Huawei Honor 4x has a lot to like on paper. Huawei is currently pitching Honor 4x as its flash sale challenger, with most key rivals selling for a slightly lower price. So if you are looking for a decent budget smartphone will Honor 4x make the cut? Let’s take a look.
Honor 4X Quick Specifications
- Display Size: 5.5 inch IPS LCD capacitive touch screen with 720 x 1080 HD resolution
- Processor: 1.2 GHz 64 bit Quad Core Snapdragon 410
- RAM: 2 Gb
- Software Version: Android 4.4.4 KitKat based Emotion UI 3.0
- Camera: 13 MP AF camera, 1080p Videos
- Secondary Camera: 5 MP front-facing camera, 720p Videos
- Internal Storage: 8 GB
- External Storage: Expandable up to 32GB
- Battery: 3000 mAh battery Lithium Ion, Non removable
- Connectivity: 4G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, aGPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
- Others: OTG Support – No, Dual SIM – Yes
Honor 4X Unboxing, Review, Features, Camera, Price, Benchmarks, Gaming and Overview [Video]
Emotion UI
There is no dearth of options in Emotion UI. While settings like color temperature are best left to default, there are several others which you might like to toggle with. You can enable double tap to wake option, enable a feature which allows you to draw characters and open apps directly from off display, or add haptic feedback to otherwise inconspicuous navigation bar.
What we like most about the UI is a timeline displayed in notification shade, dialer, call list and messages. A bar unobtrusively displays timeline for each notification or messages, which is informative and appealing.
The default dialer app does not support cellular video calling or call recording, but the timeline bar on the left and a simple and cleverly designed info icon on the right are very well integrated and thus we didn’t feel any urge to replace it with any other third party app.
There is a semi functional one handed UI mode too, but unlike MIUI, this won’t make entire display more accessible by shrinking it, but will shrink dialer and keyboard. The keyboard app again has rich gesture support and conveniently prompts you to add words including your email address to suggestion dictionary so you don’t have to type the entire thing again and again.
We didn’t like the default icons much, but that is subjective and can be corrected by using any launcher or icon pack. The option to change some default apps, including launcher is buried deep in settings (settings>>app manager>> set defaults), but it is nevertheless there in case you don’t like Emotion UI.
By defauly, lockscreen will greet you with random wallpaper each time you unlock the phone. On the whole, The UI might not feel intuitive or soulful as, say, MIUI 6, but it is rich in customization options and has plenty to cherish. It is neat and gives you freedom to rearrange stuff and toggle base settings according to your will.
Design and Build Quality
Honor 4X is certainly prettier than what we are used to seeing in under 10k price. The removable back cover is made of good quality plastic and has jute like texture. Camera sensor and LED flash on the rear side are embellished within a metal plate, which you can also use to file your nails (seriously, don’t try that).
On the front side, the 5.5 Inch display dominates, but since it is covered with plastic scratch guard, it is prone to smudges. The navigation buttons are lollipop style, but they are not backlit. By default, haptic feedback is also turned off, but you can turn this on from settings>>sound. Another good thing is that the speaker grill is present at the bottom. The phone looks simple yet elegant.
Display
The Honor 4X has a 5.5 Inch IPS LCD display with 720p HD resolution. It is a good quality IPS LCD panel without air gap between display and digitizer. Viewing angles are great and you can easily share a video running in landscape mode with your friends without any depreciation in quality.
Outdoor visibility, whites and brightness are great too. Colors don’t pop and if you have a preference for slightly oversaturated colors, Honor 4x display will not quench your thirst. Auto brightness works well. The display is fitted with a screen guard out of the box, so you won’t have to apply it yourself. Overall, we are happy with the Honor 4x display quality.
Performance and Heating
Compared to its flash sales rivals, Honor 4x employs a comparatively feeble Snapdragon 410 64 bit quad core CPU with Ample 2 GB RAM. In our time with the device, we didn’t find any inconsistent shortage of RAM or unnecessary resource hogging from Emotion UI.
Performance is smooth and day to day users won’t be disappointed. However, it is one notch below Snapdragon 615 and MT6752 as is noticeable at times under heavy load. Multitasking is smooth. Casual games like subway surfer and most high end games work smoothly, though there are noticeable frame drops.
There is no heating issue in the device, maximum temperature we recorded was 35 degree Celsius. As you can see benchmark scores are similar to other Snapdragon 410 running devices.
| Benchmark | Score |
| Quadrant | 12332 |
| Antutu | 19596 |
| Vellamo (single core) | 798 |
| Nenamark 2 | 52.0 fps |
Camera and Internal Storage
The rear camera employs 13 MP Sony Exmor Sensor and is above average in quality. Day light shots are pretty good and the quality doesn’t deteriorate drastically in low light either.
If you enable the option, you can launch camera app by drawing C even when display is off. Alternately, you can double press the volume down key and the camera will open and shoot images in less than 2 seconds. From within the app, Camera isn’t extremely snappy, but is reasonably fast. The camera app allows you to toggle with exposure and ISO settings too. HDR mode works well too.
Camera Samples
Out of 8 GB, only 4 GB is available at user end. There is no partition and you may use the entire storage space for apps. App can be transferred to SD card. You can also check SD card as default storage location, and it is recommended that you do this at the time of setup, rather than waiting for internal space to be exhausted first. USB OTG is not supported.
Battery and Other Features
Battery backup on Honor 4X is pretty amazing. With default settings, we were getting a little more than 2 days worth of back even with moderate to high usage. Watching 2 hours 40 minutes of HD videos, while some apps downloaded in the background, depleted battery by 28 percent, which is pretty good. The battery can charge from 5 percent to 100 percent in 2 hours 35 minutes (2 A charger). A battery saver mode is also present which works well.
Loudspeaker loudness and quality is certainly above average but not the best. Secondary microphone is present for noise cancellation and we didn’t find any issue with call quality on Honor 4x. We couldn’t test 4G LTE in our area, but 3G and WiFi worked fine. GPS locking and navigation is again efficient similar to other Snapdragon 410 devices. Magnetic compass is present to assist in navigation.
Honor 4x Photo Gallery
Conclusion
Huawei Honor 4X is a scores high on battery, camera and display. Those picky about specs wouldn’t be too happy to see Snapdragon 410 in a price where other are offering snappier Snapdragon 615 and its equivalent chipsets, and for Good reason. However, for most mainstream conventional users, Honor 4x packs sufficient horse power. The internal storage might again be a limitation for power users. Honor 4x does most things right, yet somehow this might not be enough in face of stiff competition at a price of 10,499 INR.
