Come Jan. 31, Huawei's affordable Android-powered Honor 5X smartphone is set to make its way to U.S. shores.
Launched in Oct. 2015, the Honor 5X is a mid-range handset and will retail for $199 in the U.S. Even though the 5X may is the fifth X smartphone in the company's Honor series, it is the first smartphone from the company's Honor line-up to be made available in the country.
Design-wise the Honor 5X shares plenty of sensibilities with Huawei's Honor 7 flagship. Interestingly, the Honor 5X also shares the hardware of the Huawei GX8 smartphone and could pass off as a remodeled variant of the latter. However, there is a major difference between the two - the price point. The Honor 5X is $150 cheaper. That's right for $199.99 users will be able to enjoy the features of the GX8 at a lower price.
While the pricing of the Huawei smartphone may find many takers, does the Honor 5X' hardware live up to expectations? Could this unassuming smartphone from the China-based OEM be the dark horse and unsuspectingly pull the rug from underneath the feet of big boys such as the iPhone 6s Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S6?
Let's take a look at how the Honor 5X with its "diamond-polished aluminum alloy casing" compares against the two:
Display
The Honor 5X has a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The iPhone 6s Plus has the same 5.5-inch screen size and sports a LED-backlit IPS LCD display with the same 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. The Huawei smartphone has a pixel density of 400 ppi which is at par with the 401ppi offered by the Apple handset.
Comparatively, the Galaxy S6 has a smaller 5.1-inch QHD sAMOLED screen. However, the pixel resolution it offers - 2,560 x 1,440 pixels - is much higher. The Samsung smartphone has a pixel density of 557ppi which is the best.
Processor And RAM
Powering the Huawei Honor 5X is a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor (quad-core 1.5GHz + quad-core 1.2GHz). The Galaxy S6 also houses an octa-core processor (quad-core 2.1GHz + quad-core 1.5 GHz) but not from Qualcomm but Samsung (Exynos 7420) which is more powerful of the two.
The iPhone 6s Plus has a 64-bit A9 processor which per teardowns has a quad-core set-up (dual-core 1.7GHz + dual-core 1.2GHz). Benchmark tests have shown how powerful the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6s Plus' processors are. Only a physical test will determine the Huawei device's capabilities, as on paper, it seems weaker.
The Honor 5X has 2GB of RAM which pales in front of the 3GB of RAM on the Galaxy S6, but betters the 1GB of RAM on the Apple smartphone.
Camera
The Honor 5X has a 13MP primary camera with an F2.0 lens. The Galaxy S6 houses a higher resolution 16MP primary camera, but its F1.9 lens pales slightly in front of the Huawei offering's F2.0 one.
The iPhone 6s Plus' iSight camera may be 12MP but it is capable of taking 4K videos and Live Photos, which makes it better than the Huawei one.
The Honor 5X has a 5MP selfie camera as do the iPhone 6s Plus and the Galaxy S6, putting them on even keel.
Battery
The Honor 5X packs in a non-removable 3000 mAh battery, which the company claims can offer 24 hours of heavy use on a single charge and a little over 36 hours if used moderately. The iPhone 6s Plus' non-removable battery's size according to an iFixit teardown is 2,750mAh. The smartphone supports 24 hours of talk time on 3G.
The Galaxy S6 also has a 2,550mAh non-removable battery, which is smaller than that of the Huawei smartphone. However, it is powering a smaller screen as well. The battery offers support for 17 hours of talk time on 3G.
Memory
The Galaxy S6 comes in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB on-board storage options. The iPhone 6 is available in 16 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB options.
The Honor 5X will only be available in 16 GB. However, it has an expandable memory option unlike the other two, which translates to an additional 128GB. So the Honor 5X can offer 16 GB +128 GB of storage which is higher than the Apple and Samsung offerings.
Features On The Honor 5X That Galaxy S6 And iPhone 6s Plus Lack
The Honor 5X may come running on the older Android 5.1 Lollipop OS, but the smartphone has some novel features that even the top-end flagships from Samsung and Apple lack.
It has a fingerprint sensor located on the rear of the device which can do more than unlocking your handset.
Fingerprint dial - you can call friends by a mere touch of a finger if you link the fingerprint with a contact. This even works when the screen is locked!
Fingerprint photo - you can even click images with the fingerprint sensor.
You can also launch apps "with a single touch a finger by linking it to a fingerprint input." This also works in the locked mode. Once can also answer calls or cancel alarms by holding the fingerprint sensor.
The Honor 5X is dual-SIM and offers support for nano and micro SIMs.
The smartphone will hit U.S. shelves on Jan. 31 and will cost $199 for the unlocked version. It will be available in golf, dark gray and silver and can be pre-ordered on Amazon, Newegg. It is listed as coming soon on Huawei's HiHonor.com.
