The Honor 8X Sneak Preview – Fresh From The Oven!

The honor 8X Key Features

New Level Of Mid-Range Performance

The honor 8X smartphone boasts the new Kirin 710 mobile SoC from HUAWEI’s HiSilicon subsidiary.

It is not the flagship-class SoC like the Kirin 950 used in the honor 8, but thanks to advances in semiconductor design and fabrication, it offers better performance with lower power consumption.

The Kirin 710 is actually a mid-range version of the Kirin 970 SoC that powers the honor 10 smartphone.

It uses the same four high-performance Cortex-A73 cores, with the same four low-power Cortex-A53 cores – just with slightly lower clock speeds.

It is paired with 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory, and 64 GB of internal flash storage.

Advances in LTE technology allows the Kirin 710 to deliver much faster Cat13 upload speeds of up to 150 Mbps, and Cat12 download speeds of up to 600 Mbps.

However, its WiFi support is limited to a/b/g/n protocols, and only in the 2.4 GHz band.

 

Display Notch

The honor 8X has a Full HD+ display, with an aspect ratio of 19:9 and a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. It features the display notch made popular by the iPhone X, to maximise its display size.

Although the notification icons nearest to the notch can appear “cut-off”, the hnor 8X is smart enough to work around the notch. In games and applications that don’t support the notification area, it just displays the main 1080 x 2240 section.

 

The Honor 8X Cameras

Hidden in the display notch is a high-resolution 16 MP camera with f/2.0 lens. It is supposedly capable of recording 1080p videos, but in our early firmware, it is limited to 720p video recording.

We were hoping that the honor 8X’s AI Camera would be based on the dual-camera design of the honor 10 and the honor 8 smartphones, they went instead with a single 20 MP camera paired with a 2 MP depth sensor.

The 20 MP camera uses a PDAF (phase detection autofocus) sensor paired with a fast and bright f/1.8 lens.

The 2 MP depth sensor has only one job – to deliver better depth perception, so the honor 8X can better differentiate the background from the subjects and more accurately apply the software bokeh effects.

Despite its high-resolution image sensor, the 20 MP camera can only record 1080p videos at up to 60 fps. It is not optically-stabilised, and surprisingly lacks electronic image stabilisation.

 

Fingerprint Sensor

To maximise display size in a relatively small form factor, honor had to use a rear fingerprint sensor. You may recall that they used a front sensor for the honor 10.

The honor 8X’s rear fingerprint sensor is very good – easy to train and works fast and accurately. The only problem that all rear fingerprint sensors have – you can’t use it while it’s attached to a car mount. If you intend to use it while driving, make sure you set-up and use the Face unlock feature.

[adrotate group=”1″]

 

Triple Slot Tray

honor smartphones all have dual SIM, dual standby capabilities. However, to save space, the honor 10 offered two nano SIM trays and removed the microSD card slot. The honor 8, on the other hand, opted for a hybrid SIM tray – the second nano SIM can be swapped out for a microSD card.

The honor 8X offers the ultimate option – a triple slot tray. You can use a microSD card to expand its storage, while still using two nano SIM cards.

 

Ergonomics

With its very large 6.5-inch display, the honor 8X is definitely a much larger smartphone than the honor 8 or honor 10 smartphones.

The honor 8X is just over 76 mm wide, and 160 mm tall, but remains under 8 mm thick. It is comparable in size to the new Apple iPhone Xs Max, but quite a bit lighter at just 175 grams.

The IPS display is very bright and vivid indoors, and does a decent job outdoors despite not being an AMOLED display. The non-standard 19:9 aspect ratio, while useful in giving you more screen space, will result in some pillarboxing for movies.

Next Page > honor 8X Camera Performance – Photos + Videos

 

Support Tech ARP!

If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!


Leave a ReplyCancel reply