The Honor 5X offers a lot of smartphone for the money, but is hampered by poorly optimised software. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The Honor 5X is the latest mid-range smartphone from rising Chinese manufacturer Huawei, which aims to bring decent performance, screen and fingerprint sensor for less than £190.
Honor is Huawei's budget brand and marketed separately, including a couple of smartphones available in the UK with exclusivity to mobile phone operator Three.
The Honor 5X is available on Three, but is also available direct from Huawei and via online retailers including Amazon.
Simple, attractive styling The back of the gold 5X, with curved brushed metal back and plastic ends. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianThe 5X shares a lot in common with recent Huawei devices, including the Honor 7 and Huawei's Google Nexus 6P.
It's got a brushed metal back, textured plastic ends and a simple, nice-feeling design. The front of the phone is plain while the back has the camera and fingerprint sensor.
The phone is 8.2mm thick, which is relatively slim for a lower-end smartphone, and is thinner than both the 9.9mm thick OnePlus 2 and 10.9mm Moto X Play.
The 5X is well built with only a little flex in the body, and feels like it could take a knock or two without issue, if the screen doesn't break. The power and volume buttons are sturdy and well placed.
The 5.5in full HD screen is very good for a smartphone costing under £200. It is pretty sharp, colourful and clear, with excellent viewing angles. The 5X's auto-brightness control made the screen look a bit dim, but could be adjusted. It isn't as good as some of the top Android smartphones with quad HD screens that cost double the price, but it is a better screen than the OnePlus 2, for example.
SpecificationsThe Honor 5X has Qualcomm's mid-range octa-core Snapdragon 616 processor, which is powerful enough for all but the most graphically intensive of games. The 5X only has 2GB of RAM, which is similar to rivals, but quite low for a modern smartphone. I found when an app was running it was snappy and performed well, but switching between apps could lag and take longer than you might expect.
Two slots in the side of the phone allow the use of two Sim cards simultaneously, so that you can have two numbers and two mobile phone connections within one phone – handy for travelling or having a personal and work number without having to have two phones. One sim tray takes a micro sim card, the other a nano sim card, which means the phone can take whatever size of sim you currently have. One of the sim trays also has a space for a microSD card for adding more storage.
The ultra and smart power saving features save battery, but aren't required for most situations. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianThe 5X has pretty good battery life, which is longer than most of a similar price. In my testing using it as my main phone, but without the Facebook app installed, receiving hundreds of push notifications, emails and messages, as well as browsing the web and apps for around three hours I would finish the day with 45% battery left. The next morning it would only have dropped about 5% battery overnight and would last until 5pm.
The Honor lacks any fast-charging capability, which means a full charge takes over two hours. Some newer smartphones will fully charge in under an hour.
Software problems EMUI's notifications shade. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianLike Samsung, Sony, HTC and a few others, Huawei customises the look and feel of the standard Android experience. The company calls its modified Android "Emotion UI" or EMUI for short. The Honor 5X runs EMUI 3.1 based on the other Android 5.1 Lollipop, which is disappointing given Android 6.0 was released by Google in October last year. Huawei promises an upgrade to Android 6.0, but has yet to give a timetable.
EMUI 3.1 is a mixed bag. It isn't as attractive as the standard Android experience, with icons captured in ugly-looking and superfluous bubbles and the notification shade made to resemble Apple's iOS.
What's more, EMUI does not have an all-apps drawer. Instead, every app has an icon on the homescreen, again like an iPhone, which means it can look cluttered, full of program icons you don't need or don't access regularly forcing you to hide them in folders. If you swipe down on the home screen you activate app, contacts and messages search, which acts like Apple's Spotlight on iOS. It's not as good as Google's search and cannot find content within apps such as emails or Hangouts.
There are some good bits. EMUI has full theme support. Huawei's control of apps and background power usage is superior to that of standard Android, with several utilities to identify power-hungry apps and either quit them or stop them running when the screen is turned off.
Huawei's EMUI has full theming support, changing the look of icons and backgrounds, but none of the available themes match the standard Android experience. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianThere are three power modes. Normal, smart and ultra power saving. Smart mode adjusts the power of the processor and network settings to save power without much effect on performance. Ultra power saving mode allows only calls, texts and turns off all other functions to save power. Based on Android 5.1, not Android 6, the power-saving Doze feature isn't available, however.
Other additional features include gestures such as double-tap to turn the screen on or flip to mute calls and alarms. Most of them are turned off by default.
The worst part of EMUI 3.1, however, is that it is not as well optimised as some rivals running the standard Android experience. Compared to the Motorola Moto X Play, which has basically the same processor and amount of RAM as the 5X but runs unmodified Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, the Honor 5X feels sluggish and not as snappy launching apps and switching between them. I've noticed an annoying lag when typing if switching between social feeds, Chrome, Gmail and Slack. It's not there all the time, but is a sign of poor software optimisation.
Camera The Huawei camera app does a fairly good job of taking decent photos without too much effort, but hides HDR modes behind a multi-step menu. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianI found the camera surprisingly good. The camera is normally one of the corners cut with lower-priced smartphones. It isn't as good as that fitted to the Nexus 6P, but it was easily as good as many other mid-to-high end smartphones in good lighting.
In the grey weather of Britain it took admirable shots of the outdoors, did OK in indoor light, but struggled with poor lighting conditions. The camera app is relatively easy to use and effective, although the lack of an easy-to-reach HDR button is an oversight.
The selfie camera produces decent shots. They are solid enough for most people quickly snapping photos of themselves, but lack fine detail in all but really good lighting.
Fingerprint sensor The fingerprint sensor on the back is great, being slightly smaller but matching the best of the rest in accuracy and speed. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the GuardianHaving a fingerprint scanner while costing under £200 instantly sets the Honor 5X apart from almost all its rivals. The fingerprint scanner is fast and easy to use, placed on the back in a similar position to that of the Honor 7, Nexus 6P and a couple of other Android devices.
I found it almost always recognised my index finger on first attempt; physically smaller but performing similarly to that found on the Nexus 6P. It can also be used for other features, such as taking photos, answering calls, activating the notification shade or recently used apps.
None of the third-party apps I tried with it would allow the use of the fingerprint scanner, saying it was unsupported. That should not be a problem when the 5X receives Android 6 Marshmallow, which natively supports fingerprint sensors for third-party apps.
PriceThe Honor 5X costs £189.99 in gold, silver and grey either directly from Huawei, Amazon or through a network exclusive.
For comparison, Motorola's 5in Moto G costs £159, the OnePlus X costs £199, the 5.5in OnePlus 2 costs £239 and an 5.5in LG G4 costs £300.
VerdictThe Honor 5X is one of the best lower-priced large-screen smartphones available. It's not quite as cheap as a Motorola Moto G, but has features more akin to a decent mid-range smartphone costing in excess of £300. The great fingerprint scanner alone sets it apart.
The build quality is solid, it looks decent, the battery life stretches to almost two days without having to activate battery saving modes and the screen is very good. The camera is a lot better than similarly priced rivals and it has both dual-sim support and a microSD card slot.
Software is where the 5X falters a little, which can be laggy and doesn't conform to the standard Android experience, mimicking that of an iPhone. It's also not running the latest version of Android, although Huawei has promised an upgrade to Android 6 Marshmallow in the near future.
Pros: good screen, good camera, dual-sim, microSD card slot, good battery, nice feel, great fingerprint scanner
Cons: not latest version of Android, battery not removable, EMUI won't be to everyone's taste, software not well optimised, occasional lag, no quick charging
The top and bottom ends of the phone are plastic. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian Other reviewsSource: Honor 5X review – a lot of phone for the money, let down by poor software
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