Honor X8: A fairly firm bet in the mid-range

After its independence from Huawei, Honor has been surprising us more and more with new terminals, which seek to demonstrate what the company is made of, and this time, without prior notice, the Honor X8 has come into our hands. We have already had it for a few days and we are going to tell you here how this smartphone is doing, what we liked and what we didn’t, so that those who are interested can get a good idea.

Before starting the review, it is worth mentioning that the Honor X8 could very well place it as a firm competitor in the mid-range, with a strong focus on design, and cameras, since it brings us a rear module with four lenses, which I already let you know, that they do not disappoint, if we take into account the range in which we find ourselves. Now yes, without further ado let’s go with the review.

unboxing

Following the line of many manufacturers such as Vivo, which in the mid-range places many more things in the box than in their high-end equipment, the Honor X8 comes super equipped with everything we need I have even more.

Already a rarity these days, the box we include a pair of wire earphones, the wall charger, and of course, a protective transparent plastic casing, which is not bad at all, to protect the rear camera module from scratches. Even the phone already comes with a screen protection layer pre-installed, which as I said before, is much more than many expect out of the box, and much appreciated.

So we start off on the right foot with the Honor X8, as the unboxing has left us more than satisfied with what’s in the box. As a curious note, the unit that was delivered to us for review came with a European wall charger, we assume that the retail units will already come with the correct charger.

Technical specifications of the Honor X8

As we mentioned before, the Honor X8 is a mid-range phone, so we have to keep in mind that its hardware has some low points that seek to reduce the value of the equipment; however, with everything and that, we have found a fairly balanced terminalwhich gives a very good user experience, let’s see what is in its entrails:

One of the first good surprises that we have with the Honor X8 is that its processor, despite being from the entry-level range, is a very good chip, since we have a Snapdragon 680, which It promises us a great battery autonomyand the possibility of being able to work with almost any app, and even play many of the video games in the store without problems, despite not being a gamer phone.

The other good surprises, with the 90Hz update of its screen, and its quad camera module, which gives us a very good main camera, and three companions that allow us to take decent shots given the right light conditions. At night all the cameras will fall short, and in video footage the lack of stabilization will also play tricks on us.

Where the thing falls a little short, is in the battery, which for this range is a bit low, and the charger that could have been a little more powerful, but it is acceptable. Obviously, we cannot ask for high-end functions from this equipment, so we do not have, for example, wireless charging or water resistance, which is understandable.

To end this section, if it leaves us hanging a bit, the lack of a microSD card slot, so we have to make do with the 128GB of storage that this terminal brings. If you are a user who usually stores a lot of information in the memory of your phone, keep this limitation in mind.

Design

The design is another of the strengths of the Honor X8, because with an angular style that reminds us a bit of the iPhone 13, we are facing a very nice smartphone that feels great in the hand. In addition, its 177g weight makes it quite light in our opinion.

Continuing with the design, despite being made of plastic, the back feels quite solid and of quality. The Titanium Silver color that we are evaluating, gives a very nice rainbow look, and very importantly, it does not let fingerprints dirty it, so it is one less concern.

On the front of the screen, we have quite small frames, only the bottom frame is somewhat thick, and a hole-punch type notch in the center, which does not bother me at all. The use of the front is 89.1%. In my opinion, this is another strong point of this phone, since we have a huge 6.7” panel, with Full HD resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate that allow us to enjoy multimedia content very well.

Moving to the rear, the quad camera module protrudes a bit from the body of the phone, so if you place it on a table it will dance a bit. Hence, the protective plastic casing that we include in the box is very necessary, to protect this camera module from scratches.

Past the bottom frame, we have the charging port, the much appreciated 3.5mm headphone jack, and the speaker, which despite sounding good, we definitely think it lacks some volume when compared to other phones that are of the same line.

In the right frame we have the power button that at the same time is the fingerprint sensor. This is a location that is of personal taste to each one, it does not bother me, and it behaves very well in the Honor X8. In this same frame we have the volume button and nothing else.

In the left frame we have the SIM tray that is dual, but unfortunately a slot for microSD cards is not included. We also missed a dedicated voice assistant button on this phone, which is becoming more and more common on phones in this price range.

cameras

As in many mid-range phones, manufacturers often include many lenses to dazzle users. In the case of the Honor X8, we have a rather positive experience, since we have very good main and selfie cameras, a regular but usable wide-angle lens, a rather bad macro lens, and a lens for blur mode. which can be used.

We’re going to talk about each of these cameras, but before we get into it, it’s worth mentioning that in video mode, this phone allows recording with two cameras at the same timeso you can make a blog with the selfie camera and the main one, signed what happens in front and behind the phone at the same time.

Night mode off vs on

The 64MP main camera performs well during the day, giving us good images, with vivid colors, and good handling of backlights. So we have no major complaints in that regard. Already at night there is obviously the weak point of this lens (in fact of all of them), because, although it gives us very decent and usable images, if you notice that it uses the popular watercolor effect, to soften the noise of the images. We have a night mode that takes an eternal five seconds to capture the photo, but at least it manages to improve the result a bit.

In terms of video unfortunately too we have a weak point related to the lack of stabilizationbecause the movements of the hand are very noticeable, so it is best to record using a tripod, or avoid moving the phone as much as possible.

The wide-angle lens has a huge 120° amplitude, and although in low light it gives very bad results, if we go to an open place and with good light, the captures will be quite decent, so we must use this camera only when we are sure there is enough light.

The macro lens is merely for show, and although we can get some good images if we try, it is noticeable how the phone has a hard time achieving focus, and the photos come out with paler cabbages than they are seen in real life. Additionally, it seemed to me that it did not allow me to get as close to the objects as I wanted, something that other macro lenses that I have used have allowed me, so if you like super close-ups, this is not the camera for it.

Finally we have the selfie camera, which has surprised us for the better, because despite having only 16MP, it takes very good advantage of them, delivering vivid photos, and with an HDR effect that manages on many occasions to rescue photos that otherwise they would have come out with the sky burned, or with our very dark face.

user experience

Honor has gone to great lengths to move away from Huawei’s stigma with the absent app store, and that’s a problem we’re not going to find on the Honor X8, which It comes with all Google apps and without problems in that sense.

The Android 11 Magic UI 4.2 customization layer did not seem very invasive to us, preserving much of what is a standard Android experience, yes, with a somewhat strong redesign to my liking in the appearance of the icons and menus, but this is something that is easily solvable by changing the launcher.

The phone feels perfectly fluid and capable of multitasking without slowing down, and thanks to that 90Hz refresh rate, the screen feels much smoother than normal. If I could complain about something, it is that Honor has included us some pre-installed blotaware apps on the phone like Booking, TikTok, or Trip.com to name a few, but we can easily delete them if we don’t want them.

Regarding the autonomy of the battery, as we mentioned above, the Honor X8 is not going to blow your mind, and it gives us a very average duration of one day and little more at most. If we would have liked a little more battery capacity for this terminal, because the competition already delivers phones with batteries of up to 6,000mAh in some cases, so the 4,000mAh of this mobile today we can only say that they are average.

Conclusions

The Honor X8 is an excellent option for someone who is looking for a mid-range terminal, since it comes with a very good processor such as the Snapdragon 680, which guarantees us more than enough power to use all kinds of apps. The average user looking to view social networks and multimedia content will have more than enough with this terminal.

Among the weak points we have the lack of a microSD slot to expand the internal memory, or the battery life that is not spectacular, however we believe that they have managed to balance it very well with a main camera that does not disappoint.

Currently you can get the Honor X8 in Colombia for a price of around $1,300,000 Colombian pesos in chain stores, or even less if you grab a promotion.

The good:

• Premium design that makes you feel like you have a high-end phone in your hands.
• The screen has a 90Hz refresh rate.
• In the box we include wired headphones, and a protective case.

The bad:

• We do not have a microSD card slot to expand internal storage.
• The battery has fallen a bit short, as well as the 21W charger.

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