Review and characteristics of the Huawei Honor 7X phone

Unpacking

Unpacking leaves ambivalent impressions. On the one hand, the box is high-quality, bright, and has everything you need inside: a power cable (5 V and 2 A), a Micro USB cable and a silicone case for the first time.

On the other hand, we open the lid and see that the smartphone is dangling inside in vain. And the device was wrapped in some kind of scary plastic bag. Well, Honor! Well, Huawei?! What the heck?

Fortunately, this is where the problems end and there will only be positive things to come. Let's go!

Honor 7X test results

Design

The first and most important thing you need to know about the appearance of Honor 7X. A smartphone in renders and in real life are two different devices. The device looks much better in the hands than in the photographs.

How was it for me?

Initially, I was not eager to take the Honor 7X for review . However, the public still had interest in the new product, and I really liked its predecessor. In general, I decided to give the device a chance. And after turning on the device, I realized that everything was not in vain.

The smartphone turned out to be fiery!

And of course, the reason for this is the 5.93-inch display with a fashionable 18:9 aspect ratio.

It's amazing how a trend started at the beginning of the year and by Samsung by the end of the same year has turned into a mass phenomenon.

The 18 by 9 proportions are not just a stupid and useless copy of the flagship chips. On the contrary, this gives manufacturers a chance to increase the screen area without affecting the dimensions of the smartphone. And Honor 7X is direct confirmation of this.

By the way, it is in white that Honor 7X looks especially good. In black and blue colors, minimal frames do not look like an advantage; they are perceived as usual. So if you buy a smartphone, then only in a light case.

Neatly rounded corners, excellent assembly, relatively minimalistic design - in terms of appearance, the smartphone cannot be undermined.

The device looks and feels much more expensive in the hands than it actually costs.

Except that the two camera eyes and the fingerprint scanner vaguely resemble a crazed minion.

Design of Huawei Honor 7X

The manufacturer remains true to its traditions, continuing to develop an interesting design concept. The Honor 7X looks simply amazing. Metal was used to make the back side, and the front panel is covered with 2.5D glass. Almost the entire area is occupied by a large display, which looks very nice. The only thing we will miss is the fingerprint scanner built into the Home key. It moved to the back cover. But this is not done as clumsily as in the Galaxy S8 - it is easy to find by touch and does not cause any discomfort.

The Huawei Honor 7X review informs you that a version with gold, blue and classic black casing is available for sale. It looks best in blue - an unusual solution, while other colors have long become standard.

The arrangement of functional elements is familiar. On the right is the power and volume control button.

On the left is a tray in which you can install two SIM cards at the same time or one paired with microSD.

Everything else was placed at the bottom - a headphone jack, which fortunately was not abandoned, a speaker, a microphone and a microUSB port. The latter is a little disappointing, because in 2020 almost all devices receive improved USB-C, which supports fast charging and other benefits.

From the back side, the device looks quite nice - there is a plastic strip running above and below for the antennas, which harmoniously fits into the design. There is a dual camera module in the upper left corner and a single-section flash on the left side of it. The fingerprint scanner is located in the center - it is very easy to find blindly. Just below is the corporate logo.

As expected, the build quality is at the highest level; you wouldn’t expect anything else from Huawei. The smartphone fits well in the hand, despite its diagonal of 5.93 inches.

Display

IPS matrix, comfortable resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels, oleophobic coating - everything is as it should be, so let’s move on right away.

Minimal frames on all sides and the ability to open some applications in full screen - all this really brings a new experience to communication with a smartphone.

After a couple of days, you get used to the new aspect ratio (18:9) and no longer understand how you lived without it before. And ordinary devices seem like some kind of relic from the past.

Does the new display proportions mean that some software will need to be redrawn? Yes and no. The Honor developers are great, because they didn’t wait for the creators of third-party applications to remake them for the new screen. The smartphone right out of the box has a tool that stretches absolutely any program to fit an 18:9 display.

For example, World of Tanks opens in the old proportions (16:9), but the system immediately suggests optimizing the game for the unusual ratio. We agree and get a beautiful picture on the entire screen without distortion of objects.

Software

Honor 7X runs on Android 7.0 with Huawei EMUI 5.1 shell. The latter replaces the stock Android bootloader and offers several customization applications, as well as custom settings. One notable option is the ability to remove the standard application list icon at the bottom of the screen. As a result, all installed applications will be displayed on the home screen along with widgets.

The Phone Manager application is another additional element of the Huawei shell. Here you can see the amount of RAM used and battery charge. There is an antivirus, traffic consumption, blocked messages and calls, applications on the lock screen, etc.

This program has a regular energy saving mode that will allow you to work with your smartphone for two days without background applications and notification synchronization. Ultra power saving mode will increase battery life up to six days. There is access to just six apps of your choice, and there will be no background apps or notifications. Thus, you will turn your smartphone into an analogue of a regular cell phone and will be able to use it on long trips.

Characteristics of Honor 7X

Honor 6X is a great smartphone for the money. Honor 7X has become even better, but not in everything. The comparative characteristics plate will add clarity.

Why did they cut out the NFC module?! This is my biggest complaint about the device.

I praised the 6X so much because the smartphone is not expensive and supports Android Pay. And here it is on you! In 7X, the manufacturer removes NFC. How so? Why? For what?!

Another nuance that makes you wince a little is the Micro USB port. At the end of 2020. From the third smartphone manufacturer in the world. I'm at a loss.

A few words about the processor. Kirin 659 is essentially the same chipset as the 655 in Honor 6X. It’s just that in the new “stone” they slightly raised the frequencies on a more productive cluster of four cores and changed the number in the Bluetooth version: from 4.1 to 4.2. That's all the differences.

Review of the Honor 7X smartphone with a metal case and a large screen

The Honor X series of smartphones is extremely popular among users of Honor products. It is, perhaps, more successful than other devices of this brand in combining decent technical characteristics and a truly affordable price. At one time, we witnessed the triumph of the 5X model, as well as a completely worthy continuation in the form of Honor 6X. Today it’s time to analyze in detail all the technical capabilities of the next representative of the legendary family - a smartphone called Honor 7X, presented at the end of the year in London.

Main characteristics of Honor 7X (model BND-L21)

• SoC HiSilicon Kirin 659, 8 cores Cortex-A53 ( [email protected] .4 GHz + [email protected] .7 GHz)
• GPU Mali-T830 (MP2)
• Operating system Android 7.0, EMUI 5.1
• Touch display IPS 5.93″, 2160×1080, 407 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 4 GB, internal memory 32/64/128 GB
• Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• MicroSD support up to 128 GB
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• WCDMA/HSPA+ networks (850/900/1900/2100 MHz)
• Networks LTE Cat.6 FDD (B1/3/7/8/20), TD (B40)
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (2.4 GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.1 BLE
• GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
• Micro-USB 2.0, USB OTG
• Main camera 16 + 2 MP, autofocus, f/2.2, video 1080p
• Front camera 8 MP, f/2.0, fixed. focus
• Proximity and light sensors, magnetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, step counter
• Fingerprint's scanner
• Battery 3340 mAh
• Dimensions 157×75×7.6 mm
• Weight 165 g

Contents of delivery

Honor 7X is supplied for sale in a laconicly designed box made of hard matte blue cardboard with a white logo.

Our test device came with a standard charger without fast charging support (5V 2A), a USB cable and a card eject tool.

Appearance and ease of use

In design, Honor 7X is more reminiscent of the new product from the Huawei Nova 2 series than the flagship of its Honor 9 line. While the most noticeable detail of the body design is the luxurious glass back panel with a mirror backing, here the body is made entirely of matte metal.

At the same time, on Huawei Nova 2, our hero looks almost like two peas in a pod, with the exception of small touches, such as the shape of the grooves for the antennas and the location of the flash. There is also no bezel around the round fingerprint scanner area, and this is rather a plus. But straight grooves for antennas without curly bends are more of a disadvantage, since they visually make the design rough and straightforward.

There are no miracles; a smartphone with a six-inch display cannot be elegant. The Honor 7X body is large, heavy, and the hard matte metal surfaces glide very well in dry palms, everything is as usual. Fingerprints are also surprisingly visible on these matte surfaces.

The protective glass has sloping edges, and an LED event indicator is installed above the screen. Here, by the way, there are no angular curves of the screen itself, like many other “full-screen” devices with displays that have increased from 5.5 to 6 inches due to smaller frames.

The frame around the screen has not gone away; this is not a “frameless” option, as such “full-screen” smartphones are now called. From the sides it sometimes even turns out to be wider, but the segments at the top and bottom of new products with 18:9 screens have narrowed to about a centimeter or even more, this is a fact, and rather gratifying. But such smartphones do not have a fingerprint scanner or hardware touch buttons under the screen.

The fingerprint scanner has been moved to the back, its round area is located next to the eyes of the dual camera. These elements have the same diameter and are placed symmetrically, but due to the fact that both cameras protrude, it still looks worse than if the modules were combined behind a single glass, like the iPhone Plus series, for example. There is also a single LED flash on the back. It is curious that these three elements are located strictly along the groove with the antennas.

The lenses protrude beyond the surface, but the area of ​​the back wall is so large (and it does not have bevels) that the smartphone lying on the table almost does not sway when you touch the screen. It is quite possible to work with a smartphone in this way.

You can install two SIM cards in your smartphone (both Nano-SIM formats) or replace one of them with a microSD memory card. Hot swapping of cards is supported.

The mechanical buttons on the right side are large, comfortable, and there are no complaints about them.

At the top end you can find only a small hole for the auxiliary microphone, and the 3.5 mm audio output for headphones, the conversation microphone and the main speaker are located at the bottom end.

The smartphone is available for sale in three colors: black, blue and gold.

Screen

Honor 7X is equipped with an IPS display covered with 2.5D glass with sloping edges. The physical dimensions of the screen are 68x136 mm with a diagonal of 5.93 inches, aspect ratio 18:9. At the same time, the screen resolution is 2160x1080 with a pixel density of about 407 ppi. The frame around the screen is approximately 4 mm thick on the sides, and a centimeter thick on the top and bottom.

It is possible to use automatic brightness adjustment based on the operation of the ambient light sensor. Multi-touch tests diagnose support for 10 simultaneous touches.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections Alexey Kudryavtsev . Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are slightly worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Honor 7X, then they can be distinguished by size):

The Honor 7X's screen is a little brighter (brightness according to photographs is 123 versus 116 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Honor 7X screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. On the outer surface of the screen, there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, which is better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7. Therefore, fingerprints are removed much easier and appear at a lower speed than in the case of regular glass.

With manual brightness control and when the white field was displayed in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 490 cd/m², the minimum was 2.5 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, and given the good anti-glare properties, screen readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at an acceptable level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front speaker slot). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider; the user can use it to try to set the required brightness level in the current conditions. We slightly increased the brightness in complete darkness and got the following result: in complete darkness, the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 20 cd/m², in an artificially lit office (approximately 550 lux) it sets it to 190 cd/m², in a very bright environment (corresponds to the lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) increases to 490 cd/m². We were quite pleased with the result. It turns out that the auto-brightness function works adequately and allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is no significant backlight modulation, so there is no screen flicker.

This smartphone uses an IPS matrix. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of Honor 7X and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K.

There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field.

And a test picture:

The colors on the Honor 7X screen have a natural saturation; the color balance between the Nexus 7 and the tested screen is slightly different.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the Honor 7X the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the greater brightening of blacks.

And a white field:

The brightness of the screens at an angle decreased (by at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but in the case of the Honor 7X the drop in brightness is slightly greater. When deviated diagonally, the black field is lightened to a medium degree and acquires a purple tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is good:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1600:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 22 ms (10 ms on + 12 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 37 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.09, which is slightly lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve almost does not deviate from the power-law dependence:

We did not detect the presence of dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image, which is very good.

Color gamut is close to sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components with each other:

As a result, visually the colors on this screen do not differ from natural ones. The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the hue on the color wheel.

In the graphs above, the curves are Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the curves Corr. — data obtained after shifting the point to the position indicated in the image above. It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature has approached the standard value and ΔE has decreased on average. However, it doesn’t make much sense to make the correction. Note that this function is implemented more for show, since there is no numerical reflection of the correction and there is no field for measuring color balance.

To summarize: the screen has a high maximum brightness and has good anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. The advantages of the screen include the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, an effective oleophobic coating, good color balance and a color gamut close to sRGB. In general, the quality of the screen can be considered high.

Camera

The front camera has a sensor with a resolution of 8 megapixels. The lens has an f/2.0 aperture and fixed focus. The shooting quality here is average; there’s nothing particularly praising the Honor 7X’s selfie camera. Pictures taken in good lighting on the screen of the smartphone itself still look quite good, but when you start to look at the detail of pictures taken indoors, you can see that it is low, the matrix is ​​noisy and its sensitivity is still not enough.

The rear camera here is double, but simpler than that of Nova 2. The main module has a 16-megapixel sensor, and the auxiliary one is only 2 megapixel. The camera is equipped with an f/2.2 aperture lens, there is no stabilization.

There's no intelligent scene recognition technology like in older models, but everything else is there, including a "wide aperture" mode for background blur. Naturally, there is also a Pro manual settings mode. In manual mode, you can adjust white balance, focus, photosensitivity, and exposure compensation.

The camera can shoot video in a maximum resolution of 1080p at 30 fps. There are no higher modes, no stabilization. The shooting quality is acceptable, not bad for this level of smartphone, but there’s nothing much to praise it for. Sound is recorded with high quality using sensitive microphones; the noise reduction system does not introduce noticeable distortion.

• Video No. 1 (44 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.265, AAC)
• Video No. 2 (32 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.265, AAC)

Below are examples of photographs with our comments on quality. Our specialist Anton Solovyov .

The camera turned out good. There are sometimes areas of blur at the edges, but overall the detailing even in distant plans is quite decent. In low light, the camera generally copes well. She is also good at shooting text and macro. In the pictures you can find traces of noise reduction and sharpening, but none of this is noticeable. As a result, the camera can be fully recommended for documentary and art photography.

Telephone and communications

Communication capabilities of Honor 7X include support for data transfer at speeds of up to 300 Mbps in LTE Cat.6 networks. In the urban areas of the Moscow region, the device behaves confidently, does not lose connection in places where reception is uncertain, and quickly restores the connection. Bluetooth has version 4.2, one Wi-Fi band is supported (2.4 GHz), there is no NFC module.

The navigation module works with GPS (with A-GPS), with the domestic Glonass and the Chinese Beidou. During a cold start, the first satellites are detected within tens of seconds, and the positioning accuracy is high. There is a built-in magnetic field sensor for compass operation.

The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing a phone number, a search is immediately carried out by the first letters in contacts. Methods for setting up the sorting and display of contacts are standard for the Android interface; there is a blacklist for unwanted contacts. There is a function for automatically recording telephone conversations from the line. Medium power vibration alert.

The smartphone cannot support both SIM cards in 4G mode at the same time in active standby mode. Here, one SIM card (not the one selected for data transfer in 4G) will always work in standby only in 2G. The interface does not allow you to select a specific SIM card in advance for sending SMS - only for voice calls and data transfers (this is a standard situation for all Huawei smartphones). The cards operate in Dual SIM Dual Standby mode, there is only one radio modem.

Software and multimedia

The software platform used is Android OS, not the latest version 7.0, and Huawei's own shell, the latest version EMUI 5.1 - everything is the same as in other modern devices from the manufacturer. Naturally, there is the possibility of updating over the air (OTA).

The interface is designed in a familiar corporate style. There is a virtual button, a multi-window mode, the ability to reduce the keyboard and the working area of ​​the screen in size. As usual, there are a lot of pre-installed applications, some of them are useful, others are clearly unnecessary. There are several of Huawei's own utilities, including a useful phone manager responsible for system monitoring, memory cleaning, virus scanning and protection, spam blocking, etc.

As for the so-called “full screen mode”, which appeared due to the changed aspect ratio and, accordingly, additional space on the screen, it is not occupied by default, gaping with black bars. It is possible to enter the settings and select the option of using “full screen mode” for each application, and after rebooting the application will be displayed in full screen.

To listen to music, you use, as usual, your own audio player with a familiar interface. Previously, it did not have any manual settings at all, and in new versions a Huawei Histen audio effects section has appeared, in which you can turn on the 3D sound effect and choose from equalizer presets - but all this becomes available only with connected headphones. In any case, both in headphones and through the speaker, the smartphone sounds quite satisfactory; the Honor 7X does not offer anything special in terms of sound, but the sound cannot be called low-quality.

The microphones have good sensitivity, the voice recorder is quite suitable for any task. There is a built-in FM radio, and this is good news.

Performance

The Honor 7X hardware platform is based on the HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC. The chip configuration includes eight ARM Cortex-A53 processor cores in two clusters with a maximum frequency of 2.36 and 1.7 GHz. The SoC is made using a 16-nanometer process technology. The ARM Mali-T830 (MP2) video accelerator with support for the OpenGL ES 3.2 graphics API is responsible for graphics processing. The amount of RAM is 4 GB, the built-in flash memory in the case of our copy is 64 GB. Of these, 2.48 GB of RAM is free and only 48.5 GB of storage space, usually more than 50 GB. There are modifications of Honor 7X with a different amount of built-in memory.

It is also possible to expand the memory by installing microSD cards, but applications are not installed on the memory card. You can connect external flash drives in USB OTG mode.

SoC HiSilicon Kirin 659 is a relatively new solution designed for mid-range smartphones and tablets. The SoC is quite productive, at the level of Qualcomm Snapdragon 625; in the AnTuTu test, the hero of the review demonstrates a quite decent 60K-plus points, this is a confident average level.

Kirin 659 provides the system with sufficient performance and in real scenarios allows the smartphone to cope with any modern tasks. There are no problems with games either, all the games we tested, including Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat X, run without any slowdowns; Lineage 2 can also be played quite comfortably without delays. However, the smartphone is designed more for today; there is no noticeable reserve of power for years to come.

Testing in comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench:

For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Thermal photographs

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

It can be seen that the heating is more localized in the upper part of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 39 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is not very much.

Playing video

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a table.

Further testing of video playback was performed by Alexey Kudryavtsev .

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and 3840 by 2160 (4K) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps). In the tests we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode. The test results are summarized in the table:

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips have green ratings, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect comfort viewing. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since in most cases frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235: perhaps in the shadows a couple of shades merge with black, but in the highlights all gradations are displayed.

Battery life

The non-removable battery installed in the Honor 7X has a capacity of 3340 mAh - this is a good amount even by today's standards. And with such a battery, the smartphone demonstrates results that are quite consistent with its level in autonomy tests. Considering the large screen with high resolution, the results are quite decent.

In real life, the device behaves the same way as most modern smartphones: it confidently survives until the evening charge, but you can’t count on more.

Testing has traditionally been done at normal power consumption levels without using power-saving features.

Continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) with auto-scrolling lasted 12 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and when continuously watching videos in high quality (720p) with At the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for about 10 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone can work for no more than 5 hours.

Honor 7X does not support fast charging; from the included network adapter (2 A 5 V), the smartphone was charged for 2 hours 20 minutes with a current of 1.5 A at a voltage of 5 V. The smartphone also does not support wireless charging.

Bottom line

Prices for the Huawei Honor 7X smartphone start at €299 (or £269). In Russia, the device began to be sold in official retail on December 5; the recommended retail price for a modification with 64 GB of flash memory is currently 17 thousand rubles. For a nice smartphone from a popular brand with an attractive appearance, a practical all-metal body, a high-quality 6-inch screen with high resolution and a narrow frame, as well as quite decent hardware with good performance and support for LTE Cat.6 with high data transfer speeds, this is a completely reasonable price. The smartphone does not shine with shooting quality, but it would be stupid to expect this at such a price. We can also negatively highlight the lack of NFC (and therefore Android Pay). Otherwise, Honor 7X turned out to be a completely worthy successor to the glorious family of Huawei Honor in general and the Honor X line in particular.

Performance

Interface, animation - everything works great. Nothing glitches, lags or slows down. Yes, it feels like you’re not using a jet flagship, but you can’t call a smartphone slow-witted either. That's it.

The same fingerprint scanner responds to touch instantly. You put your finger on the sensor while you take the device out of your pocket, bring it to your eyes, and everything is ready to go. The system does not need a few more milliseconds to “wake up”. And it’s these little things in the operation of the device that captivate you.

4K video opens instantly and there is not even a hint of slowdown.

Since we only have a Mali-T830 for graphics, we shouldn’t count on high parameters in “Tanks”: 20 FPS on average with drops of up to 9-10 frames. This is no good. We rearrange the graphics to medium settings and get about the same thing. Drawdowns are now no lower than 20 FPS, but the game is still not very comfortable.

In general, Honor 7X is a smartphone for everything except games and complex 3D graphics.

Honor 7X design and build quality

The design of Honor 7X is similar to that of other Honor smartphones like Huawei and Chinese devices from other brands. This technology has been integrated into a 7.6mm metal body with a dual camera slightly protruding from the body, a fingerprint reader and two antenna strips.

Just a few years ago it was rare to find a mid-range smartphone with an aluminum body, but now it's starting to get boring. This shows how demand in the market is changing.

The Honor 7X display takes up 83% of the screen. Honor hasn't integrated a USB type C port, you can use microUSB with all the drawbacks that entails. Honor 7X weighs 165 grams and has a thickness of 7.6 mm. The device is available in black and blue color.

Cameras

It is clear that you should not expect any serious photography heights from an average device. And yet, Honor 7X has something to surprise.

Frontal

The front camera takes great selfies. There is detail, and this, as for me, is the most important thing in self-portraits.

In addition, the front camera has learned to blur the background. There is one camera installed at the front, so bokeh is solely controlled by software algorithms with all that it entails.

Despite the fact that protruding hair, shoulders and other parts of the body that belong to us are perfectly cropped by software algorithms, the photos still look interesting. Especially from the phone screen.

Main cameras

It takes pictures of a smartphone exactly the same as its predecessor. In the new product, only the photo resolution has increased:

• Previously it was 3698 by 2976 pixels
• and now it’s 4608 by 3456 points

General pattern. If there is enough light, then the photographs turn out pleasant and of good quality. There is no shame in downloading them to your computer and watching them on the big screen.

If the lighting is weak, then the quality of the photo drops rapidly. Even in cloudy weather, part of the frame turns out to be quite normal, while the other is overexposed or, conversely, gone into darkness.

And HDR in this case does not help the situation much. Yes, it can reveal blown-out clouds and make the sky blue instead of white. But it still doesn’t pull out dark bushes, trees and other problem areas of the frame.

No HDR

With HDR

However, the detail of the images is still pleasing. Even at night everything doesn’t blur into mush—the objects in the photo are more or less distinguishable. However, I somehow like the photos from Honor 6X better. Maybe the algorithms in the new product will be finalized, but this is not certain.

All original examples can be downloaded from the link.

Blur background

You shouldn't expect background blur from a $200 device like the iPhone 8 Plus or Samsung Note 8. The 7X has no qualms about trimming messy hair on people, sharp corners on objects, and so on.

At the same time, the quality of the photo as a whole deteriorates. It’s almost impossible to shoot anything useful indoors.

A more or less tolerable result can only be obtained with very good lighting.

Video recording

The smartphone shoots regular, quite good videos at a standard resolution of 1920 x 1080 and 30 frames per second.

As expected, there is no stabilization, but even with direct hands the content looks good.

Cameras Huawei Honor 7X

Huawei Honor 7X camera review reveals noticeable improvements over its predecessor. The only thing that is a little alarming is that the manufacturer does not disclose information regarding the manufacturer of the sensors and their characteristics. In tribute to trends, the main module is dual - 16 and 2 megapixels. The second sensor is monochrome and is used primarily to create the Bokeh effect. The main one did not have the best aperture - f/2.2, which is why the quality of the images noticeably drops as lighting conditions worsen.

For its price, the camera is decent; during the day, it takes stunning pictures with good detail and contrast. But the color rendition is far from the reference - the picture turns out pale. For advanced users, Huawei Honor 7X has a manual shooting mode. Although modern phones rarely have problems with this. But night photography is a completely different matter, as this is where all the camera’s flaws appear.

Example photo on Huawei Honor 7X

In low light, the quality of the images noticeably drops. But if you perform serial shooting, then at least 1-2 frames will be successful. What helps is the flash, which is moderately bright, but does not overexpose nearby objects.

The Huawei Honor 7X smartphone review showed that the camera does an excellent job of blurring the background. It's not as beautiful when compared to more expensive flagships, but for the price it's just perfect. The user can adjust the intensity of the blur. A big plus is that the Bokeh effect can be added to a ready-made photo in the gallery.

Video shooting is carried out at 30 frames per second and in FullHD resolution. If you don’t shake the smartphone too much, the quality is decent.

The 8 MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture takes good pictures and will definitely appeal to those who cannot live without Instagram and bright selfies. The interesting thing is that even the front camera can shoot frames with a background blur effect. Even though software algorithms are used for this, it turns out well. Huawei Honor 7X 64gb review showed that, for a budget device, the cameras are very good.

Conclusion

To summarize, we can say with confidence that Honor 7X has become a worthy representative of the budget segment. It has a bright and recognizable design, high build quality, high-quality cameras and an intuitive interface. The screen doesn’t disappoint either; its unusual side resolution and large diagonal make it an ideal content player. Autonomy is certainly not record-breaking, but at a quite decent level. A strange decision was the manufacturer’s use of an outdated microUSB port, which again means there is no fast charging. Other dubious points include a lack of performance for demanding games, the lack of an NFC chip, and not support for all domestic LTE frequencies.

Where can I buy?

Following the links you can buy a smartphone at the best prices:

Aliexpress GearBest Banggood

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Software

On top of Android 7.0, the proprietary EMUI 5.1 shell was installed here. This is the latest development from Huawei with all the bells and whistles.

Some people may not really like EMUI due to the design of icons, fonts and other nuances (me, for example), but it is stupid to deny its functionality. This is one of the most customizable skins on the market. And it provides very cool tools for fine-tuning your smartphone. On other devices, such tricks are impossible without Root and third-party, often crooked software.

For example, on Honor 7X you can easily find an application that consumes battery power and give it a hand. Or throw out unnecessary applications from startup.

All these seem like boring subtleties, but when problems happen (especially after installing some crooked application), you immediately start looking for a third-party solution in a panic. The Play Store can offer nothing but a ton of garbage apps with advertising. And here everything is right out of the box - it’s convenient and works like a clock.

During the week of using the 7X, I did not notice a single glitch, application crashes, etc. And this despite the fact that the smartphone is a real novelty, it was presented in mid-October of this year.

However, there were still a couple of nuances. Most likely, they can be attributed to the Chinese origin of the device.

At first, the smartphone did not want to send me notifications at all. I went into the application settings, set priorities for the programs that were key to me and... nothing changed. Well, practically. 2 out of 5 notifications now still arrive, the rest are lost.

The second point is contacts. When I added a GMAIL account, all my contacts were pulled up, but when there was an incoming call, the system did not recognize the name of the caller.

It turned out that the disease was very easy to treat. We go to the Web version of your Gmail contacts, export to a vCard file, copy it to the phone, and in the Contacts settings on the mobile device, select import from the vCard file in the device’s memory. Now all numbers are easily recognized.

Huawei Honor 7X interface

While reviewing the Huawei Honor 7 X, we made sure that it runs on the proprietary EMUI 5.1 shell. The Russian language is available out of the box, and all interface elements are well translated. It is convenient to use, there are many available gestures and the ability to flexibly configure each element. Google services and applications from the manufacturer are preinstalled. But there is also some Chinese software that you immediately want to remove. To avoid this, buy the global version. The shell is one of the best. You will find in it many truly necessary functions that the original Android lacks.

Sound

The device boasts only one speaker. It is located on the bottom, to the right of the Micro USB port. Both in quality and volume it is average. The ears don’t feel insulted, but the sound doesn’t evoke any positive emotions either.

A proprietary audio player is built into the system. Since I was testing the version for the Chinese market, I was greeted with a ton of Chinese content. Switch to the “Me” tab and find out your songs downloaded in advance into the device’s memory.

I can't say anything special about the sound quality in the headphones. The sound is on par with most modern devices.

Battery life

The hardware of the device is not the most demanding, but the built-in battery (3,340 mAh) is not impressive.

However, the device works freely from early morning until late evening on a single charge with 4-5 hours of screen light. At the same time, I used two SIM cards at once, through 4G or Wi-Fi, the usual applications were spinning in the background, surfing the Web, Instagram, taking photos and videos - everything was as always.

It should be kept in mind that I did not tune the system at all in terms of power consumption. At the same time, the EMUI shell constantly hinted to me that there were a bunch of applications running in the background that disproportionately consumed battery power. If you look into this issue, you can add even better autonomy.

Autonomy of Huawei Honor 7X

Although the Huawei Honor 7 X received a more capacious 3340 mAh battery, you shouldn’t expect miracles from it. The manufacturer tried to maintain a balance so that the smartphone could confidently survive until the evening charge, but at the same time its body remained moderately thin, which a powerful battery would not have allowed to achieve. An energy efficient processor also plays a role in this. With active use, Honor 7X discharges after 5 hours of display activity.

The proprietary EMUI shell is well optimized and contains an effective power saving function, thanks to which you can further improve the results. It unloads applications from memory that you have not used for a long time. As a result, autonomy can be increased to two days.

As the Huawei Honor 7X review showed, in video playback mode, about 10% of the charge is consumed per hour, and in games, the sadder picture is up to 30% per hour. The results are average, taking into account the not very productive hardware and large display. Unfortunately, the smartphone was left without fast charging technology, which is why you have to wait 2.5 hours from 0 to 100%.

Bottom line

At the beginning of the year, Honor 6X was introduced and I immediately began recommending the smartphone to those who want to get a high-quality and inexpensive device for everything, including Android Pay. Fortunately, the smartphone had NFC.

With the release of Honor 7X, my recommendations shift towards the new product, because the device has an excellent, large and very comfortable screen with an aspect ratio of 18 by 9. Plus, the device boasts minimal frames, which looks really good.

Excellent software, good hardware, fairly decent cameras for its price tag (especially the front one) - the Honor 7X has everything a user needs from a smartphone at the end of 2020.

The only negative is that for some reason the manufacturer removed the NFC module, so you can now forget about contactless payments. On the other hand, we once lived without Android Pay. And, I must admit, we lived not badly.

buy Honor 7X in China or here. In the first case, the smartphone will cost 13.5 thousand rubles, plus you will have to wait about a month, and taking into account the past 11.11 sale and Black Friday, and on New Year’s Eve, I’m sure it will be longer. Much.

Honor Huawei



Content

Wide future

Design

Equipment

Fingerprint's scanner

Speaker

Telephone features

Connection

Screen

Iron

EMUI shell

Sound

Cameras

Battery

Where can I buy

Characteristics

Summary



Wide future

I think everyone already understands that widescreen displays are the future, and soon almost all smartphones will become widescreen. The Chinese are already churning out models with elongated screens, and programmers, gritting their teeth, are sawing through interfaces for HD+ and FullHD+. Before this, our editorial office had already seen cheap Chinese smartphones with widescreen screens and thin frames, but this was frankly the third echelon like the Bluboo S8.

Now Huawei Honor 7X has arrived, and this is almost the first sane middle-class smartphone with a widescreen screen and thin frames on top and bottom. Moreover, in addition to its designer forms, Honor 7X also turned out to be inexpensive enough to compete directly with such monsters as Xiaomi Mi A1 and Meizu M6 Note.

Design

Huawei remains true to itself, and Honor smartphones invariably receive interesting design solutions. Sometimes even more interesting than those of the basic Huawei models (how can we not remember the elegant Honor 9!). This is the case when jokes about designers tracing iPhones don’t stick to the brand.

Honor 7X looks really cool. The front and back panels are made with a rounded effect and fit perfectly in the hand. The back is metal, the front is 2.5D glass, and almost the entire front surface is occupied by the screen. It looks cool, although I will miss the fingerprint sensor under the screen. In Honor 7X it is naturally placed on the back cover. And here again I have to respect the engineers of the Honor line, since the sensor is very easy to feel, and I did not experience any real discomfort during use.

Since the start of sales, there have been three body colors: black, gold and blue. In blue, the device probably looks better and fresher than the more “tired” colors.

The hardware buttons are in place, they have good movement, and they do not rattle. They left the headphone jack, which is also great. But they forgot to “update” the interface connector, leaving the archaic MicroUSB. And this, of course, is not at all pleasing. The end of 2020, and the transition to USB Type-C is still the lot of individual brands and individual models.

If we compare the sizes of the three most interesting smartphones costing up to $250, released in 2020, it turns out that despite the huge difference in screen sizes, the dimensions of Huawei Honor 7X, Xiaomi Mi A1 and Meizu M6 Note will be almost the same. The difference comes down to literally a few millimeters.

Equipment

Cable, charger, needle, plus a cheap silicone case. That's the whole package - typical for inexpensive smartphones.

Fingerprint's scanner

The fingerprint sensor is not only well placed, but also very fast and very accurate. No complaints at all. In addition, it has many gestures associated with it that make working with your smartphone easier.

Speaker

The multimedia speaker of the Huawei Honor 7X is quieter than that of, for example, the Xiaomi Mi A1/5X. But Honor has a clearer and more pleasant sound. Therefore, you most likely won’t be able to watch YouTube in the park. But at home - quite!

Telephone features

As a phone, the Huawei Honor 7X works great. There is a very good speaker and a highly sensitive microphone. Therefore, my interlocutors heard me perfectly, and I heard them too.

Connection

Of the LTE bands, the Chinese version of Honor 7X only supports the thirty-eighth band, which is not very good for Russian 4G networks. The “white” copies also claim to support B3, which is a little better.

Screen

Due to the fact that everything possible was removed from the front plane, an almost six-inch screen with a very decent IPS matrix and a cool oleophobic coating was squeezed into a fairly compact body. And this is a very serious argument in favor of Honor 7X. After all, it is the screen that we constantly look at while working with a smartphone.

The resolution is as non-standard as the proportions. It's called FullHD Plus (2160x1080 pixels) and, apparently, next year we will often see it in smartphones. So far, not all software has been adapted to the new standard; in the Youtube application, the proportions are violated; in Clash Royale, in full-screen mode, menu items are cut off at the edges of the screen. Without a doubt, this is all temporary, and the developers will fix everything soon. I really liked the minimum screen brightness, it’s really low. Before going to bed, reading the news is a good time. But I didn’t like the night mode, it’s cold and unpleasant, even if you turn up the warm shades to the maximum. You can also lower the resolution of the Honor 7X screen to HD+ to save battery power. Sometimes a useful thing.

Iron

Huawei's own Kirin processors have always been the bottleneck of all Huawei products, although in recent years there has been some progress in stability and power consumption. The Honor 7X has an eight-core Kirin 659, which is comparable in performance to the Snapdragon 625 and Helio P25. Overall, Android and apps run well on it, and battery consumption is very moderate.

What's bad about Kirin processors is the graphics. Specifically, the Honor 7X has a Mali-T830 graphics accelerator, and this is not a gaming solution at all. It's a shame, because otherwise the Kirin 659 is a normal processor with low heat generation and good core performance. If you compare the results of Honor 7X and Xiaomi Mi A1 in Antutu, Kirin is inferior in all graphics tests. But the computing power of the Kirin 659 cores is at the level or even slightly higher than the Snapdragon 625! In general, it would be a good platform if it were not for the old and frail Mali-T830.

There is enough RAM - four gigabytes. Capacity is 32/64/128 GB.

Under load, the battery heats up to about 36 degrees, and the processor to about 43. These are good indicators, the smartphone is comfortable to hold in your hand.

In general, if you close your eyes to the games, the hardware here is quite good. But if mobile gaming is an important part of your day, it's best to look for a different smartphone.

EMUI shell

Regarding the EMUI shell, opinions in the editorial office were divided. It is functional, quite easy to learn, but... not for everyone. The design style is kind of cartoonish, or something... And not only in the default theme, but also in the theme store, everything looks as if it was drawn exclusively for anime fans! And lest you think I’m being picky, here are a few more serious issues.

Firstly, it's size. The system takes up as much as 8.5 gigabytes in the smartphone’s memory, and that’s somehow a lot. For Xiaomi Mi A1, for example, system files weigh two gigabytes less. Secondly, the Chinese version has a whole mountain of Huawei’s own useless services, which I hope will be cut out for the international version. Because they are of no use, and they eat up a lot of space.

In the future, we will review several shells, including EMUI, and analyze their advantages and disadvantages in more detail. Now, at a minimum, it can be stated that the shell can be used if the appearance does not cause rejection.

Sound

I was pleased with the quality of the music in the headphones. I haven't found any mention of a dedicated audio chip, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's there. The smartphone has a very powerful midrange and well-developed low frequencies.

Cameras

The main camera received two modules: 16-megapixel and an auxiliary 2-megapixel for blurring the background in portrait shots. The quality of the photos is not bad, approximately at the level of the Xiaomi Mi A1, except that portrait photographs are obtained with better background blur, and the color rendition in portrait photographs is more natural. However, we will talk about portrait photography in a large comparative material that is currently being prepared.

During the day, photos turn out nice with correct white balance and excellent HDR performance. In post-processing, the saturation is slightly increased, the picture turns out to be slightly embellished.

The detail is very high, leaves and branches do not turn into mush.

In night photos, high detail and correct white balance are maintained, and the noise level is surprisingly low.

The original photos are here.

Battery

The bad news: there is no fast charging, so it takes almost two and a half hours to charge the smartphone.

The good news: the 3340 mAh battery lasts for a day and a half, even for me, although I use the smartphone to the maximum, installing a whole pack of instant messengers on it, and actively hanging out on social networks and games. A person with fewer demands can squeeze out all of two days from the device.

Where can I buy

⇒Aliexpress

J&K - https://ali.ski/GVET5

Willvast - https://ali.ski/Lcryf

TV Store - https://ali.ski/lYl1C

Specifications

Net:

4G FDD-LTE: B1/B3/B5/B8

4G TDD-LTE: B38/B39/B40/B41

Display: 5.93 inches, 1080 x 2160, IPS;

Processor: HiSilicon Kirin 659 (eight cores, 4 x 2.36 GHz + 4 x 1.7 GHz, Cortex-A53 core architecture) Mali-T830 MP2 graphics; RAM: 4 GB;

Memory: 32/64/128 GB;

OS: Android 7.0 Nougat shell EMUI 5.1; 2 nanoSIM cards; Main camera: 16 MP + 2 MP, 1/2.9″, phase autofocus;

Front camera: 8 MP, ƒ/2.0; Battery: 3340 mAh, non-removable Fingerprint scanner; Dimensions: 156.5 x 75.3 x 7.6 mm

Weight : 165 grams.

Summary

To summarize, I will say that Honor 7X is an excellent smartphone. This is evidenced by real operating experience, and not just a look at the characteristics. What I especially liked about this smartphone: 1) Display. 2) Battery life. I was pleasantly surprised 3) Cameras. I was especially surprised by the video shooting. None of the competitors have electronic stabilization. In this regard, respect

4) Location and operation of the fingerprint sensor What we didn’t like: 1) If you use 4G in Russia, the connection will often fall into 3G2) Weak gaming performance3) Not that critical, but the multimedia speaker could be louder4) Micro-USB port

5) No fast charging

So far, I can’t say with confidence that Honor 7X is the best smartphone for the money. But, it is definitely no worse than its competitors. Here everyone will draw a conclusion for themselves. If you don’t play “heavy” games, and 3G Internet speed is enough for you, take it, you’ll be happy. If these shortcomings are critical, look for an alternative.