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Review: HONOR X7a (6GB+128GB)
Review: HONOR X7a (6GB+128GB)

Review: HONOR X7a (6GB+128GB)

After the successful release of the HONOR X9a 5G which created a big buzz at the start of the year.

HONOR just recently released its latest budget-friendly phone under its X series lineup with the new HONOR X7a. Along with the phone, HONOR launched its first-ever laptop with the HONOR MagicBook X series.

For now, we will do a hands-on review with the HONOR X7a to share its features and our initial thoughts on this new HONOR device.

The HONOR X7a will retail at Php7,990

So, let us go straight on with the review of the HONOR X7a.

Unboxing

The HONOR X7a gets a simple packaging design in an all-white colored box made of thick cardboard material.

It has a few elements printed on the box such as the model’s name, brand logo, a few specs on the phone, and an image of the HONOR X7a found on the top cover.

Opening the box, you’ll immediately see the phone and when you lift it will reveal its other included accessories.

You get the following contents: HONOR X7a unit, SIM Ejector Tool, Quick Start Guide, Clear Protective Case, 22.5 HONOR SuperCharge Power Adaptor, and USB-A to USB-C Cable.

Design and Build Quality

The HONOR X7a will come in three color variants in Titanium Silver, the classic Midnight Black, and our review unit in Ocean Blue. I just love the Ocean Blue color as it offers a calming and elegant looking phone.

The phone weighs just 196 grams with a slim body design having a thickness of 8.27mm making it still comfortable to hold.

At the back, the rear cover has a fine smooth matte finish which helps repel fingerprint smudges. The Ocean Blue emits a pattern of rays in different hues of blue gradient colors depending on the angle of the light.

The camera module gets the iconic dual-reflex camera design having a reflective mirror finish with two large circular lenses. It has a LED flash and another camera lens placed underneath it.

An HONOR logo can be seen on the bottom left and certification marks are on its opposite side.

On the right, you’ll find the volume rockers and a power button that also doubles as a fingerprint scanner. You have nothing going on its left side.

A USB-C port, 3.5mm earphone jack, speaker grille, and microphone are located at the bottom while the SIM card tray with an additional microphone is located on the top.

Looking at the front design of the phone, you have thin bezels all around the screen except for the bottom chin which is slightly raised. At the top center, the front-facing camera sports a waterdrop notch design and doesn’t appear as an eye soar or inconvenience while watching videos.

HONOR assures that the X7a is one durable and top-quality phone as it went to numerous rigorous standard tests with zero compromises. The HONOR X7a had 200,000 times power button/fingerprint tests, 800,000 times touchscreen durability tests, and even a temperature cycle test.

Display

The HONOR X7a offers a large 6.74-inch FullView HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 20:9. The screen has a maximum refresh rate of up to 90Hz, but if you want to save battery, you can switch it to 60Hz.

It has a resolution of 1600×720 pixels and a 90.07% screen-to-body ratio for a better viewing experience.

The display of the HONOR X7a is even visible outdoors but might have some slight struggle viewing the screen when used in direct sunlight. But indoors the phone will have no problem as it’s bright enough to work well.

In general, the display is pretty decent it is bright, the text is sharp, and the colors are natural not too saturated.

The phone has acquired a TÜV Rheinland low blue light certification, which makes you feel more comfortable viewing the HONOR X7a for long hours. Other eye protection feature that supports the phone is an E-Book Mode, Eye comfort, and Dark Mode which makes it a perfect device for your night-time reading.

Performance

The HONOR X7a is powered by a MediaTek Helio G37 octa-core processor with peak speeds of up to 2.3 GHz. The chipset is coupled with 6GB RAM, 128GB internal storage, and an IMG PowerVR GE8320 for its GPU.

If you need more space, the storage can still be expanded up to 1TB using a microSD card.

The 6GB RAM can be further optimized and upgraded thru the HONOR RAM Turbo feature. The technology has the capability of obtaining 2GB of space from the internal storage to be added to the RAM. With the additional RAM, you can prevent background processes from being stopped, opening, or switching between multiple apps smoothly.

We did a few benchmarks on the phone using Geekbench 6 as the phone system’s performance scored a 192 in single-core and 856 in multi-core.

Storage benchmark test using the DiskSpeed Test app gave us speed scores of 402MB/s on sequential write and 97MB/s on sequential read.

As for the sound quality, the single-firing speakers of the HONOR X7a produced a loud and clear audio quality. It is mostly coming out of one end of the phone. 

For me, this is not a bit of an issue, but due to the type of speaker placement, watching movies or listening to music did sound a bit one-sided.

It also has a 3.5mm audio jack to connect your wired headphones, and the sound is much better if you use your Bluetooth earbuds to the HONOR X7a.

I was able to play some graphically demanding mobile games on the device like Mobile Legends Bang Bang, Call Of Duty, PUBG, and Need for Speed. Sometimes I may have encountered and experienced some lags, but not constantly.

The overall performance of the HONOR X7a is pretty good.

Camera

For the HONOR X7a, you get a quad camera setup comprising a 50MP main camera with an aperture of f/1.8, a 5MP wide camera with an aperture of f/2.2, a 2MP lens on both the macro and depth camera with the same apertures at f/2.4.

As for the front-facing camera, you have an 8MP lens with an aperture of f/2.0 to shoot your selfies.

Opening the camera app, you have four shooting modes ready for you to shoot: Aperture, Portrait, Photo, and Video. Then you get seven more extra shooting modes with Pro, Panorama, HDR, Time-Lapse, Stickers, Super Macro, and High-Res.

An added extra point on the camera app of the HONOR X7a is having an autofocus and face detection feature making sure the photos look sharp. 

The photos from the main camera are much better during good lighting conditions especially outdoors in sunny weather or indoors when ambient light is very much bright. You get nice quality photos with a good amount of details, the colors are natural, and the dynamic range, as well as the contrast, is satisfactory.

It doesn’t support a night mode on the camera app in case you need to take photos in low-light conditions. In our camera test, we got some average-quality photos still worthy of a social media post with the quality having a few details, and the colors are still good. However, the presence of noise can be seen and the image quality is a bit hazy. 

The front camera can also produce good selfies in well-lighted conditions with the colors, and skin tones looks natural. And the presence of noise will start showing if used during low light conditions.

Check out these sample photos we took using the HONOR X7a on different lighting conditions.

1x Photo mode, Outdoor – Sunny Weather

1x Photo mode, Outdoor – Sunny Weather

1x Photo mode, Indoor – Bright Ambient Lighting

Ultra-wide mode, Indoor – Bright Ambient Lighting

1x Photo mode, Outdoor – Low Light

Ultra-wide, Outdoor – Low Light

Selfie Portrait mode, Outdoor – Cloudy Weather

Selfie mode, Outdoor – Low Light with Fill Light On

Super Macro, Outdoor – Sunny Weather

Stickers Mode, Indoor – Sunny Weather

Recording your videos on the phone lets you have the option of using either 1080p or 720p resolution at 30 frames per second.

You get decent video quality on the Honor X7a when recording during bright conditions. You get support for digital image stabilization for less blur and struggle to reduce camera shake with hand-held shots. It is much better if you will use a gimbal or tripod on the device.

Videos are not that good if you’re recording during the night or in low light conditions with more noise now present than ever, and quality tends to be much softer.

Software and Connectivity

The HONOR X7a runs on MagicUI 6.1 based on Android 12. The interface is very simple from the design of its icons, text style making it easily accessible.

Swiping from your left side of the screen will access your Google News feed which is very helpful.

You have some pre-installed software like Trip.com, Netflix, Facebook, TikTok, and HONOR’s very own proprietary apps like My HONOR, HONOR Health, HONOR store, etc. It even has its own app market if you want to download or install other apps to the device.

If you don’t want the standard home screen style, the MagicUI also has a dedicated Theme app that can customize the look of your phone with tons of preset themes, text styles, live wallpapers, and more.

If you want to restrict calls or a full do not disturb (DND) mode while driving. You may enable the Ride Mode feature in your app drawer. Ride mode will cancel the call then the calls are automatically answered by voice or sms when you toggle it on your Ride mode settings.

You have YOYO a smart assistance of HONOR which gives you suggestions on your overall usage, location, or priorities of apps based on the user’s usage.

The MagicUI 6.1’s performance is decent with a few built-in modifications and customization on your phone that you can do. Although there will be times that I experience a few lags with future software updates this could probably resolve this.

Battery

Now we come to the main highlights of the HONOR X7a which probably almost everyone knows already with the ongoing marketing campaign and some help from HONOR’s top influencers promoting the phone.

It comes with a massive 6000mAh battery which HONOR claims could last up to 3 days on a single charge. Juicing up the phone with this big-sized battery will be a breeze with the included 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge. 

HONOR also suggested that a 6000mAh battery on the X7a can do 42 hours of social media, 42 hours of audio calls, 29 hours of music, 22 hours of watching your favorite online videos, and more time playing your favorite games all day and night.

An initial 15-minute charge will give you a 7 percent on the battery but after 30 minutes it went up to 36 percent. It took us around 2 hours and 9 minutes have a full charge on the HONOR X7a from 0 to 100 percent. 

During our battery tests with the HONOR X7a, we observed that our unit could last up to three days on a single charge with an average daily usage scenario. From a full charge on its 1st day, we still have a remaining 25% battery on the 3rd day. We are able to watch videos, play a few games just to kill time, browse websites, check our email, and update our social media.

You have more additional features under the battery settings if you want to optimize the performance of your phone, a power saving mode for longer usage, smart charge to preserve your battery’s health, and more.

What We Like

  • 6000mAh Battery
  • 5W SuperCharge
  • 90Hz Refresh Rate
  • 50MP Quad Camera Setup
  • Ultra-Wide Angle Lens
  • Large Display
  • 128GB Storage
  • Expandable Storage up to 1TB via MicroSD
  • HONOR RAM Turbo
  • Build Quality and Design
  • Affordable Price

What We Want

  • AMOLED display
  • Stereo Speakers
  • Night Mode

Conclusion

The HONOR X7a has a long-lasting 6000mAh battery, produces decent quality on its quad camera, and a large display with 90Hz refresh rate that’s perfect for gaming or watching your favorite videos. It is also a very lightweight and compact phone, making it easy to carry around.

With a price point at Php7,990, the HONOR X7a is a great choice for those who are looking for a budget-friendly option that doesn’t compromise on features or quality. If you are looking for a phone that will last you longer use and won’t break the bank, the HONOR X7a is the perfect choice for you.

Full Specifications

  • Price: Php 7,990
  • Colors: Titanium Silver, Ocean Blue, Midnight Black
  • Display: 6.74-inch FullView HD+ LCD
  • Refresh Rate: 90Hz
  • Resolution: 1600x720pixels
  • Screen-To-Body Ratio: 90.07%
  • Colors: 16.7 million
  • Certification: TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light
  • Processor: MediaTek Helio G37
  • CPU: 2.3Ghz Cortex A53x4 + 1.7GHz Cortex A53x4
  • Memory and Storage: 4GB+128GB, 6GB+128GB
  • External Memory Support: 1TB via MicroSD
  • Rear Camera: 50MP f/1.8 Main, 5MP f/2.2 Wide, 2MP f/2.4 Depth & Macro
  • Front Camera: 8MP f/2.0
  • Battery: 6000mAh
  • Fast Charging: 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 5.1, USB Type-C
  • Software: Magic UI 6.1 based on Android 12
  • Network: Nano SIM Dual Stand-by
  • Weight: 196g including battery
  • Dimensions: 167.48×76.85×8.27mm

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About The Author

Raymund Ravanera is an accomplished and experienced graphic designer with almost 20 years of creative expertise working in the graphic design industry. He loves the latest gadgets, food and movies. Currently, he owns and manages megabites.com.ph, an online technology and lifestyle blog since 2015.

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