Honor India has come a long way, with only a few phones in the portfolio. A case that can be called similar to how Xiaomi has done it, Honor has its own set of fans who love the fact that the company was an early adopter of something that almost every mid-range phone aims to bring – the dual-lens camera setup. The balance of specs and the price is another area where Honor has been doing so well and the Honor 6X, for that reason, is one of the best phones for its price, till this date.
The Honor 7X is the latest offering from the company that brings in a lot, again, as an upgrade from the Honor 6X, but what’s interesting is the fact that the company has chosen to keep the pricing competitive, and actually a little lesser than what the price is in China. But, keeping in mind that we are in 2017 and have seen some excellent phones in the sub-Rs. 20000 price range, will the Honor 7x claim the top spot with the likes of Xiaomi Mi A1, Moto G5s Plus, and others around? Let’s check out in the review below.
Here’s a list of major specs of the phone.
- 5.93-inch display, 2160 x 1080 pixels
- Hisilicon Kirin 659 chipset, octa-core
- 4GB RAM, 32/64GB storage options
- 16MP + 2MP rear camera combination
- 8MP front camera
- Android 7.0 based EMUI 5.1
- 3340 mAh battery
To keep it interesting just like how I did with the Moto X4 review, I’ll talk about the Pros and Cons of the phone, based on how I experienced it.
Honor 7x – What’s good?
The design – Front, and Back
Much better than the Honor 6x, which in fact, was not a bad looking phone at all. The Honor 7x has the two cameras on the back placed independently and not under a single cover glass, and while it is functionally no different, aesthetically it is much better than what it would have been normally. The Honor 7x comes with the metal body and the antenna band on the top runs across the line where the cameras and flashlight are located.
What’s changed on the front is exceptional, as the company joins the bandwagon of including a 18:9 aspect ratio. The device has a 5.93-inch Full HD+ display now with the resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels, and that gives it a little better pixel density than what was on the predecessor. But what’s important here is the fact that there is so less of space wasted and the Full view display on the front looks gorgeous. The black color that I’ve used doesn’t even show much of the borders on the side, which should be visible on the lighter variant of the same.
The color output, brightness, and the viewing angles are all good on the Honor 7x, stating that the increase in the size of the screen and change in resolution is for good, as it doesn’t any way change the quality of the display.
The cameras
Honor has made the camera better, though this is not a new set of cameras on the back that we are taking a look at, and the Honor 9i had a similar set of rear cameras. A 16-megapixel camera with the 2-megapixel secondary sensor is what comprises the dual-lens setup, where the primary camera does the obvious while the secondary sensor is for sensing the depth, helping in the wide-aperture shots.
The camera samples given below should do justice to the thoughts, as the camera does a brilliant job in retaining the colors and also, keep it well lit even when there is not much light available around.
The UI features
The features given in the UI are some of the very useful ones, and easily, Wi-Fi Bridge feature is one of my favorites. It helps spread the Wi-Fi connection to the other devices around, and for travelers who stay at hotels regularly would see this as a very useful feature because the number of connections available is limited on those networks, and Wi-Fi bridge can extend that.
The option to change the home screen style, even have the app drawer, and the smart assistance features including the floating dock, motion control gestures, MirrorShare add up to the goodness of the phone.
The flexibility of EMUI to adapt to user’s needs is what makes you forget that it is a custom interface.
Excellent Performance
Play games on the phone, use multiple apps and extensive usage of the phone with several apps in the background, the Honor 7x is capable of taking it all well, without any issues. The performance of the Kirin 659 processor is excellent and that goes without saying because even the previous one, the Kirin 655 on the Honor 6x was known for a good performance. To add to it, the EMUI here is managing the RAM well to keep the multitaskers worry-free about their usage.
The fingerprint sensor
Whatever the device it is from Honor, the fingerprint sensor’s accuracy and the set of features are top-notch. Not only is the fingerprint sensor one of the fastest in recognition and accurate at the same time, the EMUI has a few features such as clicking pictures, dragging the notification panel down, or swiping through the photos in the Gallery, all possible with the fingerprint sensor.
What’s not so good on the Honor 7x?
The front camera
Not to take away everything from it, the selfie camera is still not the best one when it comes to this price range. Of course, it still does a good job in capturing selfies and there are excellent effects and features to be used to make the selfies better, but the 8MP camera here isn’t able to perform well in low-light conditions. Easily-noticeable noise in the pictures is what makes you think that the camera doesn’t do things up to the mark when we talk about the selfies.
The bokeh effect surely does a good job, though, but we are here talking about the overall quality of selfies taken with the Honor 7x, which isn’t the best when we talk about the competition here.
The absence of fast charging
Fast charge is a need of the hour for many active users who keep using their phones and see the battery draining quite quickly. Though there was a good battery life offered, charging it not so quickly enough is going to hurt in the longer run. Honor should have made sure there is a supported fast charging standard that ensures a few hours of usage with a few minutes of charging.
No dedicated storage slot
While one good thing that is done with the Honor 7x is that there is no differentiation in the amount of RAM that is being given in the different variants, but since we are looking at a mid-range phone, there should have been something with the expandable storage capability here. The Honor 7x comes with a hybrid SIM slot where you can either have a MicroSD card or a SIM card and not giving a dedicated slot for the storage expansion is something I have a problem with.
Final verdict – The best mid-range device of 2017?
The Honor 7x certainly has it all. An excellent design, a great display, superb performance and the set of cameras that can do well in most of the conditions. Moreover, the company has ensured to price it well, and even with some drawbacks, which is expected with every phone, the phone is surely one of the best in the price range of Rs. 12000 to Rs. 16000 this year.
No wonder why we have the Honor 7x leading the list of best mid-range smartphones of the year 2017 as the phone balances out everything, and not missing the things like 18:9 display that was used by almost every brand in at least one of its devices. The company’s own Honor 9i is better with the selfie camera combination that it offers, but there comes the pricing factor where the Honor 7x with the excellent pricing of Rs. 12999 and Rs. 15999 for the two variants and it sits right beside the Xiaomi Mi A1 and the Moto G5s Plus.
