Honor 8X Review and Specs

Honor has released a number of smartphones in 2018 — perhaps too many depending on who you ask — but they all aim to offer exceptional value and build quality that punches well above their price tag. Honor are not known to be flagship-killing mid-range devices, but they have built a steady reputation as solid mid-range, mid-performing devices for the everyday user. With the 8X, Honor has taken its closest step towards offering a phone that looks like a 2018 flagship, at least on the surface. The Honor 8x is available here in the Philippines for ₱12,990 in Lazada which offers Cash On Delivery and Nationwide Shipping.

Design and Display

The Honor 8X looks like the quintessential Honor smartphone, featuring a glossy textured glass back finish with its dazzling light reflecting properties, metal trim, notched display, and eye-catching looks all around. The 91 percent screen to body ratio and minimal chin is undeniably impressive. The standout feature of the Honor 8X, or at least the one that I think is going to sell these phones, is that large 6.5-inch display that adorns the entire front of this device. It’s a 19.5:9, 1080 x 2340 pixels LCD and it looks a lot more expensive than it is. That means that the 8X offers slightly more than Full HD and a pixel density of 397 ppi. The notch is quite wide but it can be hidden in the software.

Software

The Honor 8X launches with Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI 8.2 customization on top of it. It will be familiar to anyone who has had an Honor or Huawei phone in the past. EMUI still has it opponents, but I am a big fan of the level of customization and utility control that is baked into this OS. You have the ability to switch between an iOS-style format with multiple home screen or a stock Android-like app drawer. You can also change the layout of your home screen to have either smaller or larger icons, which impacts how many apps you can fit onto each homes screen. There’s a fair amount of bloatware on the device out of the box including Huawei’s own apps such as HiCare, AppGallery and Health. There’s also a handful of quirky features that we have come to expect from Huawei and Honor. A Party Mode app lets you create a hotspot to share music with other Honor phones users, syncing the music that comes out of all the linked phones’ speakers. There is also a karaoke feature that will play your singing voice back through your headphones for blasting out your favorite tunes.

Performance

The Honor 8X features a Kirin 710 octa-core processor with up to 2.2 GHz. The version I tested had 4GB of RAM. It’s fine for daily usage. Apps launch quickly, and I had no problems with multi-tasking with 2-3 things on the go at once.

This is not a high-performance phone though, and when pushed to the limits, you start to see some of the cost-cutting measures that were required to get the 8X down to this price point.

In terms of audio performance, there is nothing much to report. The sounds quality isn’t amazing, not terrible. Fine for watching videos at low volume, but I wouldn’t want to listen to music out of it. The speaker is on the right-hand side so it’s easy to avoid covering it with your hand in landscape mode.

Camera

Camera performance is usually the first sign of economy in the smartphone business, but it’s not as obvious here as on a lot of mid-range devices. The dual camera on the back, featuring 20MP and 2MP sensors.

The ultra-low light mode is back as is a synthetic wide aperture feature for those bokeh shots that everyone wants these days. You also get the same AI camera tech in the 8X that you’ll find on Huawei’s flagships phones. The camera can identify 50 different objects from 22 categories and will automatically optimize a variety of settings according to what you’re shooting. The recognition part works great, and you’ll get a text flash up on your display while you point the camera so you can check that the AI is seeing what you are. When it comes to actual results, however, I found mixed results. AI camera tech tends to be a little too strong in my experience. It’s almost like the software wants to make it obvious that it has changed something. You’ll often find over-saturated, overly-punchy images. You can always deactivate it with a single tap, though. The maximum resolution for shooting video is 1920 x 1080 at 60 fps.

Battery Life

With a 3,750mAh battery, the Honor 8X has no problem surviving a full day with even the most demanding user. A second day of full use will be on the cards for most, although taking lots of pictures and gaming will knock a couple or so hours off the total on time. Lighter users could well extend usage well into a third day, as was the case when I only used the phone for some web browsing and music streaming.

If for some reason you find yourself short of juice, the Honor 8X packs in two power saving modes. The regular power saving mode limits background activity, reduces visual effects, and turns off email syncing to save on power. The more extreme ultra power saving mode limits the phone to just a selection of apps to greatly extend battery life up to several days.

Honor 8X Specifications:

6.5-inch 19.5:9 Full HD+ (1080 x 2340) IPS display, 397ppi
HiSilicon Kirin 710 2.2GHz octa-core CPU
Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
4GB RAM
64GB/128GB storage
microSD up to 256GB (dedicated slot)
20MP f/1.8 PDAF + 2MP rear cameras, LED flash
16MP f/2.0 front camera
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
Fingerprint scanner
micro USB, OTG
EMUI 8.2 (Android 8.1 Oreo)
3,750mAh battery
160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8 mm
175 g

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Ai Review and Specs

Xiaomi one of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers is especially known for its budget handsets that have a premium design and are great value for money. These attributes have kept the demands of Xiaomi Phones in various countries. They have launched 32GB variant of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI which is one of the contenders for the best smartphones under $200. Here in the Philippines you can purchase it through Lazada via Cash On Delivery for as low as ₱8,619 for the 32GB variant and
₱11,290 for the 64GB variant.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI comes with an Octa-Core Snapdragon 636 Processor paired with a hell of a capacity of RAM. It comes with 3 Gigabytes of RAM, which is impressive for a smartphone at this price point. It also comes with a base storage of 32 Gigabytes. The screen on this device is a 5.99-inch IPS panel that has a resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels. This phone has very less bezel hence the 18:9 aspect ratio display. The display is a relatively sharp one with a pixel density of 403 ppi.

Camera

The camera setup on this device is an interesting one. The primary camera on this device is a dual setup with a 12 Megapixel f/1.9 and 5 Megapixel f/2.0 sensor. Xiaomi’s cameras have not always been the best in the market, but this time we might see some nice improvements in the camera section. The front camera on this device is trendy. The front camera has a 13 Megapixel f/2.0 sensor, which is accompanied by a LED Flash. As the name suggests, the selfie shooter is enriched with the Artificial Intelligence and that is what differs it from the Redmi Note 5 Pro. Well, after the 20MP sensor on the Pro. With the wide aperture and larger pixel size, the details of the subject look sharp and clear. The device also takes some appealing selfies with natural like beautification because of the AI. Furthermore, despite the presence of a single camera, there is a portrait selfie mode. Since the portrait selfie from the device is entirely through the software tweaks, the smartphone fails to distinguish the foreground and background details quite accurately. Nonetheless, the portrait selfies are duly remarkable considering the price.

Talking about the video, the smartphone is only capable of recording Full HD videos at max. The Snapdragon 636 chipset is capable of recording video at maximum 4K resolution. So I could not understand why Xiaomi had to limit its potential. Nonetheless, Xiaomi has promised to introduce the 4k recording feature in the next update.

Security

Fingerprint sensor is located at the back and it works fast and accurate. The phone also has a Face Unlock feature but activating the feature was kind of tricky. The feature was accessible only when the region was set to India. It is weird, right? I still cannot understand why Xiaomi is providing features like that just in the specific locations. Nonetheless, the Face Unlock on the device is fast, which is really appreciable.

Battery

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI comes with a whopping 4000mAh battery, which provides around 9 hours of screen on time. This humongous battery delivers enough horsepower for two days on the normal usage. However, the charging process is quite bothering. The smartphone takes around 2 and half hours to get refilled from 0 to 100% and that too with the stock charger. But since the device supports Quick Charge 3.0, the users can buy a decent QC 3.0 charger to avoid plugging the handset to the charger for a longer period of time.

Lenovo K5 Play Review and Specs

Lenovo K5 Play can be purchase through Lazada via Cash On Delivery for
₱5,999. It has a curved edges designed to be bezel-less with 18:9 ratio display. Lenovo K5 Play boasts of a 5.7 inch screen size, IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors and a display resolution set at 720 x 1440 pixels, at a 282 pixels per inch density. The Android 8.0 Oreo based Lenovo K5 Play should offer a decent viewing and gaming experience with a 282 pixels per inch density.

Design and Memory

Lenovo K5 Play comes with a body dimension measured at 153.8 x 72.6 x 7.9 mm (6.06 x 2.86 x 0.31 in) and weighs in at 155g which is quite light. Looking at the back of the Android 8.0 Oreo based Lenovo K5 Play is the primary camera and fingerprint scanner centrally positioned below the primary camera.

As far as inbuilt storage and RAM size is concerned; Lenovo K5 Play comes in 16GB or 32GB internal memory variants. Lenovo K5 Play comes in 2GB and 3GB RAM size variants. The Smartphone should offer an excellent audio experience courtesy of its dedicated mic and active noise cancellation feature.

Operating System and Performance

Lenovo K5 Play runs on Android 8.0 Oreo operating system supported with ZUI 3.7 which offers features such as easy customization, security, easy update and a user friendly interface. The Hybrid dual-SIM (Nano) Lenovo k5 Play is powered by Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430 chipset, Octa-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 processor supported with Adreno 505 graphic processor, 3 GB of RAM LPDDR3 e 32 GB XMMUM eMMC storage. Even if the SoC could make someone turn up their nose, in the daily experience and based on a basic use of the device, the performances are not frustrating. We have no lag and slowdowns, at most a slight latency in the opening of applications, especially the heavier ones or those that are not present in the background.

A fundamental note: it is good to unlock the Developer options and set it to 0.5x Scale animation window, transition animation e animator duration. This is a useful operation to increase the responsiveness of the smartphone (without losing anything from the point of view of the animations).

On the gaming side, we have the GPU on board Adreno 505, which is effective with the softer titles. Playing Hearthstone will be a real torment, while with Asphalt 8 you will be able to finish a game without letting out some bad word, even maintaining a high quality. In a nutshell, with the hardest titles you could have some headaches, but if well optimized, there should be no frustration (even if you do not keep a very high frame rate). Furthermore, long sessions of play correspond to a not inconsiderable increase of the temperature of the SoC, which will tend to heat up.

Camera and Battery

Lenovo K5 Play features dual primary camera, the dual lens camera set up is 13-megapixels (f/2.2 aperture) + 2-megapixels (f/2.4 aperture), auto-focus, LED flash, while the front selfie camera is 8-megapixels, auto-focus, f/2.0 aperture, LED flash.T
he secondary sensor is a module intended exclusively for depth and gives its best in combination with the software via the mode dual, present in the settings of the camera. Good shots with bokeh effect: it’s possible change the intensity of the blur and the end result is often very satisfying. The sensor and the software are able to better cut the subject in the foreground and allows you to get good shots from this point of view, even if there are defects.

As for the battery capacity; The Hybrid dual-SIM (Nano) Lenovo K5 Play boasts of a non-removable Li-ion 3000mAh battery with lower consumption and with fast charge.

Connectivity and Audio Quality

The smartphone is equipped with one Dual SIM 4G hybrid slot: it is possible to insert two cards or a SIM and a microSD; moreover you can benefit from the Volte if the operator allows it. Calls are clear and with a normal volume while no reception problems have emerged. There 20 band è absent so it may be difficult to connect under the 4G network in some areas, unlike a device with the aforementioned band. On the whole there have never been critical situations and the network has disappeared only in very difficult areas, remaining stable in the most covered and most central areas.

Bluetooth 4.2 it is stable and we have not found problems of coupling with multiple brands of wireless headphones and speakers. The NFC is missing but we have the FM radio and the Dual Band 802.11 a / b / g / n Wi-Fi. Finally, GPS / A-GPS / GLONASS took us to our destination without any hassle.

Along the lower edge we have a single speaker, a module characterized by a satisfactory volume but which tends to croak slightly. Average solution, which will not fail to please the less demanding.

Lenovo K5 Play Specifications:
5.7-inch 18:9 IPS HD Display @ 1440 x 720 resolution
Qualcomm Snapdragon 430
Adreno 505 GPU
2GB/3GB RAM
16GB/32GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD up to 128GB
13MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4 dual rear cameras with LED flash
8MP f/2.0 front camera
4G LTE
Dual nano-SIM, Dual Standby
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.2
Fingerprint scanner
Android Oreo (ZUI 3.7)
3,000mAh battery
153.75 x 72.6 x 7.85 mm
155 g
Jazz Blue, Modern Gold, Punk Black

ASUS ZENFONE MAX PRO M1 Review and Specs

The ZenFone Max Pro M1 may look dull and subdued on first glance, but considering the size of the display and the package overall, it feels well built and snug in the hand. The buttons are well positioned and are slightly on the stiffer side but it feels fine given the price of the phone for as low as ₱8,995 for the 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM model which can be purchase from Lazada via Cash on Delivery.

Asus even managed to put in a 5,000 mAh battery into this package which will leave you baffled considering the phone is just 8.5 mm thick. The phone is not all metal, with the frame of the phone being made of polycarbonate but it does feel sturdy enough to deal with a few knocks without a problem. The no-frills design outlook is also followed by a very curvy build overall which is a breakaway from Asus’ general design language. It helps with the grip in many ways. It is not the lightest phone at 180 grams but the larger battery does justify the weight a fair bit. The back of the phone comes with the Asus branding in the middle and the fingerprint scanner on top of it.

FEATURES
The Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 has a 6-inch FHD+ (2160 by 1080) 18:9 Full View IPS display with an aspect ratio of 18:9. Under the hood, the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 636 SoC, which includes an Adreno 509 GPU. The phone has been launched in three variants which are 3 GB RAM + 32 GB storage, a 4 GB RAM + 64 GB storage and finally, a 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage. In terms of software, the phone runs on Android Oreo 8.1.a.

In the camera department, the phone has a dual-camera setup featuring a 13 MP sensor and a 5 MP one. The front camera is an 8 MP unit. There is also a rear placed fingerprint sensor just above the Asus logo. In terms of connectivity, the phone has dual-SIM slots, at least one of which supports 4G VoLTE.

Thankfully, you get three slots, so you can use two SIM cards as well as a microSD card. The entire setup is powered by a massive 5,000 mAh battery, which supports fast charging. Asus also throws in a software-enabled face-unlocking feature in addition to the fingerprint scanner.

The display is certainly one of the biggest plus points of the ZenFone Max Pro M1. It’s sharp, adequately bright even under direct sunlight and is just wonderful to watch videos on or play games. The 6-inch IPS LCD does not shift much colour when viewed at different angles and there are also no visible signs of backlight bleeding either. On paper, Asus says the display has a pixel density of 402 PPI but in my experience, it’s just as sharp as any other good LCD display that there is in the market. Reading long articles is not painful on the eyes either.

It is quite amazing that Asus managed to cram in a mammoth 5,000 mAh battery into the phone. With a 14nm chipset inside it, the ZenFone Max Pro lasted me two days with at least 35 percent juice left. This was with the brightness set to auto and performing daily tasks such as Facebook, Instagram, e-mail, and roughly two hours of gaming and video consumption. The battery also lasted us an impressive 11 hours and 13 minutes on our standard PC Mark Work 2.0 Battery Life test. With the supplied charger, it took me a little under 1 hour and 50 minutes hours to charge the phone up completely from 4 percent. That too is quite impressive considering you would typically need to charge the phone not more than thrice a week.

SPECIFICATIONS:
Android 8.1 Oreo
Dual SIM, Dual standby
6-inch FHD+ IPS Display, 2160 x 1080 resolution, ~402ppi
1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 octa-core processor
Adreno 509 GPU
3/4/6 GB RAM
32/64GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 400GB
5 or 8-megapixel front camera
13 or 16-megapixel + 5-megapixel dual rear cameras, PDAF, LED flash
Fingerprint scanner
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
FM Radio
MicroUSB 2.0
Dimensions: 159 x 76 x 8.5mm
Weight: 180g
5,000mAh battery, 10W charger