Soon after the launch of Honor 9i, Huawei’s online brand Honor launched theHonor 7X in the Indian market aimed at the mid-range segment. In fact, it is the successor of the Honor 6X that was launched in India earlier this Year. And the Honor 7X is the second smartphone from Honor portfolio with 18:9 aspect ratio display to launch in India. So how good is this device? Let’s check it out.
Unboxing
Check out the unboxing video of Honor 7X here.
Box Contents
- Honor 7X smartphone in Black color
- 2-pin charger (5V-2A)
- Micro USB Cable
Note: Box content will vary in the retail unit.
Display, Design, and hardware
The Honor 7X comes with 5.93-inch (2160 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display. The display is bright enough, almost same as the Honor 9i. In some parts, it looks a bit faded with decent color reproduction. The viewing angle and sun legibility are equally good too. The Honor 7X proves to be good on entertainment factors be it watching videos or swiping through photos.
Visually speaking, the Honor 7X is similar to Honor 9i except for the placement of the rear camera. The Honor 7X comes with a unibody metal design with Black Matte Finish texture on the back. The phone is slim, sturdy and offers good grip as well. Some users might find it difficult using on a single hand as it is tall. It measures 156.5 x 75.3 x 7.6mm and weighs 165 grams.
Talking about the placement, we have 5.93-inch Full HD+ 18:9 aspect ratio 2.5D curved display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection. The display is quite bright with good viewing angles.
On the front top, we have the earpiece, usual set of sensors and 8MP front camera with Honor Branding mentioned below. It also has the usual set of proximity and ambient light sensors. It also has notification LED and has magnetic sensor, but lacks gyroscope.
It just has Honor logo on the bezel, below the screen since it uses on-screen buttons.
Moving left, we have SIM tray which is a hybrid Setup and on the right, we have the volume rockers along with power button. On the bottom, we have 3.5mm headphone jack, a micro USB port for charging, noise cancellation microphone and the speaker grill.
Up top, we have a secondary noise-cancelling microphone. Flipping it backside we have the dual rear camera setup (16MP + 2MP) along with a single LED flash and a fingerprint sensor right below.
Camera
One of the noteworthy features in the Honor 7X is its optics. The device has 16-megapixel rear camera with a 2-megapixel secondary camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. The UI of the camera is simple and one can understand it easily in the first attempt.
The top consists of toggle for flash, wide aperture mode, portrait mode, moving picture mode and camera option. The bottom side has a gallery, shutter button, and video mode. Users need to swipe right to access various modes — Pro photo, HDR, Night shot, Panorama, Light paint and more.
The Honor 7X camera is feature rich when it comes to camera and has lots options to play around. With this device, you can get professional bokeh style effects from both fronts as well as rear cameras. When it comes to real-world usage, the output under daylight condition is good with a sharp image, fine details, but looks bit artificial. As expected the output under the low light condition is average with grains spread over the picture. The front camera performs well and makes use of portrait mode very well. The device processing the borders is up to the mark and neat. You can also adjust the beauty mode on the app to remove the blemishes on the skin.
Check out some camera samples (Click the image to view full resolution samples).
Software
The Honor 7X is shipped with Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5.1 on top with Android security patch for October 2017. The company doesn’t say when it will get Android 7.1 or Android Oreo update.
Unlike other Honor smartphones running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, this device comes with two home screen style — Standard (shows all apps on the home screen) and Drawer (shows all app on drawer screen).
Also, you can choose several combinations of navigation buttons from the settings. Under the display option, you also get an “Eye Comfort” option, which filters out the blue light to prevent your eyes from strain. You can also schedule the start time and end time and can adjust the color temperature as well.
Under Smart Assistance app, you can turn on floating dock to access Back, Home, Recent tasks, Screen lock and One-touch optimization. The dock can be dragged to the left or right edges of the screen. Moreover, you also get voice control for quick calling using voice commands, and there are voice broadcasts for incoming calls when connected to the headset. Like other smartphones, it also has a one-handed mode. There is also a scheduled power on and off option so you can turn off the phone during the night and turn it on in the morning to save battery.
Connectivity, Call quality and storage
The Honor 7X supports a range of connectivity options including WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, GPS and more. It has 4G connectivity with support a lot of bands and also has Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) support for Reliance Jio. Moving on, the call quality is good and we did not face any call drops and earpiece volume was loud as well.
In our case, we got hold of 4GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage variant. Out of 4GB RAM, we got around 2GB of free RAM when the default apps are running in the background and out of 64GB we got around 46GB or free space.
Fingerprint scanner
Like other Honor phones, the fingerprint scanner is placed on the rear side of the device on Honor 7X. The position is indeed comfortable and unlocks the phones quickly too.
In this phone, you can add up to 5 fingerprints and not more than that. Additionally, you can use the fingerprint for varieties of gesture options including — slide down on the fingerprint sensor to display the notification panel, browse photo by swiping left or right, Answer the call, Stop alarm, take photos/videos.
Performance
In terms of specifications, the Honor 7X is powered by Octa-Core Kirin 659 processor with MaliT830-MP2 GPU under the hood. During our usage, the phone performed pretty well without any lag. At times, we experienced a delay in the keyboard, during multi-tasking with heavy apps. Additionally, the device warms up a bit during gaming or clicking photos when prolonged, otherwise it is good. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery
The Honor 7X is powered by a 3340mAh built-in battery without fast charging technology. As expected, this device can take you throughout the on casual usage and bit heavy usage as well in a single charge. Our usage includes voice calling, Youtube streaming, Netflix and Internet browsing.
In our One Charge rating, the Honor 7X achieved around 14 hours and 46 minutes, mainly due to brilliant talk time. But it is still decent for a phone with a 3340mAh battery. However, the lack of fast charging is a bit pain here as it takes about 2 and half hours to charge from 0 to 100%, even though it takes just one hour to charge from 0 to 50%. Check out the complete set of battery life test results here.
Conclusion
The Honor 7X is undoubtedly value-for-money (VFM) smartphone available in the market right now below Rs. 15,000. This device has a good screen, smooth performance, and a decent camera as well. The Honor 7X comes in Black, Blue and Gold colors and is priced at Rs. 12,999 for the 32GB storage version and the 64GB storage version costs Rs. 15,999. It goes on sale every week exclusively on Amazon.in .
Pros
- Full-screen display is good
- Good performance
- Good battery life
- Competitive pricing
Cons
- Hybrid Dual SIM
- No fast charging