A Budget Mid-Ranger Sporting A Great 100MP Camera and An Elegant Classic Form Factor
HONOR is back again!
This time after the successful release of its two X series model with the HONOR X9a one of their most premium durable smartphone and the HONOR X7a featuring a long-lasting 6,000mAh battery.
They are adding another mid-range phone under the X series with the HONOR X8a. The HONOR X8a comes packed with new features having an upgraded camera system, an elegant slim form factor, an edgeless display, and better performance all at a pretty good price point.
The new HONOR X8a is priced at Php10,990 and will be ready for pre-order starting on March 14 to 24, 2023 with a bundled FREE HONOR Earbuds worth Php 1,590.
You may visit any HONOR Kiosks, authorized partner stores near you and it’s official online e-commerce platform on Lazada: http://bit.ly/40iFPjB, Shopee: http://bit.ly/3mNbds1 or TikTok: http://bit.ly/3ZYbqqy.
So, let’s get on with our review of the HONOR X8a.
Unboxing
The HONOR X8a 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 X8a found on the top cover.
Opening the box, you’ll immediately see the phone and when you lift the inner cardboard box will reveal its other included accessories.
Inside the box you’ll get the HONOR X8a Unit, SIM Ejector Tool, Clear Protective Case, Quick Start Guide, USB-A to USB-C Cable, HONOR SuperCharge Power Adaptor and a screen protector that’s already pre-applied.
Build Quality and Design
For the new HONOR X8a, it will come in three available colorways in Cyan Lake, Titanium Silver, and our review unit in Midnight Black.
HONOR designed all the colors of the phone to be inspired by the wonder of nature like the Cyan Lake, an all-new color included in this X series, comprising four layers of coating to depict the magical moment when a tranquil lake is basked in sunlight. The Titanium Silver captures the brilliance of diamonds while the classic Midnight Black color resembles the serene night sky with a soft sheen of moonlight. I still like the color we got for our review unit in black, as it never goes out of style.
The form factor of the HONOR X8a is slim with a thickness measuring 7.48mm. It is also lightweight just 179 grams that’s easy to carry around and fits perfectly even holding it with just one hand.
The new HONOR X8a sports a clean and stylish straight flat-edge design having smooth rounded corners giving the phone a comfortable and secure grip.
The rear cover panel is made of durable polycarbonate material which is free from fingerprint smudges having a smooth glittery shimmer for an elegant finish.
The camera has a triple camera setup and an LED flash housed in a square-type camera module. Just underneath the module, you have a 100MP Ultra Camera label then found at the bottom center is an HONOR logo and certification marks.
On the right edge of the phone, you have the power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner and volume rockers. Located on the top left edge of the phone is the dual SIM card tray. You have a noise-canceling microphone and IR blaster on the top while at the bottom you have a microphone, speaker grille, and USB-C port.
Looking at the front, the X8a has a 93.6% screen-to-body ratio and features HONOR’s edgeless display with ultra-slim bezels at 1.1mm from the top and sides except for the bottom chin which is a bit raised.
The front camera gets a small punch-hole design.
Display
The handset has a large 6.7-inch HONOR FullView HD+ display with support for 16.7 million colors, and a resolution of 2388×1080 pixels.
With a pixel density of 391 ppi, the screen of the X8a gets a good amount of detail. The refresh rate of the phone can dynamically switch between 60Hz or up to a maximum of 90Hz and the front screen punch-hole camera doesn’t come in the way when viewing content on it.
The HONOR X8a boasts an array of eye care technology features to ensure viewing for hours with the device will be safe and comfortable while caring for your eyes at the same time.
First, it earned a TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification which emits less blue light to reduce eye strain and fatigue.
The Daylight Screen Algorithm automatically increases the brightness level of the display and reduces glare when used under bright or direct sunlight. It also has a Night-time Screen Algorithm that can minimize irritation of the eyes when viewing in dimly lit environments.
The Eye Comfort Mode will reduce blue light and displays warmer colors that are useful if you’re going to use the phone for longer periods of time.
If you like reading on your phone, you may try to turn on the E-Book Mode which will boost the display’s contrast setting it into a paper-like reader even when the user is reading in dimly lit environments.
Lastly, it has a Dark Mode option that makes the display apply a darker background to minimize the bright light emitted from the screen which can also help protect users’ eyes.
Performance
The HONOR X8a is running a MediaTek Helio G88 octa-core processor with clock speeds up to 2GHz. The Helio G88 has built-in two fast ARM Cortex-A75 cores with up to 2 GHz for performance tasks and six small ARM Cortex-A55 with up to 1.8 GHz.
Together with the Helio G88, it is coupled with 8GB RAM and a bigger 128GB internal storage.
HONOR claims that it can also take full advantage of the large storage drive to save 27,904 pictures, 11,161 songs, or 446 HD videos locally.
With the HONOR RAM Turbo feature, it lets you add up to 2GB of RAM from the storage that automatically kicks in whenever you need to open and switch between multiple apps for a smooth performance.
There won’t be a microSD card slot for a storage expansion on the HONOR X8a.
To save more space, you may compress the videos in High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) format while maintaining good footage quality.
Our benchmark results using Geekbench6, Disk Speed Test, 3DMark, and PCMark for the HONOR X8a.
- Disk Speed Test: 469MB/s Read, 148MB/s Write
- Geekbench6: 434 Single Core, 1364 Multi-Core
- 3DMark: 746, Average Frame Rate 4.50
- PCMark: 7798 Work 3.0 Performance
The audio of the HONOR X8a is mostly coming out from the single-firing speakers found at the bottom. It produced a loud and clear audio quality.
When you watch movies or listen to music it does sound a bit one-sided due to the speaker’s placement although this is not a bit of an issue for me.
It doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack to connect your wired headphones. Using Bluetooth earbuds offer a seamless connection and a much more pleasing sound.
Camera
The camera on the HONOR X8a is one of the main highlights of this model.
As we’ve mentioned, the HONOR X8a has a triple camera setup comprising of a 100MP main camera with f/1.9 aperture which is one of the highest megapixel sensor equipped for a X series model.
Next, you get a 5MP wide & depth camera with f/2.2 aperture and 2MP Macro camera with f/2.4 aperture.
The front camera offers a 16MP lens with a f/2.5 aperture with facial recognition capabilities.
The camera app on the X8a offers a wide range of shooting modes as opening it you’ll immediately have five modes ready to use with Photo, Video, Portrait, Night and Aperture. Then you have an additional 10 shooting modes when you choose the More option. You can try either Pro, Slow-Mo, Panorama, HDR, Time-Lapse, Stickers, Super-Macro, Dual-View, High-Res, or Story mode.
The HONOR X8a camera supports some additional photo enhancement features thru its AI imaging algorithms that can help lessen noise reduction for night photos, beautifying effects for your portraits, HDR effects, and more. To further improve and take attractive clear photos the device has Super Resolution AI technology which increases the resolution by creating a version of the image with more pixels improving the image quality further.
Check out these photos we took using the main camera of the HONOR X8a.
Photo mode, Outdoor – Sunny Weather
Photo mode, Indoor – Bright Ambient Lighting
Ultra-wide, Outdoor – Cloudy Weather
Night mode – Outdoor
Selfie, Outdoor
Portrait mode, Outdoor
One shooting mode you may want to consider for your video content creation is the Dual-View mode. The Dual-View mode lets you capture multiple perspectives splitting the recording screen into two views using the front camera and the rear camera. It lets the viewers watch both perspectives including your reaction and the subject at the same time. There’s also an available picture-in-picture configuration.
Creating cinematic video recordings will be easy on the HONOR X8a with its Micro-Movie templates. It has five micro-movie templates which you can choose and follow the guided scenes to shoot the footage. The device will then render a sophisticated video with preset colors, transitions, and background music.
Shooting videos on the HONOR X8a lets you have the option to capture either in 1080p or 720p resolution at 30 frames per seconds only. The X8a also offers continuous autofocus when recording movies making the subject focused and sharp. However, it has no OIS or EIS to make your videos steady in case you’re recording videos while walking. So expect to have some shaky footages or motion blur.
Software
The HONOR X8a runs on Magic UI 6.1 version which is based on the Android 12 operating system. If you swipe from the left side of the screen it will access your Google News feed which is very helpful.
It has some pre-installed apps like Booking.com, Facebook, Netflix, TikTok, and Trip.com plus HONOR’s very own proprietary apps. It even has its own app market if you want to download or install other apps to the device. There are a few games installed on the device but not the popular ones like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty, etc.
It has the HONOR Share feature that can easily transfer various file types (documents, photos, videos) with no interruption or vice-versa from other HONOR devices including laptops, smartphones, and tablets to help improve productivity.
If you want to restrict calls or a full do not disturb (DND) mode while driving you may enable the Ride Mode feature. The Ride mode will cancel the call you will receive then the calls are automatically answered by voice or sms when you toggle it on its settings.
Overall, the MagicUI 6.1’s performance is good with a few built-in modifications and customization on your phone that you can do. There are some apps already installed on this device but in case you don’t want them you can easily delete them and then download the ones you usually used.
Battery
The HONOR X8a came packed with a 4500mAh battery with the support of a 22.5W Wired HONOR SuperCharge.
HONOR claims that a single charge on the device can give you up to 13.5 hours of watching videos, up to 14.3 hours of scrolling through your social media platforms, and up to 11.1 hours of looking at TikTok videos.
Juicing up the device for 30 minutes using the 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge already gave it a 33% charge on its battery.
Charging the HONOR X8a from 0 to 100% took us around 1 hour and 38 minutes.
Under the battery settings, you have some additional features that can optimize, extend or preserve the battery’s lifespan. You can opt for the Performance mode, Power Saving mode, Smart Charge, or Smart Battery Capacity. There’s also a power consumption detail that monitors how much battery was the usage of an app, a battery level chart, and screen-on-time consumption.
What We Like
- Straight-Flat Edge Design
- Lightweight
- 100MP Triple Camera Setup
- Numerous Shooting Modes Available
- 8GB RAM with HONOR RAM Turbo
- Eye Care Technology
- HONOR Share
- Decent Audio Quality
- 22.5 HONOR SuperCharge
- Price
What We Want
- 60fps Video Option
- 5,000mAh Battery
- OIS and EIS For Video
- Expandable Storage
Conclusion
I liked the overall design and build quality of the HONOR X8a. The phone has straight edges with rounded corners, is very slim and lightweight just easy to carry around. It’s also pocket-friendly!
The quality of the 6.7-inch Full HD display offers a vibrant and sharp screen plus with the 90Hz refresh rate, it is good for binge-watching your favorite series as well as playing games. It can pretty much handle anything from browsing the internet, updating our social media, and even calls or texts we didn’t encounter any problems.
The camera performed really well during our review, especially the main camera. The quality came out nice with details and the colors are accurate even during bright conditions. I know my photos will look good if I use the main camera always.
With the night mode, the quality of the photos came out good with less noise and a bit soft.
While the ultra-wide camera gave us decent-looking photos having few good details but the quality gets a little soft. The portrait mode on the other hand does a good job of separating the background from the subject. As for the macro camera, it’s a bit hard to get a good sharp photo with it.
The camera app offers face detection and continuous autofocus when recording movies. So the end result will have clear face images and sharp videos.
For just Php10,990, I think you should consider buying the HONOR X8a.
HONOR X8a Full Specifications
- Price: Php10,990
- Dimensions: 162.9 × 74.5 x 7.48mm
- Weight: 179g (including the battery)
- Colors: Cyan Lake, Titanium Silver, Midnight Black
- Fingerprint unlock: Side-mounted
- Display: 6.7-inch HONOR FullView
- Screen-To-Body Ratio: 93.6%
- Colors: 16.7 million
- Eye Care Technology: TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification
- Screen Refresh Rate: 90Hz
- Resolution: 2388×1080 pixels
- PPI: 391
- Processor: MediaTek Helio G88
- CPU: 2GHz Cortex-A75 x 2, 1.8GHz Cortex-A55 x 6
- GPU: ARM Mali-G52 MC2
- Memory and Storage: 8GB + 128GB
- Rear Camera: 100MP Main Camera (f/1.9 aperture), 5MP Wide & Depth Camera (f/2.2 aperture), 2MP Macro Camera (f/2.4 aperture)
- Front Camera: 16MP (f/2.45 aperture)
- Battery: 4500mAh
- Fast Charging: 22.5W Wired HONOR SuperCharge
- OS: Magic UI 6.1, based on Android 12
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G
- Bluetooth: BT5.1 (Supporting BLE, SBC, AAC)
- Headset type: USB Type-C
- Network: Nano-SIM, dual stand-by
- Technology: LTE FDD/WCDMA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS
