48 hours with Honor 8X

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The past year has been long. In fact, I do not remember much of the smartphones I used.

For the most part, the devices are dominated by notches, large screens and the focus on AI to a certain extent. And my last subject of review happens to check the three boxes.

The Honor 8X, for all intents and purposes, is what you get if you make a smartphone in 2018 almost entirely in fashion, with some additional bonuses and new features.

Speaking of this, after using the phone for 48 hours, here are some of the things I immediately noticed about the Honor 8X.

Yeah

• This phone is damn beautiful, thanks to the two-tone chandelier on the back and the almost total absence of frames visible in the front.
• I must mention that there is a red version of this phone. It is not yet available in South Africa, but it's beautiful.
• It's 6.5 inches from corner to corner, but it's a smaller, lighter package than the Galaxy Note 9 and Mate 20 Pro's 6.4 inches.
• For a phone of this size, it is surprisingly lightweight and easy to handle, even with a transparent case.
• He feels much more premium and well built than his price tag would suggest.
• He has a headphone jack. For those who use both a Bluetooth headset and a wired headset, I can not explain the importance of a headphone jack – when the Bluetooth signal is bad or when the battery of your headset is exhausted – is really .
• The battery consumption is surprisingly good with the initial set of installed applications, AccuBattery reporting an average power consumption of about 300 mA in use. Not bad for a phone with a large LCD screen and autobrightness enabled.
• Dual SIM.

Oh agree

• In the best case, the user interface is strangely hitchy. It momentarily interrupts navigation in application lists or application switching, using the action launcher and the Nova launcher. I do not remember those rotations on the Mate 20 Pro. Maybe it's the Kirin 710?
• The fingerprint reader could be better, but it could be worse. It works most often, but is not as lively as others in its price range.
• The Honor 8X's rear cameras offer poor indoor performance. They took time to concentrate, while the results were not clear. Additional tests, especially in manual mode, are nevertheless essential.
• The reception – WiFi and cellular – is really affected when you hold the top of the phone with your left hand. It's something that I really need to test more intensely.

Oh no

• It works with EMUI 8.2, which means there is no dark mode. Eye Comfort is not what I would call a fair trade.
• Nearly five months after the launch by Google's Google Android Pie, we are still launching phones with Android 8.1 Oreo. Disappointing.
• The default Honor launcher is not esoteric, but it is by no means intuitive. There is no option to long-press to uninstall applications from the home page, while clear gestures to open the Applications pane are non-existent. All your applications are displayed on the home page or press a taskbar button to access them.
• Many applications just can not be uninstalled, like Swiftkey. There are a few built-in bloatware apps, including Booking.com, and other apps from Huawei / Honor.
• If you do not use ADB commands, you can not disable duplicate applications such as Calendar or Music.
• Why are we still using the microUSB on mid-range smartphones in 2018?

Initial impressions are by no means final impressions. Therefore, expect a more detailed review of the Honor 8X that will arrive at Gearburn in the coming weeks.

Function picture: Andy Walker / Gearburn

Camper day, runner at night, Andy prefers his toast like his coffee – black and crunchy. Driven by his belief that PvZ: GW2 is the 2016 game of the year, Andy has also tackled some tough stories about Memeburn. More