The Honor 8X: The ultimate last-minute stocking filler

The flagship smartphones of the world might not compromise on power, but they certainly do in price, with some top-spec models easily surpassing the four-figure mark. Therefore, those in the market for a fresh, affordable yet powerful handset in time for Christmas might struggle to find a device if they don’t look beyond the Apples and Samsungs. But such high-performing devices don’t need to be pricey. Take Honor’s latest handset, for instance.

Big in features, small in price: the Honor 8X costs £229 delivers a solid performance, versatile camera and spectacular metal and glass build that will prove a head-turner, and making it fully equipped to satisfy everyone on your holiday shopping list. Whether that’s the avid gamer looking to take their skills on the road, mobile shutterbugs looking for the best selfie snaps, or techies hoping it can stand up to the competition.

Read on to find out what makes this smartphone unbeatable with this tiny price tag…

Pixels for days

Without question one of the Honor 8X’s most stand-out features is its gorgeous 6.5-inch display. Even with a small top notch, the screen takes up more than 90 percent of the phone’s body – a ratio well beyond what you’d find on even much higher-priced handsets. The 8X really does blow its budget competitors, such as the Xiaomi Mi Mix, out of the water.

With a size that pushes the handset into phablet territory, the screen is on equal footing with the likes of the iPhone XS Max and the Samsung Galaxy Note. But it doesn’t just look the part; the specs whistle the same tune, with an impressive 19.5:9 aspect ratio and a maximum resolution of 2340 x 1080 – bigger than that seen on a Full HD TV. This means that everything from movies to video games can be blown up to take advantage of the phone’s display without sacrificing detail and colour clarity.

Such a smart glass

The Honor 8X might come cheap, but it certainly doesn’t look it. Being the first Honor X series to boast a glass back design, the 8X’s powerful internals are wedged between two panes of 2.5D textured aurora glass, offering users a stunning juxtaposition of matte and glossy-finished glass. This lends to its sleek industrial-inspired design, which comes in in either Blue or Black flavours. And another thing we should mention, it has a headphone jack. *mic drop*

Powerhouse

With looks that would make an iPhone user green with envy, you’d think Honor had to scrimp on the 8X’s internals to get that price point of not far over £200. But oh no, the device’s innards are just as impressive as its handsome design.

The handset runs on the eight-core Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor alongside a substantial 4GB of RAM. That’s enough to multitask without seeing a performance break. However, when this phone really shines is when it comes to playing graphically-intensive games. Yep, it can do that, too.

Button bash to the likes of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Asphalt 9 and the Honor 8X will handle gameplay with ease thanks to its GPU Turbo mode, which boosts GPU performance without draining your battery, which might we add, comes in a massive 3750mAh capacity. This means you won’t be reaching for the power cable every few hours even if you’re in the middle of an epic PUBG battle.

Snap happy

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Honor went and gave the 8X a set of camera capabilities you’d only find on smartphones that cost four times as much. Its rear touts twin lenses: a 20-megapixel main camera and a secondary 2-megapixel lens, the latter of which is used to pick up on depth and reduce motion blur.

Turn the Honor 8X around and you’ll find another mighty 16-megapixel front-facing camera, making the phone a great gift for those that love a good selfie. Better yet, both cameras benefit from patented AI-assisted camera technology, which is able to recognise backgrounds and scenarios and adjust settings to match the photo being taken. That same intelligent technology will also help keep your images blur-free through AI-assisted image stabilisation and help make your low-light photos pop with the phone’s “Night Mode”.

With such a powerful camera setup at such a low price point, you’d be hard pressed to find such a great value smartphone anywhere else; yet another reason why the Honor 8X is a perfect last-minute stocking filler.

The Honor 8X is an impressive package both inside and out. Costing a quarter of the price of many other Android flagship devices right now, the Honor 8X is a great way to get a phone that looks and feels expensive but doesn’t cost the earth. You can guarantee it’ll make any tech buff smile this holiday season.