New Year's resolutions smartphone manufacturers should make

Introduction

The Honor 8X is yet another attractive offer from Huawei's subsidiary aiming to bring mid-range experience on a budget. But it sure is not the only Honor phone aiming to do just that and you'd be forgiven if the oversaturated market confuses you.

The attractive and all-glossy Honor 8X has a large screen, a dual-camera on the back, a capable Kirin chipset, and dependable battery life. But so do the Honor Play, Note 10, View 10, and then a bunch of Huawei phones including the Mate 20 Lite, nova 3, nova 3i, Y9, among others. Yes, some of those are faster, and yet still cheap. So, what's the deal with the Honor 8X? Let's find out.

The Honor 8X enjoys a large 6.5" 1080p screen with a notch for the earpiece and the selfie camera. There is a dual-camera on the back with a bright aperture, advanced portraits and the tripod-free Night Mode that premiered on the flagship P20 series earlier this year.

Unboxing

The Honor 8X is available at a nice low price, which as usual means some corners had to be cut. And the retail bundle is a cost-saving one for sure - the Honor 8X is packed within a paper box with a microUSB cable and a 10W charger.

The Honor 8X is available at a nice low price, which as usual means some corners had to be cut. And the retail bundle is a cost-saving one for sure - the Honor 8X is packed within a paper box with a microUSB cable and a 10W charger. Still, the Honor 8X gets a transparent silicone case to get you going, so that's something.

Design 

Honor is sticking to the tried and popular glass-sandwich design with the 8X and we're not blaming them. The 8X is an affordable phone and Honor could have easily recycled one of its previous designs. But it did not.

While Honor has cut quite a few corners to make the Honor 8X work, the budget for the design is among the few things that didn't get a cut. While the phone does not break from the recent trends, the maker has still found a way to make it unique. And keep it simple, of course.

While Honor hasn't shared this on its official pages, the front glass keeping the display out of harm's way should be a Gorilla Glass 3. It's a flat one with very subtle 2.5D finish on the edge.

Display 

The Honor 8X features a 6.5" IPS LCD screen with 1,080 x 2,340 pixels - this makes for a pretty sharp picture with 396ppi density. The aspect ratio is quite tall, or wide, depending how you look at it - 19.5:9. , A Gorilla Glass 3 by Corning is shielding the screen from cracks.

The Honor 8X has nicely deep blacks and a good maximum brightness of 430 nits. The screen isn't the brightest we've seen around, sure, but it does a solid job for the class. The contrast ratio is very good at 1:1234.