Huawei Honor 4X is a low budget device announced last year which has some great specifications. One of the most astonishing feature of Honor 4X is the back camera. It is capable of taking some very nice HD shots. Lets take a full review and see the specs in detail.
Design
Honor 4X comes in two color white and black with a textured back. This texture gives a nice grip of phone and makes it feel sturdy. At the back we have a Honor Logo printed neatly along with camera on the top left corner. On the right there is power button with volume rockers which i feel is the best position for easy access. 3.5 mm audio jack is on the top with noise cancellation microphone. Speaker grill, microphone and micro USB port are present at the bottom. The three navigation keys does not have backlight support, which can be a issue when you operate the device in dark. The device feels light (weight-170 g) with respect to the size and the weight is uniformly distributed.
Screen
Honor 4X has a 5.5 inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 which is about 267 ppi pixel density. The screen looks decent in terms of pixel density. The touch on this device is fairly responsive, you can try a matte finish screen guard to improve it. There is no Gorilla glass protection so that’s an alarming sign, you better get a anti-fingerprint screen guard on to avoid scratches and fingerprint marks. The screen supports a 10 point multi-touch. Huawei has done average work on the screen but again introducing a decent 5.5 inch phone in this budget is a challenge.
Performance
Honor 4X comes with a Quad-core MSM8916 64 bit processor clocked at 1.2 GHz. It has 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB internal storage out of which around 4 GB is user available. It supports up to 32 GB of external storage via memory card. We faced no issues while multitasking and heavy usage due to the huge amount of RAM available. The gaming performance on this device was also great with Adreno 306 GPU processor. We tried playing several games like temple run 2, My daddy was a thief, Asphalt 8, Dead Trigger 2, Marvel contest of champions, and Modern combat 5 which all worked with no lag even at high graphics. But when we tried playing N.O.V.A. 3, the device failed to run it properly. So you can play most of the games except a very few high end games. The Antutu benchmark score on this device was 20304, while Nenamark 2 calculated a score of 51.9 fps.
Honor 4X comes with Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) running out of the box. There is no news of Lollipop update yet. Huawei has their own Emoticon UI 3.0 (EMUI 3.0) based on KitKat. One thing that I liked about Honor 4x is that, it comes with almost no bloatware (pre-installed apps) that gives you the freedom. Some other features include smart assistance like motion control, One-hand UI, smart cover etc. You can also restrict the data usage for each app separately by going in settings -> Networked Apps.
Below are some screenshots of the Emoticon UI 3.0 giving a whole overview.
Camera
The device has a 13 MP rear camera that comes with Sony 2nd generation BSI/OV sensor. With this sensor, the device is able to take some nice snaps even in low light condition. The resolution of the photo is 4208 x 3120 pixels, and auto focusing is quite accurate. The quality of image captured with the camera is quite impressive and you can count on it. The camera app has some additional features like panorama, HDR, Audio note, Best Photo, All-Focus, and Watermark. Coming to video recording, it can record HD videos at 720P.
The front camera is of 5 MP(2592 x 1944) which can be used to capture great selfies. While taking a selfie, the camera app shows a cropped image of face on the top-right corner so that your eyes are on the lens. The only bug that i encountered in Honor 4X camera is that, in certain conditions the auto white balance turned the image yellowish. To solve this problem you can change the white balance from auto to incandescent. Below are some of the shots captured using Honor 4X camera.
Connectivity and Sound
Honor 4X supports dual SIM and that too both LTE (4G + 4G) so you can enjoy high speed internet. Apart from that you have some common connectivity options like WIFI, Bluetooth v4.0, and GPS. Unfortunately the device does not support USB OTG feature so you cannot connect a USB drive. This is one disappointing thing in Honor 4X as it has low internal storage.
The speakers on the device are located at the bottom with 6 neatly drilled wholes. The Sound on Honor 4X is decent i.e. not too high or too low but the clarity is good. This will enhance your gaming and movie watching experience.
Battery
The device has a 3000 mAh non-removable battery which is quite sufficient for a 5.5 inch phone. The battery can last for half day with heavy usage and more than a day with normal usage. You can also use power saving options to conserve battery power. It supports LTE on both SIM and may consume more battery on 4G which is still to be tested.
Warranty and Availability
The device is exclusively available through Flipkart in white and black color variant for Rs. 10,499. The manufacturer warranty for device is 15 months, for battery it is 6 months and for accessories its 3 months. You also get various attractive offers while buying the phone.
Overall the phone is worth a buy at this price range. For the people who want a phone with good camera quality this can be an amazing choice. For others who need more performance you can try other alternatives like MI 4i which is a little higher in terms of price. Let me know if you have any doubts or feedback regarding the review through the comment section below.
