A big smartphone at a small price
Huawei and Hyundai are not alike. One is a car maker from South Korea, the other a Chinese telecoms giant. What they have in common is that no matter how much they try to help us, English speakers can’t seem to say their names right.
Hyundai used to run TV adverts encouraging us to say ‘HYUN-day, just like Sunday’. But we kept on saying ‘high-UN-die’. Huawei will tell you that its name is pronounced ‘WAH-way’, but most of us would rather avoid attempting it at all. And that’s probably why the company name is nowhere to be found on this phone. Instead it bears Huawei’s Anglo-friendly (though US-spelled), ‘Honor’ logo.
If this large-style ‘phablet’ phone is anything to go by, it’s a name to watch. For under £150, this is an attractive device featuring its own textured shell, which means you won’t need to buy a case. The iPhone 6 Plus-sized 5.5in screen has 277 pixels per inch, which makes for a sharp display, even if it’s not quite Retina quality.
High contrast levels and brightness make up for the average colour accuracy, but the biggest compromise is that the Honor 4X has a plastic screen protector applied rather than coming with toughened glass. As a result, it picks up more fingerprints than the usual treated finishes.
The 13-megapixel camera on the back takes good-quality pictures and Full HD videos. The overly bright auto-exposure was rescued by switching to HDR (high dynamic range) mode, and we found plenty of detail in our pictures. A nice trick is the All Focus mode, which lets you shift focus after taking the shot, like a primitive version of a Lytro camera (www.snipca.com/17607). This comes in useful if you want to produce a sharp subject against a soft-focus background.
A 1.2GHz processor and 2GB of memory make everything work quickly and smoothly, beating the likes of the Moto G. Huawei’s Emotion user interface (based on Android 4.4) is basic, but the 4X is easy to use, and demanding 3D games work reasonably well. The 8GB storage is mostly taken up by the bundled software and operating system, so budget for an extra £10 for a 32GB microSD card.
This is a plastic phone that nobody is going to mistake for something costing three times as much - but in every way, it’s really almost as good.
VERDICT
If top build quality isn't your priority, this is a fantastic deal on a very capable phone.
SPECIFICATIONS
5.5in 1280x720-pixel screen • 13-megapixel rear camera • 5-megapixel front camera • 8GB flash storage • MicroSD card slot • 802.11n Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.0 • 3G/4G • 146x73x7.3mm (HxWxD) • 136g • One-year warranty