Honor X8b Review
February 29, 2024The Honor X8b is Honor’s latest addition to its X series devices following the launch of the X9b smartphone. Announced alongside the Honor Magic Fold V2, the Honor X8b brings in budget photography capabilities, a large display, and a unique aesthetic you wouldn’t normally see on a budget smartphone.
HONOR X8b DESIGN
The Honor X8b comes in your typical smartphone design but unlike most brands, the back of the phone is shown in the Honor X8b’s packaging.
Honor outfitted the X8b with a 6.7″ SUPER AMOLED display with a resolution of 2412x1080p. It also has a 90Hz refresh rate with a peak brightness of 2000 nits.
The Honor X8b has an Apple-esque dynamic island front camera cutout on the upper part of the display.
There are four color options available for the Honor X8b: Glamorous Green, Cyan Lake, Titanium Silver, and Midnight Black. Our review sample uses the Glamorous Green colorway which uses vegan legal and has a unique textured pattern which you won’t find in other variants. The only potential downside we’re seeing here is if the unit will hold its texture and design as the phone ages as our almost a month time with the smartphone isn’t enough to form a verdict. That said, during our usage time there wasn’t any noticeable wear and tear with the device.
HONOR X8b PERFORMANCE
Powering the Honor X8b is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 with 8GB RAM. The Honor X8b’s storage can be configured from 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB – our specific review unit has 512GB of storage. The benchmarks are what you would expect on a Snapdragon 680.
HONOR X8b CAMERA
A triple-camera setup can be found on the Honor X8b. You have a 108MP f/1.75 main sensor complemented by a 5MP f2.2 aperture wide camera and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera.
The Honor X8b takes good photos particularly “touristy” style photos where you want to capture every detail in such as wide shot. The 108MP sensor as well as the 2x sensor does surprisingly well, especially in well-lit scenarios. In cases where there’s dim lighting, it’s best to use the phone’s night mode instead of taking a grainy photo. The ultrawide camera, on the other hand, is something that I would avoid using unless you need the extra viewing angle as the 108MP camera is more than enough to take stunning photos.
Note: The photos are resized to 50% of their original size.
Honor X8b FRONT CAMERA
The 50MP f/2.1 selfie camera takes decent selfie photos albeit there’s sometimes an over-boost in contrast depending on the lighting condition.
Honor X8b BATTERY LIFE
Testing the Honor X8b’s battery life using PCMark’s Work 3.0 battery life benchmark yielded us about 13 hours from a full 100% charge. The 4,500mAh battery capacity is what you would expect on today’s smartphones but do note the faster drain if you have Mobile Data and other features enabled. That said, our actual usage with the phone lasted us about an entire workday and the 35W Honor SuperCharge Technology, albeit lower than what we’re seeing with other devices, charges fast enough for us not to be worried during the day.
Conclusion – Camera Centric Phone with Little Compromises
Honor again managed to deliver a value camera-centric smartphone with the Honor X8b without necessarily sacrifcing on key essential features such as display, design, battery life, and perrformance. For Php 12,999 you’re getting a well-rounded, photography focused camera that doesn’t compromise on the overall user experience of owning a Php 13k smartphone. That said, if performance and build quality are more important for you rather than the camera capability then you might want to check out other Honor smartphones of the price price range such as X9b or X8a.
