Honor X8 Smartphone Review – The Honor X8 was announced globally in March 2022, alongside its younger sibling the Honor X7 smartphone. Honor released this smartphone as an alternative to many Samsung smartphones that has subpar hardware. Being a budget smartphone, the phone lacks 5G support, which may disappoint some users, but it makes up for it in other areas.
In terms of design, the phone doesn’t look very different from that of the other smartphones in the same price range. But the good thing is that it supports the Google Play service. Without a father a doe, let’s start the detailed review of the Honor X8 smartphone.
Table of Contents
Honor X8 Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The Honor X8 features a 6.7 inches IPS LCD display panel with a 90 Hz refresh rate.
- The chipset is the powerful 6nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G octa-core SoC clocked at 2.4GHz speed.
- The phone arrives with Android 11 OS and MagicUI 4.2 user interface, but hope it should get the Android 12 update soon.
- The main rear camera sensor is a 64MP sensor, while the selfie camera is a 16MP sensor.
- The phone has a Li-Po 4000mAh battery and supports 22.5W fast charging.
Design and Display
When it comes to the design of the Honor X8, the phone features a matte finish on the back of the phone. The back is completely flat and made out of plastic, and the front of the phone has thin bezels with a tiny dot-notch for the selfie camera. For the color variant, the Honor X8 comes in 3 options- Titanium Silver, Midnight Black, and Ocean Blue.
On the front, you get a 6.7-inches IPS LCD display with Full HD+ resolution, and support for a 90Hz refresh rate. Though the colors produced are right and don’t look washed out at any angle, surely the absence of an AMOLED panel and having no high nits brightness is a major downside of this smartphone. So, you may face problems using the device under direct sunlight, fortunately, the 90Hz refresh rate support is there to compensate to some extent. Therefore, you get a mediocre display experience in Honor X8.
Memory and Internal
Internally, the Honor X8 is powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G Chipset that reaches up to a 2.4GHz clocking speed. This Chipset has 4 powerful Kryo 265 gold cores clocked at 2.4 GHz and 4 power-efficient Kryo 265 silver cores clocked at 1.9 GHz. The 2.4GHz clock along with a 6nm manufacturing process, makes for an incredibly efficient while being powerful enough to be able to perform all day to day tasks as well as light gaming.
As for the GPU, the Adreno 610 GPU is fast enough to run most lighter games as well heavier games such as PUBG and CODm, but at lower graphics and medium frame rate. No ultra or extreme framerate options are available. Besides this, you get the Android 11 OS with a Magic UI 4.2 user interface. The latest Android 12 OS was expected from this smartphone and there is no news about the Android 12 OS update on this device. Furthermore, the Honor X8 is available in a single storage variant of 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.
The phone has a decent chipset but missing the latest Android 12 OS and not having an SD card slot is not a good deal in this price range. Since the card slot is missing you may face storage problems and you can not avoid that there is only a single variant available with no 5G connectivity.
Camera
The phone has a rear quad-camera setup, with a 64MP sensor as the main camera, a 5MP ultra-wide camera, and two 2MP macro and depth sensors. The main camera takes decent pictures with a good enough detail and color balance. The dynamic range is quite decent, especially considering the price of the smartphone.
Images look decent during the day but night photography suffers in the Honor X8 smartphone. So the main sensor is okay but you can not have high expectations. There is nothing to talk about the so-called 5MP ultrawide lens and the rest 2MP depth, macro sensors are just to add up numbers. Instead these, the makers could have provided a triple-lens set up with a good offer.
The 16MP selfie sensor, however, does take decent selfies but the detail levels could have been better. When it comes to video recording, both the cameras can record only up to 1080p videos at 30fps. Again, the missing 4K video recording in this price slot is enough to give thumbs down to this device.
Battery and Others
With a decent Li-Po 4000mAh battery and the new power-efficient SoC, you will be getting 5 hours of screen time. But, when you do run out of battery, you get the 22.5W fast-charging support. The phone also has dual-band Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and a USB Type-C connector for charging. The battery backup and fast-charging power could have been better as per phone cost. The device is available at the price of $240 (Rs. 18,599 in India) approx.
Honor X8 Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Honor X8 smartphone.
| Specifications | Honor X8 4G | Honor X8 5G |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | March 2022 | July 2022 |
| SIM | Dual SIM | Hybrid Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.43 x 2.94 x 0.30 inches | 6.44 x 2.96 x 0.34 inches |
| Weight | 177 g | 194 g |
| Size | 6.7 inches | 6.5 inches |
| Display | IPS LCD 90Hz ~391 PPI density | TFT LCD 20:9 ratio ~270 PPI density |
| Protection | No | Same |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2388 pixels | 720 x 1600 pixels |
| OS | Android 11, Magic UI 4.2 | Same |
| Chipset | 6nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G | 8nm – Qualcomm SM4350-AC Snapdragon 480+ 5G |
| CPU | Octa-core 4×2.4 GHz Kryo 265 Gold 4×1.9 GHz Kryo 265 Silver | Octa-core 2×2.2 GHz Kryo 460 6×1.9 GHz Kryo 460 |
| GPU | Adreno 610 | Adreno 619 |
| Card slot | No | Yes (shard SIM slot) |
| RAM | 6GB | Same |
| Internal | 128GB | Same |
| Camera | 64 MP (wide), PDAF 5 MP (ultrawide) 2 MP (depth) 2 MP (macro) LED flash, panorama, HDR Max – 1080p@30fps | 48 MP (wide), PDAF 2 MP (depth) 2 MP (macro) LED flash, panorama, HDR Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Selfie | 16MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps | 8MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes | Same |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes | Same |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot | Same |
| Bluetooth | 5.0, A2DP, LE | 5.1, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS | Same |
| NFC | Yes (market/region dependent) | Same |
| Infrared port | No | Same |
| Radio | No | Same |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go | USB Type-C 2.0 |
| Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, Virtual proximity sensing, compass | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass |
| Battery | Li-Po 4000 mAh Fast charging 22.5W | Li-Po 5000 mAh Fast charging 22.5W |
| Colors | Titanium Silver, Midnight Black, Ocean Blue | Midnight Black, Ocean Blue |
| Expected Price | $240 (Rs 18,299 in India) approx | $280 (Rs 22,000 in India) approx. |
Conclusion
The phone offers a decent chipset and battery but the rest other specs seem to add up numbers. The display, camera, and storage could have been better. This smartphone underperforms in most ways and doesn’t offer a good deal in this price segment. Furthermore, the other things like fast charging and software are just average and nothing unique or new in that.
Though the overall phone is okay there are a lot of better alternatives available such as the Realme 9 Pro smartphone in the same price range. You can check the Realme 9 Pro, as it comes with a better battery, screen, and 5g support, but the final decision depends on you.
