Honor 7X Design
I love smartphones with big displays and the Honor 7X is perfect for that. The front of the phone is occupied by a 5.93-inch screen. There are thin borders on the sides but the top and bottom are a bit thicker. There is an earpiece and an 8-megapixel front camera above the screen. Just like the Honor 9i, the 7X has a fingerprint scanner on the rear. The scanner is easy to use and our experience of unlocking the phone was great. Honor has used a metal unibody on this smartphone which gives it a premium look and feel. The phone has antenna bands on the top and bottom which remind us of the Honor 8 Pro (Review).
The metal body has curved edges and this makes the phone feel good to hold. The power and volume buttons are well placed on the right side of the phone. And we found that the volume buttons are difficult to reach. The loudspeaker, 3.5mm headphone socket, primary microphone and Micro-USB port are located at the bottom. The dual camera setup at the rear comes with a single-LED flash. Honor has used two rings instead of a single ring key. We have seen such camera setups in many recently launched phones. The camera is slightly raised but due to the metal ring, it is not prone to scratches. On the front, there is an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
The Honor 7X weighs 165 grams which makes it feel light in the hand. The thickness of the smartphone is 7.6 mm while the battery capacity is 3340 mAh. Honor has provided a 10 watt charger in the box which charges the phone 100 percent in two and a half hours.
Honor 7X specifications, software and features
Most Honor phones have Huawei processors. The 7X has a HiSilicon Kirin 659 processor and the same processor is used in the Honor 9i. The Honor 7X has a choice of 32GB and 64GB storage but both variants have 4GB of RAM. Along with two nano-SIM slots, the handset supports hybrid dual SIM slot which means you get the option of two nano SIMs or one SIM and one microSD card. It is possible to expand the storage via microSD card up to 256GB. The phone supports 4G and VoLTE on both SIM cards, but 4G can only be accessed on one network at a time.
The Honor 7X has a screen with a Full HD+ resolution that is protected by a 2.5D curved glass. But there is no mention of any protection. Viewing angles are good and Honor has given the option to set the color temperature as per your convenience. The brightness is good indoors but we had trouble using the phone with one hand under sunlight.
Like all other Honor devices, the 7X also runs on Huawei’s custom EMUI skin. The phone has Android Nougat based EMUI 5.1 skin. You get the option to choose the layout with or without an app drawer. The UI has a theme support for customization. Honor has also provided a single-handed mode for easier use of the phone despite the large screen. Also, you can run apps in 18:9 aspect ratio if they don’t scale automatically.
Along with all the essentials, you also get bloatware. The Honor 7X comes with Honor’s support app HiCare and a gaming app store called HiGame. There are also web shortcuts to apps like Hi Honor and Honor Community. You get demo versions of Spider-Man: Ultimate Power, Asphalt Nitro, Bubble Bash 3, Modern Combat 4 Zero Hour, and Danger Dash preinstalled. But you can delete them.
Honor 7X performance, battery life and camera
The Honor 7X uses the same processor and RAM combination as the Honor 9i. And both score the same in benchmarks. The phone scored 62,504 on AnTuTu while Geekbench scored 906 and 3569 in single-core and multi-core tests respectively. Performance in GFX Bench was average. We tried playing Shadow Fight 3, a game with heavy graphics, on the phone and we did not face any problem in playing the game but it took time to load.
Watching movies and playing games on the big display feels good. However, we did notice that the phone gets warm after playing games for a long time. And the battery also drains faster. With normal use, the phone lasted for a day. But playing games and watching videos takes a toll on the battery. The phone lasted for 8 hours in our HD video loop test, which is low for a battery of this size. Honor has included some battery saver software features in the phone and these are easy to use. But they shouldn’t be used all the time.
The camera app is easy to use and apart from the default auto mode, you can choose between wide aperture, moving picture and portrait mode. Apart from this, you also get a lot of other modes. There are also many other options like Pro Photo mode. You can also download other features as per your need.
Photos taken with the Honor 7X look good at first glance. However, when you zoom into landscape photos, you can see the lack of detail and you can see pixels. Macro shots are good and the difference between the subject and the background is clearly visible. The wide aperture mode gives you a good depth of field.
To take pictures at night, you need to keep your hand steady. Pictures taken in auto mode at night have less noise but sharpness is fine. But the quality is affected. Selfies also look blurry but they can be shared on social media. The primary camera can record 1080p video while the selfie camera can record a maximum of 720p video.
Our verdict
With the Honor 7X, the X series has been updated. The phone gets a bigger display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. And the powerful hardware won’t disappoint you. The camera performance of the phone isn’t great and the battery life could have been better. If you want a phone with a modern look, then the Honor 7X is a good option. But if you want an all-rounder device, then the Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review) would be a better option.
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