Honor, Huawei's sub-brand mostly offering midrange smartphones, has announced its newest device, the Honor 7X, which follows last year's Honor 6X. There's some good news and bad news.
Honor 7X Specs
Good news: The biggest change, obviously, is the humongous screen. Honor has managed to cram a 5.93-inch "FullView" 2,160 x 1080p display into the body of a 5.5-inch phone. For a midrange device to jump into bezel-less trend, commonly found on flagships the likes of Samsung Galaxy S8 and iPhone X, that's impressive. It's the star of the show here, really, because the rest of the device is decent at best.
Bad news: There's a fingerprint scanner, yes, and the phone is enclosed in a premium-looking metal shell, but there's no NFC reader, a tentpole feature for cashless transactions. There's also no USB Type-C port, as the phone still comes with the ancient microUSB 2.0. Just par for the course, though, as the Honor 6X before it came with the same thing.
The specs sheet remains largely unchanged, with the most significant change being the more powerful Kirin 659 instead of the Kirin 655 found on the Honor 6X. It comes with 4 GB of RAM, up to 128 GB of space, and uses the SIM 2 slot for expandable storage.
The dual cameras on the back adopt a different system than most dual camera setups on other flagships. While on some there's one standard and one wide-angle or one standard and one monochromatic, the Honor 7X has one 16-megapixel color sensor paired with a 2-megapixel monochrome lens with phase detection autofocus — purely for capturing lighting and depth information. Apparently, that data is enough to improve contrast in low-light situations, and it's supposed to help add digital bokeh to portraits as well.
Because it's a midrange device, the Honor 7X doesn't have any water or dust resistance, no wireless charging, and no Android Oreo — at least not yet. Honor says it's coming in 2018, though.
Honor 7X Pricing And Availability
Honor is set to launch the 7X properly on Dec. 5, so expect details such as pricing and release date to be announced there. Engadget speculates that it's going to cost below $300, which is reasonable for a midrange device. Those who don't care about fancy features such as waterproofing or NFC and just want a decent smartphone with a big and vivid screen should be more than happy with the Honor 7X.
