Let’s keep the phones aside and talk about the brands first. The two brands here, i.e. Honor and Xiaomi, both are so well growing in the Indian smartphone market, especially the online one where the percentage of buyers are picking up at a rapid pace. Every bit of announcement by these brands is so well received by a large chunk of fans and potential buyers, especially because the phones offered have a lot for the price. The most recent announcements from the brands in the mid-range category are the Honor 7x and the Xiaomi Mi A1 respectively.
While the Mi A1 was released quite some time back, the most recent one in the market is the Honor 7x and we here talk about them, to analyze which is a better phone amount the two. It is hard to pick one usually, but in this case, we have a winner in several aspects. Read along to see who is the boss among the two phones, Xiaomi Mi A1 and Honor 7x.
Let’s begin with the internal specs!
When we talk about a phone from Honor, there is no mention about Qualcomm because the company uses their own chip, i.e. the Hisilicon Kirin one, and in the Honor 7x, there is Kirin 659 powering the device and that is nowhere to be written off when compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 that powers the Xiaomi Mi A1. While there are variants with storage options of 32GB and 64GB, the Honor 7x has 4GB of RAM on both of them, and it is the same amount of RAM given even on the Mi A1, though the storage is 64GB and no variants are available.
Also, with the battery capacity, it is higher on the Honor 7x with the 3340 mAh battery when compared to the 3080 mAh battery on the Mi A1.
Which phone looks and shows better?
The looks are excellent on both, though it is easy to say for many to say that the Xiaomi Mi A1 draws inspiration from one of the iPhones, that is not the case with the Honor 7x that follows its own design and the two cameras separately present on the back gives it a unique look. In a way, the Mi A1 has a little smaller size and might also feel a little more comfortable but that comes at a cost of almost half an inch of the display as the Honor 7x has a larger one though using the space that seems wasted on the other one.
If we were talking in 2016, it would’ve been the standard designs and display, but we have seen a number of phones offering a newer aspect ratio and a refreshing design on some, and that is what is lacking on the Mi A1.
For the display, you know what we’d choose with ease. The Honor 7x has a much better looking and a bigger display offering a new aspect ratio of 18:9 while maintaining the resolution of Full HD+ at 2160 x 1080 pixels, while on the other side, the 5.5-inch display on the Mi A1 has a 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution.
Interface, features, and security
While this is always a personal preference and some might want Android to be as it is, some others are happy to get the extra features offered by the companies in the form of the custom interface. While the Mi A1 from Xiaomi is the first one from the company to take a new route and include the stock Android, Honor 7x continues with the company’s EMUI interface that is feature-loaded.
The features are going to be used, or if the interface is going to be liked, is all a very personal choice for each, but we prefer to have some features that make the user experience better. Also, with the security, the fingerprint sensor offered on the Honor 7x is easily much faster and better in recognition and unlocking of the screen. Not only it is feature-loaded to offer some options while swiping and tapping, the sensor is one of the fastest out there in recognizing the registered fingerprints.
In a way, it is always said that stock Android, especially under the Android One program is the one getting the Android updates at the earliest, but that has not yet happened with the Xiaomi Mi A1 that still awaits the Android Oreo update. On the other side, even the Honor 7x runs the EMUI based on Android Nougat for now, but for an interface that is so different from the stock Android, Android updates do not really bring big changes.
Cameras – Who is the better clicker?
A very tough competition here, but for us, the Honor 7x is the better one if you don’t take the fact into consideration that the Mi A1 is capable of 2x optical zoom. Although the Mi A1 has Xiaomi’s camera app that has a lot of modes that you would not see on the regular camera app that Android phones come with, they stand not so close to what the camera app on the Honor 7x offers.
In the daylight conditions, the colors seem far better retained on the Honor 7x while in the case of portraits, it is almost an equal output as the Mi A1 also manages to do it well with a good bordering, where it is clear that the cameras are being used and it isn’t only the software bokeh offered here. In low light conditions, there is a little struggle seen on both the phones and calling out a winner here is a rather hard task.
Of course, move to the front camera and you’ll realize how easily the Honor 7x is a better choice having an 8-megapixel camera that does well in capturing selfies with details but even on video calls, it works quite well. The 5-megapixel front camera on the Xiaomi Mi A1 is a rather basic one with not a bad performance but at least, not one that can compete with the camera on Honor 7x.
Who lasts longer? The battery life battle
The numbers taken into consideration, it should be a tough battle because even though the Honor 7x has a better battery capacity, it is supposedly going to be drained more because of the higher resolution of the display, and even the Snapdragon 625 is said to be a very good battery-efficient chip powering the Mi A1.
The 3340 mAh battery on the Honor 7x actually lasts longer and takes you through the day and over that for a moderate user, and it is only a little lesser on the Mi A1, which drains the battery faster when you use data and use the camera a lot.
Honor or Mi, who steals the show?
Taking a few other things into consideration, namely the presence of IR blaster on the Mi A1, and the presence of features like the Wi-Fi bridge that is a seriously good and useful one on the Honor 7x, we see that the phones have got their own set of goodness to overshadow the others, but what is also noticeable is that it is the Honor 7x that comes with a much better set of offerings, and Xiaomi missed a mark by excluding the MIUI interface that would’ve given the users some flexibility for a better experience.
We talk about a long-term use, no matter whatever price category we look at. A phone has to stay good for at least a couple of years, and in this case, while the software updates are promised on both, it is the features that seem better on the Honor 7x, and the design that is something future-proofing with the 18:9 aspect ratio for the display that seems to be now getting picked up by many newer phones as it utilizes the space that would have usually been wasted, and the phone does boast a good performance and a great set of cameras.
So for us, the Honor 7x is to be crowned as the showstopper, and while the Mi A1 held on to the top of the charts ever since it was launched, the year 2017 ends with a new winner.
