Huawei' sub-brand Honor has finally launched the Honor 8X smartphone in India. The Honor 8X packs the Kirin 710 SoC (the first Honor phone to ship with), up to 6GB of RAM & 128GB of internal storage, dual rear cameras and a larger 3750mAh battery. But what separates the device from others is its design. Honor has constructed the device out of glass and the phone houses a metal frame; It has a double textured back something which we saw on the Lenovo Vibe S1 back in 2015. The phone retails at a starting price of Rs 14,999 in the Indian market and for the asking price, it takes on the likes of Xiaomi Mi A2, Redmi Note 5 Pro and the newly announced Realme 2 Pro.
Honor 8X: Specifications and Features
The Honor 8X flaunts a 6.5-inch Full HD+ display on the front with 2.5D curved glass on top. As mentioned above, the phone has glass on the back as well, and it's a double textured back as you can see in the images. Honor did not mention the display protection it used on the Honor 8X. The phone is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 710 chipset, clubbed with 4GB/6GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB of internal storage. The device has been launched in three configurations: 4GB+64GB, 6GB+64GB and 6GB+128GB. Thankfully, there's a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 400GB.
Cameras on the Honor 8X include a 20MP primary shooter on the back side which works in tandem with a 2MP depth sensor. The primary sensor has an aperture of f/1.8 and there's dual-tone LED flash as well. The phone comes with various AI-based features such as 22 scene recognition modes, dedicated low-light mode and it has Huawei's AIS feature which helps in removing shakes from the video recording. The phone also offers 480fps slow-motion video recording. Up front, it ships with a 16MP front-facing camera.
Connectivity options on the handset include Dual 4G, VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS and a Micro USB port. The phone comes armed with a 3750mAh battery which can be charged via the 10W charger that comes bundled inside the retail box. The phone runs on Android 8.1 Oreo-based EMUI 8.2 out of the box.
Honor 8X: Pricing and Availability in India
Moving onto the pricing, the Honor 8X comes in three variants and in three colours- Blue, Black and the Red which looks absolutely gorgeous. The base variant with 4GB+64GB of storage is priced at Rs 14,999, while the 6GB+64GB option can be purchased for Rs 16,999. Lastly, the premium variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage can be picked up for Rs 18,999. The Honor 8X is an Amazon Exclusive smartphone in India and will be available from October 24.
Honor 8X: Competitors in India
The primary competitors of the Honor 8X are the Xiaomi's Mi A2, Redmi Note 5 Pro and Realme's latest offering Realme 2 Pro. The Xiaomi Mi A2 and Realme 2 Pro both sport the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset. While the Kirin 710 SoC has better power efficiency capabilities than the Snapdragon 660, it doesn't come close to the GPU performance though. Both the Mi A2 and Realme 2 Pro doesn't offer slow-motion video recording, while the Honor 8X offers it. The Honor 8X also looks way better than both phones mentioned above. It will be interesting to see how the 8X's cameras stack against the Mi A2 because it's the best camera phone under Rs 20,000 right now.
