I personally have never said the line “it looks like an iPhone” on any smartphone I've reviewed, but the HONOR X8b is probably my exception for this. That’s a strikingly great compliment to say for an impressively affordable phone.
But after having experienced it for a while, the surprise didn’t end with what I thought about its aesthetics. There’s a lot more that’s to be desired on this device.
So without further ado, let’s checkout what else the HONOR X8b has to offer.
Design and build
As mentioned, the HONOR X8b comes in a very familiar look but it feels remarkably premium as well. A big contributor to that is the vegan leather back panel which to me looks absolutely stunning for a budget-friendly device.
The whole unit is wrapped in a plastic frame built on flat edges. On the right, it houses the volume rockers with a side mounted fingerprint sensor directly underneath. At the bottom is the USB-C and speaker port, while on its left is the dual nano SIM tray.
For a phone in this segment, this does not get a 3.5mm headphone jack. That could bum out some people, but that also contributed to how the device was built to be this slim.
This color variant we've got is the Glamorous Green color but this also comes in Titanium Silver and Midnight Black.
There’s no denying that the X8b is one nice looking smartphone especially at this price bracket. I didn’t mind flaunting this with my friends who are using much more expensive devices.
Display
Another aspect that truly sets the HONOR X8b apart is most definitely its display. This is rocking a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate that has a resolution of 2412x1080.
I was surprised to actually see that on paper this is only rated at 90Hz as I could have sworn it feels much faster and snappier in person.
This is probably because of its flicker-free display technology which was likely borrowed from the X8b’s bigger brother, the HONOR 90 5G.
This display looks great with its deep backs, color vibrance and the overall sharpness. Adding to that is the MagicOS UI which by default, makes everything in its interface easily visible and laid out nicely.
Watching videos and more importantly, playing games on this screen feels delightful. The color saturation is just enough to make the images pop and the refresh rate allows me to do quick maneuvers on Call of Duty: Mobile which I'll get more into later on.
HONOR is also boasting a new feature they've included on the X8b, which is their Magic Capsule. This is HONOR’s version of Apple’s Dynamic Island which, again, adds to the premium experience I was talking about at the intro of this review.
The capsule expands to show information for easier monitoring of features like the timer and audio recording status to name a few. Then it collapses back to its mini form when not in use. It looks somewhat sophisticated when it comes out but as of now, I kind of feel like its functionality is still limited. There aren’t many features that make full use of this yet and I’m really hoping to get more out of this in future OS updates.
It’s also hard not to notice that this display’s bezels are very thin and seem to measure uniformly all around. This makes watching videos feel a little bit more immersive and the whole device look more expensive.
Performance
The HONOR X8b is running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset which is a chipset we've probably seen the most in a number of entry to mid level devices last year.
In my experience, there really isn’t anything that stands out on its performance but also nothing that should worry aspiring users. The device feels fast enough for our day-to-day tasks like social media browsing and navigating through most apps.
As for gaming performance, I have played Call of Duty: Mobile and Genshin Impact and the experience was okay for most I've tried.
It manages to reach decent frame rates on Call of Duty: Mobile at high graphic settings with the FPS set to medium. You could also set graphics settings to low paired with high FPS if you want that extra boost in responsiveness.
A mixture of low and medium settings is workable if you prefer to have at least some eye candy to take full use of the AMOLED screen.
For MOBA games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, the X8b won’t find these difficult to run. The phone will handle most of these pretty well.
Overall, the specs of the HONOR X8b will still be enough for the use cases of most people, gamers included.
Also, this is a 4G only chipset so there’s no 5G connectivity available. In our experience, using different networks like GOMO and DITO were pretty satisfactory.
Cameras
In the camera department, the HONOR X8b features a 108MP main camera with an aperture of f1.8, a 5MP ultrawide f2.2 and a 2MP f/2.4 macro lens. Up front there’s a 50MP selfie camera. That’s an impressively high megapixel count for a selfie camera, most especially for one at this price point.
As to how these performed, I took this phone on some days of my street photo walks and I would say it performed well in most scenarios.
It manages to preserve details, although a bit oversharpened for my taste, but looks decent overall. It does have a tendency to overexpose on most of its shots which could get flat looking results if the scene is a bit too bright. So be sure to pull down the exposure slider to get these to correct levels.
The HDR works decently as well but saturation on some colors do seem a bit over the top. It seems to favor the color red and blue in a lot of shots but not all the time. I do like that it keeps most of the other colors in their proper place.
Low light photography is also doable on the HONOR X8b. We managed to get satisfactory results on its standard mode as long as we have a strong light source in the scene. There will be noise present and some softness caused by noise reduction but looks bearable for social media posting.
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| Honor X8b - Standard mode low light outdoors |
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| Honor X8b - Standard mode, Low light indoors |
For its night mode, static subjects in very low light like landscapes can be captured with a steady hand. Adding a moving subject though, like a person or a vehicle, will already introduce motion blur which is fine if you want to use that creatively.
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| Honor X8b - Night mode |
Video quality of the X8b is pretty decent as well but far from being the best. The quality is good under bright light that I even find it better than some slightly more expensive competition.
It doesn’t feature any kind of in-body stabilization so there will be noticeable shakiness when filming handheld. Noise is also easily introduced when you happen to shoot indoors. You can also film videos on ultrawide which looks okay outdoors but you cannot switch cameras while the recording is on going.
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| Honor X8b ultra wide |
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| Honor X8b ultra wide |
There aren’t many smartphones at this price point which feature an ultrawide camera so we're really happy that this has one. This camera has a noticeably low megapixel count and is probably our least favorite in the bunch. Though, It is still very possible to snap decent photos with this in good light and as long as you don’t crop in.
As for the selfie camera, I would say this is probably one of the best if not the best I've experienced at this price. This punches way above its class in terms of the overall image quality. The colors are nice and it manages to capture details nicely.
Probably the best part here is it automatically shifts to shoot wide at 0.8x zoomed out when there are more than one person in the camera. I find this super nice especially since we mostly do selfies with other people.
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| Honor X8b selfie camera zoomed out 0.8x |
In total, camera performance of the HONOR X8b is pretty solid for its price.
Battery and charging
Running on a 4,500mAh battery, the HONOR X8b on paper has a slightly lower capacity rating than most smartphones in its bracket. This didn’t prove to be something that should worry most users as we did find it to last for a whole day under average use.
Under heavier load like gaming, you will need to keep a charger around as this would likely last about half a day with some rests in between.
Charging takes over an hour to get fully juiced up, which is expected with 35W charging.
HONOR X8b Specs:
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G (6nm)
- Display: 6.7-inch, 2412x1080px, 90Hz, 1200nits, 90Hz
- RAM and Storage: 128GB/8GB RAM, 256GB 6GB RAM, 512GB 8GB RAM
- Camera: 108MP f/1.8 (Main), 5MP f/2.2 (ultrawide), 2MP f/2.4 (macro), 50MP f/2.1 (selfie)
- Battery and Charging: 4500 mAh, 35W Wired Charging
- Connectivity: 4G, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, USB-C
- Biometric Scanner: Side-mounted fingerprint
- Other notable specs: 89.9% screen-to-body ratio, vegan leather back panel
Conclusion
Overall, the HONOR X8b has some compelling features that we think can really attract potential buyers. In our opinion, these are the front facing camera, beautiful and premium design, and the sharp and vibrant display with the Magic Capsule as a bonus.
It might not be the most powerful one around plus it lacks 5G connectivity but for most people, this phone will get the job done.
At the price of PhP 12,999, if the aspects we've highlighted are the ones you are looking for, then certainly, you won’t be disappointed with this one.
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