Honor 7X Review: New mid-range phone king

Huawei's subsidiary Honor had recently released mid-range Honor 7X. It has a lot at stakes, as it will be replacing the critically acclaimed sibling Honor 6X and also compete with popular brands like Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Mi A1 and Motorola Moto G5 series, among others.

I have been testing the Honor 7X, as my primary driver for close to a month and here's how it measure up to my expectations.

Display, design and build quality:

Honor 7X is one of the very few tier-1 branded mid-range phone to boast 18:9 aspect ratio. That being said, does it offer good cinematic viewing experience? Absolutely, Honor has done a great job with the screen. We watched several high-resolution videos on the Full HD+ (2160x1080p) display and the viewing experience is praiseworthy for its category.

As far as the build quality is concerned, it houses a sturdy metallic cover extending up to top-panel. The shell comes with matte finish offering good grip for the hands to hold and despite the generous use of metal, it weighs just 165g.

Coming to design aspects, it flaunts curvaceous body with rounded edges on the corners. The company has done a wonderful paint job on the metallic-shell on the back, especially the grey antenna lines on the top and the bottom blends well with gold-hued cover. The 2.5D curved glass cover on the screen also adds value to the overall visual look of the phone.

It measures 156.5 mm in height, 75.3 mm wide and is just 7.6 mm in thickness. The Honor 7X features power button and the volume rockers to the right edge, whereas on the left side, it houses hybrid dual-SIM slots.

On the back, it comes packed with dual-camera on the top left corner with LED flash and a fingerprint sensor little lower in the middle and Honor engraving at the bottom.

At the base-edge, it features 3.5mm audio jack in the left and single-grille speaker with a separate micro mic-hole on the right side with micro USB 2.0 port in the middle. On the top, the Honor 7X features another mic-hole.

One tiny design flaw is that the device's primary dual-camera protrudes a bit more than to my liking, as it tends to sit unevenly on a flat table with the back facing down, but this is not a deal breaker, as it's slim body can still slide into pockets without much effort.

It can be fixed by using cover-shell, which we recommend for prospective Honor 7X consumers. Though it comes with a sturdy metallic cover and will withstand accidental drops and keep the internals intact, it will get dents and take the charm of the new-phone look.

FYI: Honor 7X comes with 5.93-inch full HD+ (2160x1080p) screen with 2.5D curved glass.

Performance:

Unlike most of the brands, Honor uses its own proprietary chipsets in their phones. The Honor 7X house's Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 659 octa-core (2.46GHz Cortex A53 quad-core + 1.7GHz Cortex A53 quad-core) backed by a MaliT830-MP2 graphics engine, sumptuous 4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB internal.

We ran a couple of standard performance testing apps and the results were encouraging. It scored 62,554 points on AnTuTu, whereas on the Geekbench 4.0, it got 880 and 3,333 points on single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.

As far as the real-world performance is concerned, it works buttery smooth be it on app loading, switching between multiple applications, long sessions of photography or playing games, it barely shows any lag.

The only qualm is that it runs on a generation-old Android Nougat-based EMUI 5.1 software and also there are lots of pre-loaded apps, which are not necessary for all users and also cramps up storage space, but thankfully, the company has provided the option to expand the memory up to 256GB via microSD.

Camera:

Besides the gorgeous display, the camera hardware is another prime attraction of the Honor 7X. It houses 16MP+2MP dual snapper with LED flash, 1/2.9-inch sensor size, 1.25 µm pixel size, PDAF (Phase Detection Auto Focus), HDR (High Dynamic Range), full HD video recording.

The Honor mobile's camera capabilities impressed us a lot, especially the Portrait mode, which allows the user to create a picture with a clear image of the subject, while the background is rendered out-of-focus, creating a Bokeh blur effect. Honor 7X is one of the very few to boast this value-added feature in its price-range and it does the job on par with top-end phones.

As far as the normal point-and-shoot images are concerned, the photo quality is also impressive. Though the auto-focus feature tends to slow down during twilight, it still managed to do a pretty job of capturing fine quality pictures.

On the front, it comes packed with a 8MP camera with full HD video recording capability. The most impressive aspect of the front snapper is its beautification feature, as it automatically balances the colour complexion of the subject face and most importantly looks closer to natural, unlike other rival brands, which tend to brighten face more than required and look artificial.

Battery:

Despite having a sleek body profile, it comes with a massive 3,450mAh battery. During our tests, it consistently lasted a full day (active hours of the reporter: 5 am to 10 pm) under mixed usage.

My daily routine involves close to two half of travelling and during this period, I usually check updates on WhatsApp (including multimedia content forwards), Facebook, Twitter, catch up on the latest news on Google Cards feature and YouTube subscriptions and answer phone calls (usually audio). I noticed that the battery drains faster while watching videos with mobile data, but it's not a deal breaker, as this is common among all touch-screen phones in the market. If used with more conservatively, Honor 7X will last one-and-half day.

Final thoughts on the Honor 7X (4.5): The new mid-range phone king

The new Honor 7X impressed me with its top-notch build quality, display, day-long battery and I loved the camera the most. Its dual shooter was way much better than I expected from a mid-range phone (Rs 12,999-Rs 17,000).The image quality of the photos is really good.

Overall, the Honor 7X is a prime candidate for the title of new king of mid-range category, as it ticks almost all the right boxes, be it the fast performance, long lasting battery, latest display standard (18:9 aspect ratio), a dual-camera (with Bokeh blur effect), advanced face unlock security feature and yet doesn't burn a hole in your pocket. We are certain, Honor 7X will surely find traction among college going youth and young salaried class.

Pros:

• Great Camera
• Gorgeous design language and sturdy build quality
• Stellar Display
• Full-day battery
• Face unlock feature (updated in January 2018 software patch)

Cons:

• It runs on one-generation old Android Nougat OS-based EMUI 5.1 out-of-the-box, but it's not a deal breaker, as it will be getting Google's latest Android Oreo soon

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