Review Honor 5X

Introduction

Honor made a last minute swipe at CES and blew us away with what its 200 dollar phone could offer: a metal body, a large 3000mAh battery, quick fingerprint unlock, and a 5.5" 1080p screen. Honor is also entering the US market with the launch of the Honor 5X, selling it as an unlocked and dual-SIM smartphone.

Honor is a sub-brand of Huawei, but it is not a totally separate company seeing as the charger in the box says "HUAWEI" on it. Also, as seen on some of the built-in apps, "Huawei" and "Honor" are used almost interchangeably.

The Honor brand has grown quite fast and will grow even more with its US launch. As of now, Honor only sells the Honor 5X through Amazon, Newegg.com, and directly from Honor's own online store.

Honor has since focused on making mid-to-low end hardware for the low-cost markets. With this iteration of Honor's X Series, there is a fresh new design language and a reason for it. It wants to give you bang for your buck. The Honor 5X is targeted at the millennial demographic, younger adults who would like to individualize themselves while also making a statement (or maybe college students who can't afford an iPhone).

Key Features

• Dual-SIM functionality
• Full metal body design
• 5.5-inch LCD IPS 1,080 x 1,920px resolution, 401ppi
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 - Octa-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 w/ Adreno 405
• Android 5.1.1 with Huawei's EM UI 3.1 on top (plans for Android 6.0 Marshmallow)
• 13MP rear-camera sensor, f/2.0, dual-LED flash, 1080p@30fps video, 5MP front-facing camera sensor
• 16GB of storage, expandable up to 128GB via microSD
• LTE Cat.4 150 Mbps, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS/GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.1, FM radio
• 3000mAh battery
• Fingerprint reader

Main Disadvantages

• No NFC
• No 5GHz Wi-Fi
• No Marshmallow (yet)
• No Quick Charge support

For this price, the lack of 5 GHz Wi-Fi and NFC are more than forgivable, though the lack of the latter would mean no Android Pay support. We can live with both, but we wish this device came with support for Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0. Some might wish it had a removable battery, that's one compromise you would have to accept.

While the Honor 5X currently does not have Marshmallow, the company has promised an update down the line.

On the positive side, the Honor 5X has a fingerprint scanner and a metal backside, features that other phones of this price range do not offer.

The Honor 5X comes in 3 colors: Silver, gold, and gray (not pictured). The gray unit is the only one that has a black front side which the metal backing is a few shades darker than the silver unit.

Gold variant has a beige face

Compared to the Honor 4X, its predecessor, the 5X comes with a bump in the display resolution from 720p to 1080p, increased internal storage of 16GB, a modest increase in processing and graphics power, and greatly improved hardware design that no longer looks generic and boring.

Unboxing the Honor 5X

The Honor 5X's packaging is nothing fancy, the phone comes in a matte teal box with Honor's logo in shiny recessed letters. Huawei's logo makes a cameo appearance on the back of the packaging saying "Powered by Huawei".

Honor 5X packaging with blue aqua color box • The back of the packaging has Huawei's logo on it

It seems like Huawei doesn't want there to be a complete disconnect between the two brands, but it wants the consumer to recognize both names almost interchangeably. We can assure you, this will not be the only time we see "Huawei" on or around this phone.

The superb metal body would pleasantly surprise anyone who's paid $199.99 for such a device.

Putting the device aside, we remain with a flat box with a SIM removal tool and some documentation. Underneath this is a Huawei branded AC adapter with 5V @ 1A output charger so charging speeds will be average. However, Honor's website has mentioned the 5X is compatible with a 2A charger as well. Below the charger is a standard micro-USB cable, both wrapped in heat-shrink plastic.

Hardware

As we mentioned in the unboxing, the Honor 5X might catch you by surprise. Because you'd expect a $200 phone to be plastic-y and hollow, you don't expect the Honor 5X to feel as 'premium' as it does at 158g.

 
The metal build is unusual to see on a midrange device

The front of the phone, like many phones, is not much to look at. It's quite plain actually. There are no logos or icons. The forehead of the phone has a standard speaker grille, a 5-megapixel camera, and the standard proximity and light sensors.

  
Lower front of the device • Forehead has standard sensors

Turn the phone over to the backside and here we find the centerpiece surrounding the phone's surprisingly low price. The backside is actually made of metal, though, it's kind of hard to explain, but it feels like it's more "wrapped" in metal rather than actually made of metal.

If you're one of those people who like to carry a phone without a case, you will also want to carry a small cloth because you will likely never stop cleaning the fingerprints from the back of this device. We had to clean the device so many times to get it ready for our studio shots.

We like the character that brushed metal brings along. It makes it feel more modern and gives it a professional vibe. The other plus about most metal finishes is the variations in shades of different lighting. The color tends to morph anywhere from mirror to gray on our silver unit.

 
Keeping the rear of the device clean was difficult

Regardless, it still has that premium feel when holding it in your hand and it has a very attractive, finely and horizontally brushed aluminum texture that looks great when holding it up to light. The texture actually reminds us of any modern refrigerator with brushed stainless steel. Since this texture is so fine, it doesn't do much for the grip of the phone, nor does it resist any fingerprints, it does the exact opposite of that.

Along the top and bottom edges of the backside are strips of pit-textured plastic to allow various radio signals through. The upper plastic panel narrows into a small insert that trails toward the 13 Megapixel camera sensor. Just to the left of the sensor is a single LED flash. Just below the camera sensor is the fingerprint scanner whose placement is synonymous with many of Huawei's devices.

  
Bottom grille is actually made of plastic • Upper and lower inserts let signals pass through

On the top edge of the 5X we find a single 3.5mm headphone jack and a noise-cancelling microphone, which doubles as a video recording mic for stereo audio. Turning it over the bottom side, you'll find two symmetrical grilles, the one on the right side is a speaker while the left side is a microphone for phone calls.

The right edge of the device is home to the only physical buttons found on the device. The Honor 5X uses Huawei's button-layout which places the power button underneath the volume rocker. This is a bit awkward to get used to if you've never encountered it before.

   
Right view • Top view • Bottom view • textured buttons power button is under the volume rocker

The left side of the device houses no buttons but two SIM trays. The top one is for a microSIM while the lower one is a longer tray that's home to a nanoSIM and a microSD card. While it is still unusual to see a DualSIM setup in the US, it's a welcome option to have, especially for those who carry two phone numbers or for those traveling overseas.

 
Left side view • Dual trays allow for one microSIM, one nanoSIM and one microSD card.

Display

There is a peculiar thing about the display like on other Huawei phones. A thin black frame runs around the display and when the screen is off, it gives the illusion that the bezels are super slim. It's really an effective trick that helps a lot in the aesthetics department.

 
Slimming bezels: a black frame surrounding the display makes bezels seem thinner

Honor went with a 5.5 inch, LCD IPS display with a resolution of 1080x1920px.

The phone also offers optional software level sunlight compensation. It would temporarily brighten up the detail in the dark parts of the screen content, which would otherwise be tough to see in direct sunlight.

Colors don't shift when turning the device about, but there is some contrast shift when looking at the device at an angle.

The color representation of the Honor 5X's display is quite good for a phone of this price range though its default wallpaper does not do the display any favors.

In reality, colors look vibrant without being too saturated, and the brightness is quite generous even in direct sunlight.

While this display is generously bright in good light (473.1nits), it does not get as dim as some other devices can (6.1nits). This is not a deal-breaker, though, unless you plan on often using this device in pitch black rooms.

With the default display settings, the Honor 5X showed a very good contrast ratio of 1:1072.

The max color deviation (DeltaE) was 11.3 and the average one was 4.3. The whites were the most inaccurate with a slight bluish tinge but nothing major.

The 5X does let you manually change the color temperature of the display. When we played with it we were able to reduce the average and max deviations to DeltaE 2.3 and 5, respectively. There was minimal loss in screen brightness when adjusting the color temperature to a slightly warmer one.

Connectivity

The Honor 5X features two SIM tray slots; one is a microSIM and the other a nanoSIM. It is capable of 42.2/11.5 Mbps on HSPA+ and LTE Cat4 @ 150/50 Mbps. The specs sheet lists the device as compatible with LTE band 12. Unfortunately, Honor has told us that it hasn't any plans to certify the Honor 5X for T-Mobile's 700MhZ band 12 at this time.

There are a couple of places in the connectivity department where Honor has found ways to cut cost. Among the common myriad of connectivity options like Bluetooth 4.1 A2DP and FM Radio, there is no NFC, also there is the omission of 5GHz dual Wi-Fi, which isn't horrible, but is often found on many smartphones.

Don't expect there to be any TV output via the microUSB port, though perhaps TV out options are becoming more and more phased out by mirroring devices like smart TVs, Miracast dongless, and the Chromecast. Of course, the case might differ in other regions around the world.

Battery life

EM UI offers many battery saving options that can help your phone sip battery to the very last drop. Right off the bat, as you begin using your device, the Honor 5X scopes out potential battery hogs and reports them to you via a notification. From here you can either ignore further alerts for that app, or you can force close the app immediately.

Facebook and Twitter, for instance, are not protected by default, which means they get terminated upon putting the phone to sleep, all you have to do is head to the Protected Apps window and whitelist the apps that you expect push notifications from.

  
Battery management menu

This is a bit of a nuisance, alternatively, the apps could have been pre-protected so they work properly, or the apps could have been excluded from pre-installed apps so they'd be protected upon installation.

 
Apps must be white-listed or "Protected" so the UI does not terminate it when asleep

There is also even an Ultra Power Save mode baked in which will disable all data, extra connectivity like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and only allow you to make and receive calls, send or receive SMS, or look through your contacts.

 
Ultra power save mode only lets you access the dialer, SMS, and contacts

The Honor 5X comes with a generous 3000mAh battery which is just at the middle of what the 5.5 inch 1080p market offers with phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Meizu m2 note, and the Lenovo K4 Note. When looking at the overall scores of the devices in this niche, the Honor 5X did a bit better than most devices with an overall score of 76 hours - probably thanks to EM UI's excellent battery saving features.

The Honor 5X did well for a device of its price. It gave us 9:16h of video playback, 10:00h of web browsing, 29:50h of call time. This battery draw, combined with the standby time, gives us an overall score of 76 hours, which is about how long the phone would last you if you used it for an hour of calling, web browsing and video watching per day.

Our proprietary rating denotes the number of hours the phone will be operational if you are to make an hour of 3G talks, web browsing and video playback per day. Such usage pattern is of course entirely artificial, but we've established it so our battery results are comparable across devices.

The proprietary score also includes a standby battery draw test, which is not featured in our battery test scorecard but is calculated in the total endurance rating. Our battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you want to learn more about it.

User interface

EM UI, also known as Emotion UI, is Huawei's own skin layered over Android. The Honor 5X comes with EM UI 3.1 layered over Android Lollipop 5.1.1. There is an abundance of features packed into EM UI, most useful while others being more gimmicky than anything else.

Right off the bat, as soon as you unlock the device, you notice that there is no app drawer, there is no button that shows you a list of all your apps. Instead, they all show up on the homescreens just like on iOS. You can create folders and put away the icons you don't want to get in your way.

 
Home screens on stock launcher

Though, organizing them might be easier than you think. You can organize your apps very similarly as you would with iOS, or you can create a folder by dragging one app icon onto another one. Once organized, the folder icons are grids rather than stock Android's stacks.

 
Folder view, look familiar?

Naturally, one would worry about finding an app that's tucked away somewhere without a proper app drawer. You can intuitively flick down to bring up a search box. Typing a few letters will search through you apps, contacts, SMS, and even Twitter for any matching keywords.

If you dislike EM UI's launcher, you can always use an aftermarket one that suits your preference.

Quick search can be accessed by flicking down on any homescreen

When setting up a fingerprint for security, the phone turns off all lock screen notifications by default so you would need to re-enable them.

Also, on the lock screen, is a quick toggle menu that can be accessed by swiping from the bottom edge that includes: music controls, shortcuts for voicemail, changing the wallpaper, settings, calculator, camera, and a toggle for the flashlight.

Quick panel is only available in the lock screen

Setting up the fingerprint is easy and quick. Once set, a fingerprint can be assigned many functions other than just unlocking the device. You can assign a contact to a particular fingerprint which will unlock the phone and dial the contact upon scanning that finger. You can also use the fingerprint sensor to call the notification shade, the multitasking app switcher, or to answer a phone call.

  
Possible fingerprint functions • Once added, a fingerprint can be used to launch an app or dial a contact

There is also an Applock and a Vault baked into the UI, which will protect certain apps and gallery albums from opening until the correct fingerprint is provided.

Themes are also available on the stock launcher; you can customize themes by changing the lock screen style, unlock animation, wallpapers, icons and font. Unfortunately, there is no apparent way to download more themes and the Honor 5X only comes with three themes pre-installed.

 
Themes menu and customization of themes

Notifications can be customized for every individual app in EM UI. You can choose whether apps appear on the lock screen, banners over the status bar, and in the status bar itself.

 
Notification center allows you to customize alerts on a per-app basis

There are also some pretty nifty features baked into EM UI like a glove mode, sunlight enhancement, and one-handed UI.

 
Various display settings • Glove mode found in smart assistance menu

Among the accessibility options are: Talkback, Switch access, high contrast text, power button ends the call, raise to ear to answer, color inversion, color correction, hearing options, and touch & hold delay times.

 
Accessibility options on the Honor 5X

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