An X for eXtra?

[Summary]

I switched to Android in the first half of 2018 by buying a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, it was a great discovery, this device is probably the best in its price range. With my positive experience and the many positive feedback on my blog, I thought I would repeat the experience with another device in the same range. This time I chose the Honor 8X because it is positioned in the same introductory price zone and has many similar features to the Xiaomi. Honor is already a well established brand in Europe, just look at the huge amount of positive reviews on Amazon to realize that the Honor brand has already made many happy with previous models. So what is this new Honor 8X worth? Will it replace my Xiaomi Redmi Note 5? Let's take a closer look!

I am busy testing the phone but my tests are done over several weeks, so I will fill out this article as I go along.

Official website: HiHonor.com

Feel free to ask your questions in the comments section for the benefit of everyone.

Price Honor 8X

I bought my Honor 8x on Amazon France, it arrived 2 days after ordering it, once again impeccable service from Amazon!

Honor 8x on Amazon.com
Honor 8x on Amazon.co.uk

Unlike my Xiaomi bought in China, I preferred to buy my Honor 8X in Europe because the price difference with China was not significant and with Amazon I was sure to receive the phone very quickly. The prices are the same in France and Belgium, VAT sometimes varies the price but there are no big differences.

[pricelist keyword="5" lg="EN"]

My test, your questions

How are my tests different from others on the web?
- I buy the devices with my money (so: I think a lot before buying!)
- I keep the devices to see what they're worth in real conditions
- I answer questions to help you decide before you buy

First contact

Before buying the Honor 8X, I was a little apprehensive about its size because it was theoretically more imposing than my Xiaomi and I was afraid that one-handed use would no longer be possible. The first surprise is that despite a larger screen coverage, the Honor 8X is exactly the same size as the Xiaomi. If you put the two devices next to each other, you could almost confuse them. The device therefore fits very well in one hand (provided you have a large hand).

honor 8x test avis review photo taille main

At the first start, the battery indicated 70%, so I preferred to charge it to 100% before using it. My first contact with the screen on was more positive than when I started my Xiaomi because the blacks are slightly deeper and this provides a better contrast. Once the battery was charged, I placed the Honor 8X in my studio to make some packshots. The device has a very good finish, it is soft to the touch without being slippery and its glass surface at the back gives it a more premium side than the aluminium finish devices. The whole thing reflects the light strongly because once placed in the studio, I had to find a position where you don't see too much of the studio lighting. I would do a test in full sun later to see if this phenomenon occurs under natural conditions. The usual buttons are on the right (volume up/down and on/off), the front panel has one camera, the rear panel has two that come out slightly from the unit. The buttons float a bit more than on the Xiaomi, I have a slower click sensation but this does not hinder the use.

The box is basic like most smartphones today. It contains the phone, a transparent shell, a charger, a pair of earphones, a manual and an opening needle. The manual is available in several languages but do not expect to find a complete explanation of what the phone can offer. A priori it is not a problem if you are comfortable with Android but I have received a lot of feedback on this subject for the Xiaomi because the use of Android is not obvious for everyone.

honor 8x test avis review photo unboxing

First configuration

When I first turned on my Xiaomi, I was surprised by the inquisitorial nature of the device and the number of questions you have to answer before you can use your phone. With the Honor 8X it's even worse, there are easily about fifteen screens before reaching the main screen. Of course, if you are transferring from iOS to Android or recovering an account, it takes time to retrieve the contents of the account on your new phone. Like Xiaomi, Honor tries to force proprietary applications and services that are often redundant with what Google can offer. Personally I'm happy to keep Google services but it's a personal choice.

After the forced passage through these screens, I found myself for the first time with my home screen and there I was a little disappointed. The screen looks good (I'll test it in detail later) but the Honor's interface looks terribly confusing compared to the Xiaomi's. The icons are huge, the fonts are very large and the whole thing seems less worked out. This obviously does not affect the use of the device, but when you switch from MIUI to EMUI, you can see it very clearly.

Here are the different steps to start, there are about fifteen screens to pass with general conditions of Google and Huawei, the basic configuration and the attempt to add all kinds of applications of which you will probably not have used any if you have never had a Huawei/Honor before.

Fingerprint sensor and facial recognition

The fingerprint sensor is located on the back of the phone where you would usually find the camera. The Xiaomi also has a sensor in the same place and it's really very practical. The Honor sensor works very well and recognition is instantaneous. The fingerprint can then be used for some more sensitive applications such as your banking application, it is very convenient because instead of going through the entire verification process to make a payment you can do it with a touch of a finger on the back of your phone.

I hadn't had a phone with facial recognition before and the idea sounds interesting to me. Facial recognition works, but there's a "but." Recognition is slower than the fingerprint sensor and if you have glasses that you don't always wear, facial recognition may not work. I had done the configuration without glasses and I have two very different types of glasses, the recognition works with one pair but not the other. At this point I find that it is mainly a gadget not quite perfect, you can probably impress your friends but on a daily basis I think the fingerprint sensor will be more useful.

Finishing

The finish of the Honor 8x is absolutely impeccable, the use of glass for the rear panel gives a more premium feeling. The device also holds very well in hand and does not slip unlike the Xiaomi, so the use of a cover is not essential. The edges are smoothed and slightly curved to avoid looking like a rectangle. The whole thing is is really good but if you want to stand out with a phone, the Honor 8x is not made for you because it is not really different from other phones, it is a bit the problem of most phones today.

Network support and performance

3G/4Gsupport>

The Honor 8x supports the vast majority of 3G and 4G frequencies in Europe (see details below). I started testing its performance in 4G and the first impression is that it is fast but slower than the Xiaomi. To be sure I still have to test it a few more days because the network speed also depends on the network, so you have to do a lot of tests to be able to draw conclusions.

4G and Wifi signal strength

I did some wifi signal tests by moving as far away from my wifi router as possible and then placing the phone next to it.

What do we see? Not surprisingly the wifi signal is very weak when I am far from the router, the counter indicates a value of -82 and is in the red. The 4G network indicates -107 with a medium quality signal. By placing myself just next to the router, the wifi signal goes green at -34 and the 4G signal goes to -102. These values taken alone obviously mean nothing if they cannot be compared. So I did the same tests with the Xiaomi and here is the comparison table.

>Away from router:

Honor wifi signal 8x: -82
Xiaomi wifi signal: -72
4G Honor Signal 8x: -107
Xiaomi 4G signal: -106

Close to router:

Honor wifi signal 8x: -34
Xiaomi wifi signal: -29
Signal 4G Honor 8x: -101
Xiaomi 4G signal: -101

Of course, I did not just make one measurement, I repeated the operation several times and I obtained similar results each time. The Xiaomi therefore picks up the wifi signal better than the Honor while at the 4G signal level, the two devices are in the same category. Can you feel it when you use it? Not really or at least not sufficiently to notice anything.

Speed 4G:

Here too I have done many tests to the point of exploding my data bundle, the use of Speedtest can quickly exceed the gigabyte. I did the same tests with the Xiaomi at the time, I tested the same places, the same times of the day and even if we can never compare speeds scientifically accurately because there are too many parameters, a trend is still emerging. The good news is that both devices have good results but the Xiaomi outperforms the Honor.

xiaomi redmi note 5 download upload speed

With the Honor I reached a maximum download speed of 102Mbps which is already much higher than most terrestrial connections, with the Xiaomi I reached 122Mbps (+19%). The difference is significant but not as much as for upload where the Honor reached a maximum of 44.5Mbps while the Xiaomi reached 60.5Mbps (+35%). Do we see the difference in common use? This depends on your 4G coverage because most of the time it is not possible to reach these speeds but if you are in good conditions, the difference is visible. I use my phone a lot as a modem by connecting it to my laptop when I'm on the move, so I have a heavy use in data and the speed difference is more easily visible.

Battery life

The Honor 8X has a 3750mAh battery, it is above average without being exceptional. The Xiaomi does better with 4000 mAh but you have to see in real condition what it will give. It takes me several days to form an opinion.

I made my first full charge on a Saturday morning and reached the end of the battery on Monday evening. I use less data on weekends, so I have to do a test on weekdays.

For my second charge, I started my week on a Monday evening with 100% and arrived at 8% on Thursday evening. The phone stayed on day and night but at night I cut off the data to avoid receiving notifications from people who have nothing else to do but post stupid things on Facebook. In terms of usage, I use about 2 hours of data per day, I receive 30-40 emails per day, I didn't make more than one hour of call and I had to send about twenty sms. For this second charge the device held for 4 days, so it is a very good performance that reaches the level of the Xiaomi even if it has in theory a greater battery capacity.

Bluetooth

I paired the Honor with my car without any problem, bluetooth works fine for calls but also to play music.

Audio

I made a few calls with the device and I didn't notice any difference with the other phones I tried, the sound quality is good like the others, I didn't notice anything unusual. Then I played the same song on Deezer starting with the Honor 8x, the sound seemed good to me but when I turned on the Xiaomi right after with the same song, I heard a clear difference. The sound coming out of the Honor 8x was weaker and lacked depth compared to the Xiaomi.

I then took standard stereo headphones where I applied the same method on both sides. Here I didn't notice any difference between the two devices, the sound is good on both sides, the lack of depth of the Honor 8x disappears with the use of a headset. Since I rarely listen to music with my phone, this lack of depth of the Honor's basic speakers will not be a problem for me. If you use your smartphone this way often, you may be quite disappointed.

Performance

The Honor 8x is in the top tier of the market in terms of performance. With Antutu I got a score of almost 140,000 which for the price of the device is an excellent price/performance ratio. The device is very fluid and nothing seems to resist it even with many open applications.

Benchmark with Antutu

Overall score: 139439

Processor: 66989

GPU: 22385

UX: 37826

MEM: 12239

In comparison with Xiaomi:

Overall score: 114968 (-18%)

Processor: 56792 (-16%)

GPU: 20720 (-8%)

UX: 31915 (-16%)

MEM: 5541 (-55%)

xiaomi redmi note 5 performance benchmark

The Xiaomi is beaten to death by the Honor 8x, we see that the GPU of the Xiaomi is doing slightly better but in terms of memory, the Xiaomi takes a monumental beating. This kind of difference will be felt with a lot of open application and the transition from one to the other. For basic use, you probably won't see much difference between the two devices.

Benchmark with 3Dmark

I start with the Honor 8x...

Slingshot Extreme OpenGL 3.1: 953 points

Slingshot Extreme Vulkan: 1127 points

And now the Xiaomi

Slingshot Extreme OpenGL 3.1: 955 points

Slingshot Extreme Vulkan: 758 points

For OpenGL, both devices are equal, for Vulkan the Honor 8x neats the Xiaomi. What does that mean? This means that for applications or games using OpenGL, there will be no difference between the two phones. On the other hand, anything that uses Vulcan, Honor is by far the best candidate.

64Gb or 128Gb?

With my Xiaomi, I had the choice between 32 and 64Gb, Honor is much more generous with 64Gb from the beginning. With 64Gb you should have plenty of space to store your photos. However, you will need to consider a backup in the cloud to avoid keeping too many photos in your phone alone.

Photo quality

For my first day of testing, the weather was not very nice outside, so I started with a lab test where this time I took pictures of the same scene with the Honor 8X, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, my old Nokia Lumia 930 and finally my DSLR. I couldn't take all the pictures with my Canon DSLR because the camera is too big to get inside the studio, the advantage of the smartphone is that I can position myself a few centimeters from the subject, this is impossible with a DSLR. The studio is illuminated with a strong uniform white light and has been used under exactly the same conditions for everyone. I didn't alter the photos I took, I only brought them to the same width, I added my watermark and the name of the phone.

Important note: studio photos are purely technical tests, so they do not reflect reality under natural light. I'll do some tests out of the studio as soon as possible.

Plan number 1: photo taken with focus on Darth Vador's helmet

Honor 8x

EXIF:

50 ISO,1/250,3.96mm,f1.8

First observation, lack of light. I had exactly the same thing when I first tested the Xiaomi. On the phone screen, the picture looks impeccably bright and then when you switch to a PC screen, it clearly lacks light. The focus on the helmet works, you can see the blur in the background and the foreground is sharp. The colours are well saturated even if the whole is too dark. In terms of noise, nothing to complain about, it's impeccable, at ISO 50 it would have been a shame. Let's move on to Xiaomi now.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5

EXIF:

100 ISO,1/236,3.94mm,f1.9

As I had already noticed at the time of the Xiaomi test, I notice the same lack of light. At this point you might think the problem comes from the studio but you will see later that this is not the case. The light deficit is a little less important on the Xiaomi but it remains insufficient. The colours and especially the blue are more saturated than on the Honor. The focus, however, is less clear and it is mainly the car that has a good dive when I had aimed at the helmet. The EXIFs are close to those of the Honor, Xiaomi uses more exotic values but the final result is the same. Let's now move on to my old Nokia Lumia 930.

Nokia Lumia 930

EXIF:

64 ISO,1/160,4.46mm,f2.4

The Nokia Lumia is an "old" device, it is more than 4 years old and 4 years old in the world of smartphones it is an eternity. Why did I take this phone? At the time I bought it, it was one of the best smartphones in terms of photography and I wanted to compare it to the Xiaomi and Honor of 2018. This camera has a camera in the middle of the rear panel, it completely changes the starting angle and it's ultimately a good thing. First observation, with the Nokia no brightness problem at all! The difference is absolutely enormous. In terms of the sharpness, the Nokia does a very good job too, you can see more clearly the small dust on Darth Vador's helmet. In terms of colors on the other hand, they are less saturated than Chinese smartphones which seem to force the color a little bit but all this will be arbitrated by the Canon later. Now all that remains is to compare smartphones with their master...a DSLR!

Canon EOS 7D Mark II (with a 24-70mm L)

EXIF:

640 ISO,1/40,42mm,f11

What can I say? I think the result is indisputable. The brightness is perfect, the white is so white that I had to add a borders around the text to see it. This problem was less of a problem with smartphones because a white text could still be seen, here with the Canon without the border, it's impossible. The colours are saturated just the way they should be, not too much or too little. The sharpness is impeccable, you can see all the dust right down to the windshield. There are colored spots on the windshield because I use a polarizer that I can no longer remove from my lens. The depth of field is also more important. Obviously a reflex is much more expensive, it is normal that the result is better and this is not the purpose of the demonstration. To be able to compare smartphones with each other, you need a model and I consider that the Canon gives the most accurate overview of reality.

Here are the other pictures to finish this test in the studio. The differences are more obvious when you move from one photo to another. It is difficult to separate the Xiaomi from the Honor because they are so close in terms of results. The Xiaomi saturates a little more and the Nokia clearly has a brightness advantage while in terms of opening, it opens less than the others but compensates with a slower shutter. In a very subjective way, I would say that the Xiaomi does slightly better than the others but I let you make your own opinion.

Photo in low light conditions

This weekend I went to the Pairi Daiza park near my home and took advantage of the halloween shows to test the Honor 8x and the Xiaomi at the same time. I added a series of photos below, each time mentioning which device it was. On the Xiaomi I set the saturation and the sharpness a bit higher than the factory setting because I found it gave good results in daytime conditions. I will post videos made under the same conditions later.

There is a difference between the two devices and I think the Xiaomi is doing better. The Honor does not seem to make the right decision regarding the shutter speed. Exposure time with the Honor is longer than that of the Xiaomi with the consequence of having blurry photos in case of movement. Some of the pictures in this test are blurry, but it's not always the camera's fault. It was very cold and I was shaking, it certainly doesn't help to hold smartphones without moving.

The low-light photos taken with the Honor take a yellow coloring when there is still light as on the outdoor photos where we see a big difference with the Xiaomi. Inside (concert scene) the Honor forces on the violets, we also see this phenomenon with the tower of the abbey which must normally be blue, an area of the photo saturated in violet. We see noise appearing from ISO 1000 on the Honor, the Xiaomi offers a smoothing that avoids this problem but it results in a loss of detail. Look at the pictures of the concert, you will see that the details of the faces are almost absent on the Xiaomi.

Even if the Xiaomi is not perfect, I find that he is better at night photography than the Honor.

Screen quality

I started to test the screen by comparing the Honor's screen with the Xiaomi's. In terms of resolution and pixel fineness, the two devices are equal and they both do a good job. The Honor gave me the impression of presenting a bluer image than the Xiaomi and this is confirmed when I compare an identical photo on both cameras. Where the Xiaomi displays whites and greys, there is a small bluish tint on the Honor. This small defect can be corrected by changing the color balance in the settings, there is a "warm" mode for colors that reduces the presence of blue. On the Xiaomi side it is the opposite, it is the reds that slightly dominate the image with the basic settings. There is therefore no perfect screen but for this price, it would be frankly unfair to be more difficult, both screens are good and you have to look in much higher price ranges to get better (ex: amoled screen).

Red (Honor on the left)

The two devices offer similar performance in red, the Honor seems to stall a little faster where we see that the last lines of red can't be distinguished where we still see a difference with the Xiaomi.

Green (Honor on the left)

Here again the devices deliver similar performances with a light advantage for the Xiaomi again where the color difference can be distinguished further down the screen.

Blue (Honor on the left)

While both devices deliver similar performance for red and green, this is not the case for blue at all. I had already noticed a problem with the blue in the pictures and it is very strongly confirmed here. Where the Xiaomi gently moves towards purple, the Honor completely loses control and switches to purple very quickly. Does it affect what you see on the screen? Yes, here is an example that speaks for itself:

I compared exactly the same picture on both cameras (it is the Oculus in New York) and it is very clear that the Honor slides to purple instead of staying in the blue.

Camera speed

I still need to make a video like for the Xiaomi but the Honor 8x has a fast camera like the Xiaomi, there is no lag when taking pictures, not even in dark conditions.

Video quality

The Honor 8x is configured in 720p by default, so it is necessary to modify the settings to change the videos to 1080p. I advise you to make the change from the first use to avoid making videos of lower quality. To compare the video, I compared the Honor again with the Xiaomi, I made more or less the same video in the same place and at the same time to be able to compare them. I voluntarily made a video where the brightness changes significantly to see how the devices behave with changing brightness. Here is the video taken with the Honor 8x:

And then the one taken with the Xiaomi:

If your screen is large enough, you can play both videos at the same time to compare the two devices. Without going into a purely technical comparison, the brightness is clearly better on the Xiaomi. For the rest, it is difficult to separate the two devices. The sharpness is very similar, the fluidity is similar, the Honor seems to be a little faster when it comes to adapting to light conditions.

GPS

Not tested yet.

Android / EMUI

The Honor 8X runs an Android overlayer called EMUI. I don't have a pure Android phone to compare, I can only compare EMUI with MIUI from Xiaomi. In terms of functionality, there are no big differences between the two systems, both run on Android 8. The difference is mainly in the design of the interface and the different menus that compose it. If you read the rest of this test you will find that it is difficult to choose a winner between the Xiaomi and the Honor because the devices are so close, for the interfaces for me the choice is clear, Xiaomi is much better. Why? The interface is more easier to use, icons are nicer and overal design is better.

Updates

I haven't had any updates yet.

3G / 4G

The recent Honors are available in 2 versions, a normal version (often in Chinese and English) and a global version with more languages but especially a more extensive support of 3G / 4G frequencies. Remember to check this before buying as you may end up with a nice phone that doesn't connect to your network.

What frequencies should be chosen?

For 3G: B1 (2100), B2 (1900), B5 (850), B8 (900)
For 4G: B1 (2100), B20 (800), B3 (1800), B38 (TDD 2600), B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1), B40 (TDD 2300), B5 (850), B7 (2600), B8 (900)

It is of course always necessary to check the specific frequencies of your carrier because some European carriers use different frequencies but these cases are rarer. Please note that the frequencies indicated below were valid at the time of writing this article, they will not be updated, so I cannot guarantee that they are correct.

I have added a few other European countries so that you can check the countries where you go on holiday, if the local operator does not support the same frequencies, you may no longer have a network.

In Belgium
(support OK!)

4G Proximus: 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2600Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Proximus: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Orange: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Orange: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Base: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Base: 2100Mhz

In France
(OK support except Bouygues and Free)

4G Orange: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Orange: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G SFR: 2600Mhz, 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G SFR: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Bouygues: 2600Mhz, 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz, 700Mhz
3G Bouygues: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz
If you are at Bouygues, the 700Mhz coverage is not compatible with this device but the 700Mhz coverage is not the most widespread.

4G Free: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz
3G Free: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz
Same remark as for Bouygues on frequency 700Mhz.

Spain
(support OK!)
Movistar 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Movistar 3G: 2100, 900

Orange 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Orange 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

Yoigo

Yoigo 4G: 1800
Yoigo 3G: 2100

Germany
(support OK!)

E-Plus 4G: 2600, 800
E-Plus 3G: 2100

O2

O2 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
O2 3G: 2100

T-Mobile

T-Mobile 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
T-Mobile 3G: 2100

Vodafone

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100

Italy
(support not always OK)

Tre 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Tre 3G: 2100, 900

Telecom Italia 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Telecom Italia 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

Wind 4G: 2600, 800
Wind 3G: 2100, 900

Switzerland
(support OK!)

Salt Mobile 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Salt Mobile 3G: 2100, 900

Sunrise 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Sunrise 3G: 2100, 900

Swisscom 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Swisscom 3G: 2100, 900

Netherlands
(support OK!)

KPN 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
KPN 3G: 2100

Tele2 4G: 2600, 800

T-Mobile 4G: 2600, 2100, 1800, 1800, 900
T-Mobile 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

United Kingdom
(support almost OK!)

Three 4G: 1800, 800
Three 3G: 2100

EE 4G : 2600, 1800, 800
EE 3G : 2100
class="content-jumper
O2 4G : 1800, 800
O2 3G : 2100, 900
class="content-jumper
Virgin Mobile 4G : 2600, 1800 B9, 800
Virgin Mobile 3G : 2100
class="content-jumper
Vodafone 4G : 2600, 2100, 1!00, 800
Vodafone 3G : 2100, 900

Accessories

Do you already have an Honor 8x? Congratulations. What else could you add to improve your experience?

Protective film:

Protective shell:

Memory card:

Honor vs Xiaomi: who is the winner?

Here is a summary of everything I tested so far

Price: Xiaomi
Finish: Honor
Fingerprint sensor: same
Network performance: Xiaomi
Device performance: Honor
Battery: same
Photo quality: Xiaomi
Screen quality: Xiaomi
Video quality: Xiaomi
Audio: same (except for external speaker on Honor)
Android: Xiaomi

For me the Xiaomi is the winner because he exceeds the Honor in many ways and his price is much lower than the Honor. Should we consider that the Honor is not a good device? No, it's a good device and it crushes the Xiaomi in terms of performance and finishes.

Conclusion

The Honor 8x test is coming to an end after a few weeks of use. Overall it is a good device but it will not replace my Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 because the Xiaomi exceeds it in many important ways for me. The choice between the two devices is a matter of preference.

Strengths

[+] CPU, GPU and memory performance

[+] Premium finish
[+] Holds very well in hand, does not slip
[+] Good screen
[+] Good battery

Weaknesses

[-] Speaker sound too weak
[-] Interface not always easy
[-] Artificial intelligence in photography gives random results
[-] Screen colorimetry in blue range