full HD+ display with a resolution of 1080×2340 pixels. It is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 710 chipset coupled with a Mali G51 GPU. The dual-SIM handset comes with 4GB/6GB of RAM along with 64GB/128GB of internal storage. The device sports a 20-megapixel primary sensor with a f/1.8 aperture coupled with a 2-megapixel secondary sensor at the back. The front camera is a 16-megapixel sensor for taking selfies. The handset also packs features like OTG support and a FingerPrint sensor.

Design

Honor 8X sports a 6.5-inch Full HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 19:9. The display is one of the biggest in its price range. As with most Android smartphones with a Notch, there is a chin also, but it is not as big as the one we have seen on many other smartphones. The display is not something you can call best of the line, but it is better than most of the competition. The display is good and has vivid colours. The overall build quality is great. Its frame is made out of metal and the back is glass instead of polycarbonate.

Small things like that improve the feel of smartphones in hand dramatically. With its colour shifting back like in other smartphones by the company and the Glass and metal sandwich design, the design does not look unique, but the smartphone sure does look and feel premium in hand.

Camera

Coming to the optics, Honor 8X sports a dual camera setup on the back. It consists of a 20-megapixel rear sensor having a f/1.8 aperture coupled with a 2-megapixel sensor. The photos come out quite impressive considering the device's price. The contrast is quite good and the colours are impressive. Also, the AI tuning in the Honor phones is really good according to me. However, the AI portrait mode does make the photos look a bit unnatural. This can be fixed in a future software update.

For the selfies, the Honor 8X sports a 16-megapixel front-facing camera. The front camera performs in a similar fashion to the back camera. The images we were able to click came out quite impressive.

Overall both the cameras on Honor 8X are quite impressive considering the price point. It is definitely better than the most of its competition.

Price

Honor 8X starts at Rs 14,999 for the 4GB + 64GB variant. The 6GB + 64GB variant costs Rs 16,999 while the top of the line 6GB + 128GB variant costs Rs 18,999. The smartphone is quite impressive. The glass sandwich smartphone feels a lot more premium than the price may suggest. The camera is amazing for the price point. Also, the smartphone runs on EMUI skin from Honor, which is not something everyone likes. So from the first look at it, the smartphone seems to be an all-rounder with a few compromises made.