Honor X5b Plus Review: Powerful Contender in the Budget-friendly Segment

January 19, 2025, 02:16 PM
by Md. Mehedi Hasan

UNB News
Publish- January 19, 2025, 02:16 PM
Md. Mehedi Hasan
Update- January 19, 2025, 02:43 PM

Honor X5b Plus Review

The X5b Plus is a new addition to the Chinese Smartphone brand Honor’s budget-friendly X series featuring large screens and long-lasting batteries. Hitting the Bangladesh market on January 9, 2025, it offers relatively standard features with a highly affordable price tag. Let’s dive into the key features, pros, cons, and pricing of Honor X5b Plus in Bangladesh.

Key Features of Honor X5b Plus

Design

The Honor X5b Plus has come with a compact and slim design with a super flat cross-textured back panel providing a good grip. Like the X5b model, its plastic-made metal frame is 163.9mm wide, 75.8mm tall, and 8.7mm thick, which gives the phone a standard shape. Catering to divisiveness, it offers three distinct color vacations– Ocean Blue, Midnight Black, and Starry Purple.

The plastic body build helps the phone to be more lightweight than its competitors. It weighs 194g, harmonizing with the overall slimness of the phone. Users will find a single stereo audio output juxtaposed with a USB Type C charging port on the bottom. Much to users’ disappointment, the phone uses a teardrop placeholder for its front lens. Either a dual stereo audio system or a punch-hole would be more appreciable, while its primary competitor, Tecno Spark Go 1, offers both.

Display

A TFT LCD panel may not be a great display, even for an entry-level phone, when similarly priced options like Symphony Innova 30 and Tecno Spark Go 1 are offering IPS screens. Users may find the 90Hz refresh rate as a deal breaker as Tecno Spark Go 1 boasts a 120Hz rate at a lower price tag.

The entire look of the front much resembles Samsung’s budget-friendly smartphones, with fairly rounded corners, a waterdrop notch, and thick bezels and chins. However, the 6.56-inch screen still feels right while watching videos or playing games regardless of being narrowed down by thick bezels.

Users will get a wide resolution of 720 by 1612 pixels backed by a maximum 530 nits brightness level. Considering the quality of the screen, the device still provides a good color contrast thanks to its 269 ppi density.

However, we have seen similar features in the basic variant X5b.

Cameras

The Honor X5b Plus features a 50MP (f/1.8) lens placed within a giant square primary camera panel with rounded corners on the back. It’s a great leap compared with Honor X5B and rival Tecno Spark Go 1’s 13MP, yet a downgrade compared to Symphony Innova 30’s 108MP primary lens.

The 5MP (f/2.2) front lens of the X5b Plus is also despairing in this selfie-hyped market. An 8MP wide lens would place the camera system in a better position. Both lenses can record videos at a 30fps frame rate, keeping a 1080p clear resolution.

Performance and Hardware

A maximum of 256GB default storage sets a standard ground for the phone supported by 4GB RAM.

Like the basic X5b, the Plus variant features a Mediatek Helio G36 12nm chipset. The phone uses a PowerVR GE8320 for graphical processing that keeps up with the processor in detailing and maneuvering different games.

However, in the AnTuTu Benchmark and GeekBench scores, the Honor X5b Plus performs less efficiently than the Innova 30 and Spark Go 1.

For the operating system, the phone implements Android 14, ensuring the latest upgrades of Google’s stack navigational layout. On top of it, it’s customizable Magic OS 8 provides a stylish and colorful user interface.

Battery and Performance

Like the Honor X5b, its Plus variant comes with a strong and durable 5200mAh battery that lasts longer than those featured by most market peers. Users will get a 10W charger, which requires 5 to 7 hours to power up the phone fully.

Symphony Innova 30, and Spark Go 1 offer almost similar-sized batteries (5000 mAh) with powerful chargers.

Pros and Cons of the Honor X5b Plus

Pros

- Audio jack present
- Android 14 OS with Magic OS 8 UI
- Large battery capacity
- Side-mounted fingerprint scanner

Cons

- No 4K video recording
- Basic camera setup
- Low brightness
- Low refresh rate
- Not suitable for heavy gaming or multitasking
- Low-resolution display
- No reverse charging
- Lacks NFC and 5G support.

Price of Honor X5b Plus in Bangladesh

The Honor X5b Plus has been launched in the Bangladeshi market. Its official 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage variation is available at BDT 12,999.

Conclusion

The Honor X5b Plus is a budget-friendly smartphone. With a powerful battery and an acceptable primary camera, it tries to justify its price; however, powerful competitors are ruling the market offering better performance, display, design, and selfie cameras. If you want a minimalist phone to capture good-quality images and durable usability, the Honor X5b Plus can be a good choice. Gamers and selfie lovers may opt for options like Symphony Innova 30.