Oh, and there’s also a fingerprint reader on the rear, which is a first on a phone costing less than £200, and another feature that sets it apart from the Moto G and the OnePlus X. Honor didn’t settle for just adding the ability to unlock your phone with the sensor, however – you can also launch your favourite apps with your – um – favourite finger.
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The Honor 5X popped up in China at the tail end of 2015, but now it’s finally arrived in Europe and we’ve been putting it to the test. It’s released wave after wave of low-priced, high-spec handsets, such as the Honor Holly and Honor 7. The Huawei Honor 5X isn’t in the flagship class, but it does offer up quite a bit of bang for your buck. Stock app icons look like rejected proposals by the intern in Sir Jony Ive’s design studio, and the Android App Drawer has been removed – leaving smartphone owners to carefully sort and arrange installed apps on the Home Screen.
Price-wise and design-wise, the Honor 5X looks pretty darned good.
I’m also oddly intrigued by the Honor 5X’s dual-SIM setup. And aside from the obvious security implications, Honor has tweaked its mobile OS to allow smartphone owners to assign app shortcuts to individual fingers.
It’s not brilliantly well-made, then, but at least its fingerprint scanner is very quick. Interestingly, you will see the Huawei branding on some of their other phones, like the Nexus 6P.
There are several differences between the Honor 5X and OnePlus X when considering displays.
“We designed Honor 5X to be an extension of the personalities of its users – cool, stylish and iconic – and it integrates creative technology so users get the most from their device and have a superior internet experience, all at an affordable price”. Featuring an f/2.0 aperture and dual-LED (dual-tone) flash, the camera is about as good as you can get, on paper, in the affordable market.
It has a 5.5 inch HD screen, 3,000mAh battery providing battery life of more than a day. It may not be anywhere close to QHD, like most top-end phones are now, but the 1080 x 1920 resolution and 401ppi (pixels per inch) density are far from bad. As for the cameras, there will be a 20-megapixel unit on the rear, and an 8-megapixel one in the front.
These specs make the Honor 5X sound great. The deal, according to Android Central, includes having all upcoming Honor phones pre-loaded with the music service’s app. Emotion UI 3.1 is in full force here, and I’m a little disappointed as the update to 4 – which was on the Mate 8 – has brought about improvements. However, we have to take the phone as it comes and we’re still not convinced by Emotion UI. It’s also easier to hold and feels durable enough to inspire confidence in carrying without protection.
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We’ve been banging on about it in nearly every Huawei and Honor review we’ve written but the software remains a sticking point when it comes to these phones.
