While Huawei has been there in the budget smartphone market for a long time, the brand was unable to achieve the deserved success despite releasing decent phones like Huawei Honor Holly and its expensive sibling Honor 6.
Huawei recently launched two more smartphones in the country catering to different budget segments. One among them is the Honor 4X, a ₹10,499 smartphone heading over to the most discussed sub ₹10,000 smartphone market. Though that segment is already flooded with numerous smartphone from different consumers, the most successful models in the genre are Micormax's Yu Yureka, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G and the most recent Lenovo A7000.
The Yu Yureka and Lenovo A7000 both costs ₹8,999 while the Redmi Note 4G costs ₹9,999 and the Honor 4X comes for ₹500 more than that with an available price of ₹10,499. Although the little higher price will be determined by how many people register interest, it is likely that the Honor 4X is one of the modest smartphone with several good features offered in its price.
Design
Following the current big screen craze, the Honor 4X features a modest design and features a polycarbonate textured white removable back cover, which gives access to its dual 4G SIM slot, Micro SD card slot and the non removable battery.
Measuring 159.2x77.2x8.7mm and weighing 165g, the Huawei Honor 4X feels reasonably sturdy yet looks good for its rounded back and sides that also make it quite ergonomic to hold.
The textured casing looks different from other similar budget smartphones and also gives an anti-slippery feel. The panel also keeps the phone free of fingerprints and smudges.
Display
In a budget of ₹10,000, 720p displays has almost become a standard. And following that, the Honor 4X features a 5.5-inch display with 720x1280 pixels resolution at 267ppi pixel density rate. It puts Honor 4X at par with Lenovo A7000, Yu Yureka and Redmi Note 4G offering 267ppi display with similar resolution and screen size.
The display produces balanced colours, sharp texts, reasonably crisp icons and decent hue levels. But the reflective nature of the display makes it a little difficult to read under brightly lit conditions. However, most of the budget smartphone including its competitors suffer from the same issue. The display also offers great viewing angles.
Operating System
After the arrival of Lenovo A7000, all sub ₹10,000 smartphones should be a bit cautious on upgrading their operating system since it offers Android 5.0 Lollipop in comparison to others Android 4.4 Kitkat. If you're curious to know what the big deal in it is, let us tell you that apart from the cosmetic UI, the latest Android upgrade offers some really handy settings features, enhanced security and encryption features. Although Micromax promised to bring Android 5.0 Lollipop for Yu Yureka, they are unable to roll out the OTA update yet. Xiaomi has also promised to bring the L update but kept mum on the availability.
Coming back to the Honor 4X, it features Android Kitkat 4.4.4 overlaid with Huawei's custom Emoticon UI skin. For providing the Lollipop update Huawei need to rework on the UI code with the Google's update, a practice which is costly and time consuming.
However the Emoticon 3.0 UI feels much better than the earlier 2.3 we had seen in Honor Holly smartphones. However, the UI looks almost identical to other Chinese smartphones with sacrificing the app drawer. But the notification, settings, home screen and wallpapers looks quite impressive in use.
Performance
The Honor 4X comes loaded with a Quad-Core 1.2GHz Cortex A53, Snapdragon 410 Processor, Adreno 306 GPU and 2GB worth RAM memory. The competitor Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G also offers similar specification but the other two Lenovo A7000 and Yu Yureka are based on octa-core Mediatek processor hence offering better performance with gaming than these two.
Benchmarked on Antutu and GeekBench 3 the Honor 4X performed well. On Antutu it managed to achieve 20999, while on Geekbench it got 479 single-core and 1384 multi-core scores.
With the other two benchmarking suite Quadrant Standard and Vellamo Metal the Honor 4X managed to achieve 11188 and 820 respectively.
We found the Honor 4X was fast enough and managed to work with multiple applications and web pages without any stuttering experience. There was no chug or freezing experience except the one we noticed while taking screenshots. The device almost halts for a microsecond while saving the screenshot, but it is likely to be a software glitch.
Huawei Honor 4X Image SampleIBTimes India 
Huawei Honor 4X Image SampleIBTimes India 
We used this glossy model under incandescent light and kept the camera settings in auto mode. Again we found the focus locked very rapidly yet accurately. Surprisingly there is no visible colour cast in the image either.IBTimes India 
The main USP of this budget smartphone is its rear camera. On the first click we left impressed with the accuracy and speed of auto focus. Experience the bouquet effect behind the subject.IBTimes India 
This shot was snapped under sunny and ambient lighting atmosphere. The colours in the image are finely balanced and no saturation is visible in the image.IBTimes India
Camera
The Honor 4X features a 13MP, 4208x3120 pixels, auto focus, LED flash rear camera and a 5MP front camera. Putting the phone above other phones in the price bracket, the Honor 4X stands at par but manages to show something different in real life testing.
Testing the rear camera we found the autofocus is really fast for its price. The tap focus switches fast and focuses accurately on the subject and makes the background opaque to give a DSLR like bokeh effect in the image. The effect really helps a lot to capture better macro images. Another good thing we noticed that the camera remains focused on the subject from the closest possible distance.
Shots clicked in Honor 4X are really impressive with aptly balanced colours with no visible tint. Even the front facing 5MP camera had been able to capture some decent selfies in our test.
Battery Life and Storage
Although the camera of Honor 4X is outstanding in its price, the battery life undoubtedly claims to be another USP for it. On paper, the Honor 4X features a 3,000 mAh battery, which is almost at par with the competitors, but in real life testing it managed to provide us a battery life of almost one and half days while being active with 3G+ WiFi active connection and remained connected to our Moto 360 Smartwatch through Bluetooth continuously. In moderate use the device lasts more than a couple of days.
The Honor 4X comes loaded with 8GB of internal space and can be increased further 32GB via its micro SD card slot.
Overall
Available at Rs. ₹10,499, the Honor 4X can be purchased through its exclusive seller Flipkart via flash selling process. In its price, the Honor 4X offers a decent display, subtle performance, great camera and a decent battery life. In contrary, the Yu Yureka lacks a powerful battery and Redmi Note lacks the dual 4G slot.
All in all, the Honor 4X is a great smartphone offered in its price for its camera and the battery life. Go for A7000 if you want a Lollipop running device in budget price.
