Huawei Honor 4X First Look: A Productive, Budget, 4G Smartphone You've Always Wanted

| Updated: Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 18:56 [IST]

Yesterday we had a chance to spent some time with the Huawei Honor 4X. Now after spending more than 24 hours with the review unit, it's clear that Huawei has another winner on its hands.

Beyond the camera performance, the Honor 4X offers 4G LTE connectivity, a 64-bit processor and dual-SIM support at an affordable package.

Rating:

4.0/5

The Huawei Honor 4X has all the latest specifications, including a 5.5-inch HD screen and an expandable storage. It's going to be made available in India, starting March 30 through Flipkart.

PROS

Adorable design
3000mAh Battery
4G LTE
Emotion 3.0 UI
64-bit Processor

CONS

Average Camera
Not so great Display

Here are our first impressions of the Honor 4X.

Huawei Honor 4X First Look: Form Factor, Design, Display and Operating System

Well, Huawei kept the design simple and straight forward. But that doesn't mean that the handset's design is unappealing. It is very much like a standard looking rectangular Android phone, but to spice up the design, the makers have added a textured pattern on the rear side, which actually makes the phone a lot more personal in nature.

The Honor 4X weighs 170grams and measures in at 8.65mm thick. The weight, of course, gives the impression that the Honor 4X is a substantial piece of kit. Our only concern with the device is that it's heavy (literally). That being said, we still liked the device just because it felt great and using with one hand would be easy.

Besides its design, the Honor 4X comes with a 5.5-inch HD display with a resolution of 720p display. The first thing I notice was how bright the display is. It's not a super crazy bright, but it's a lot brighter than the Honor Holly.

The Honor 4X is still not great in bright light, however, we can clearly see an improvement over the company's previously released mid-end phones. Colors are richer and icons are sharper.

The newly launched device runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Huawei's Emotion 3.0 UI. As you might be familiar, it does not have an app drawer. The User interface (UI) has flat icons, and one can also download themes depending upon our choice. Aside from that, you'll get all the basic apps and functionality that you would expect from an Android-powered phone.

Huawei Honor 4X First Look: Processor, RAM and Connectivity

Before we proceed further, we'd like to clarify that we didn't run a benchmark yet, so our initial impressions are on the basis of our brief testing. We'll be talking more about our benchmarking results once we publish the Honor 4X review in coming days.

Under the hood, the Honor 4X is stuffed with a Snapdragon 410 processor (64-bit), paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory ( yes, it will support a microSD card slot).

Having used the Honor 4X for a little over 24 hours, we've noticed how fast the device is. It's quick to open and switch between apps, there's no lag when browsing the web and the overall experience feels very smooth.

The Honor 4X has a Dual-SIM support, which and it works in dual-standby mode. Perhaps the talking point of the Honor 4X is that it offer 4G LTE support. Other than that, you'll find the standard connectivity features.

Huawei Honor 4X First Look: Camera and Video

At the concluded event that took place in Delhi, the Honor 6 Plus' camera for praised for its dual-camera setup. In case of the Honor 4X, the back camera underperformed in our results..

In typical standard settings, the back camera (13MP) did a reasonable job of brightening up the image, but there was a significant loss in detail. And on closer inspection, there was a lot noise. In extreme dark conditions, the Honor 4X was barely able to click nice shots. What did impress me is the camera app.

The quality of the captured 1080 video was below average. The 5MP front-facing camera does appear to be closer to the reality.

Huawei Honor 4X First Look: Battery and Early Verdict

Behind the removable back, there is a massive 3,000mAh battery. We're expecting the phone to last at least 12 hours on a single charge. We'll share more details about the battery in our detailed review.

The Honor 4X doesn't necessarily feel boring, given its premium specifications. The fast is that we enjoyed using the Honor 4X. But we also like to pin point some major mistakes: the camera could have been better. Secondly, the phone's display is bright yet pales in comparison to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. We hope this is something that can be solved in the future with a software update.

The Honor 4X - the latest mid-end smartphone - will be made available in India, starting March 30. Flipkart will exclusively stock the device. The handset is priced at Rs. 10,499.