Review: Huawei Honor 5X Does Not Cut It in the Budget Phone Mix
The Honor 5X is yet another mid-range smartphone battling out in the Indian market.
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Huawei has more or less played its card in the Indian mobile space with sensible planning over the past 8-10 months. The company has tweaked Xiaomi’s method with its own idea that sells in the market as the Honor smartphone.
This brand caters to buyers in three spheres; entry-level, mid-range and the affordable flagship segment. The Honor 5X falls in the mid category that is popular for its sheer value quotient. The phone has tough competition in the form of Lenovo Vibe K4 Note and the LeEco Le 1s that are also priced under 13K.
Key Specifications: Huawei Honor 5X
- Display: 5.5-inch Full-HD IPS
- Operating System: Emotion UI 3.1 over Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Processor: Octa-Core Snapdragon 616
- RAM: 2GB
- Rear Camera: 13-MP
- Front Camera: 5-MP
- Battery: 3000mAh
- Price: Rs 12,999
What’s Good?
The Honor 5X has got a 5.5-inch form size that is widely shaped and feels much bigger for its size. But weighing 158 grams, the phone feels a lot lighter than what the company claims to offer which makes it easy to use. The full-HD display offers vivid colours and decent viewing angles that deliver while watching movies or playing games. The soft touch navigation buttons are embedded within the display.
It’s great to have a phone with full metal body construction at this price point and the Honor 5X makes sure your durability concerns are well addressed. The fingerprint scanner at the back is fast, responsive and offers intuitive features for security purposes; more than what we’ve come to expect from phones these days.
On the performance side, the Honor 5X has ditched its Kirin processor for Snapdragon 616 but that barely makes a difference to the way the phone delivers. We did not feel any heating effects on the metal body of the phone, even after multi-tasking to the hilt.
The 13-megapixel rear camera manages to click well-detailed images with bright colour contrast, which make the pictures look attractive when shared. Unlike most phones in the segment, the Honor 5X can be bought without meddling in the flash sale fever. Just select the product, checkout for payment, and the phone is yours.
What’s Bad?
The Honor 5X pales in front of its rivals, the Le Eco Le 1S, and the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note. In many ways, we feel that the Honor 5X might have succeeded if it was launched in 2015 but with phones like Le 1S now available, people have options to look that fare better than this Honor device. The metal finishing on the phone is evidently low on quality, especially when you pit it against the LeEco Le 1S.
Also, when you’re getting 3GB with 32GB storage (Le 1S), it does make sense why Huawei would prefer selling the 2GB RAM with a 16GB storage model in the market.
While the performance of the phone is satisfactory, we have reservations about the Emotion UI 3.1 (based over Android 5.1 Lollipop) that powers the Honor 5X. The phone’s software acted up many times despite not really pushing it beyond the limits, which is a point of concern for us.
Also, it’s worth noting that the 3000mAh battery bears the brunt of the octa-core processor on the Honor 5X. It barely manages to last beyond 10 hours on moderate usage, which falls to 8 hours for a heavy user. We’ve come to expect better from phones lately.
Why Buy It?
As we have stated above, the Huawei Honor 5X would have been a popular choice for buyers in 2015. However, this year the stakes in the mid-range segment have been upped by brands like LeEco, with many more expected to follow suit.
Priced at Rs 12,999, the Honor 5X could have been blessed with more storage (10GB is too little), and a higher memory count (3GB instead of 2GB). The phone’s a competent performer but the lackluster software plays spoilsport for us. Fair to say that for Rs 10,999 the Le Eco Le1S offers much more than the Honor 5X for less.
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