Honor X Series
Honor X5 Plus Review: A decent budget-friendly phone
The Honor X series has been the brand’s entry-level and mid-range line of smartphones. The X series has always brought a compelling price-performance balance that has aided in its huge popularity. Honor launched X5 Plus in Bangladesh on 16th August 2023. Apart from the large screen, the Honor X5 Plus brings some exciting features. Let’s check them out.
Key Specifications of Honor X5 Plus
Design and Build Quality
The X5 Plus is sort of a semi-update to the X5 released earlier this year. As a result, the X5 Plus carries a lot of the design elements forward with several internal updates. There are subtle changes in the design on the X5 Plus with the back having a frosted glass hue. However, the back is still plastic which just looks like glass. The camera housing now has a refractive glossy finish which stands out in direct light. As for colors, users will be getting a choice of Cyan Lake or Midnight Black.
Dimension-wise the devices come in at around 163.32 mm by 75.07 mm by 8.35 mm with 188g of effective weight. The lightweight design and the rounded edges give an impressive hand feel to the device. The device has all the ports and buttons in their usual place. Except for the sim slot which is placed at the top of the device. Apart from the two stand-by nano sims, there is a dedicated micro SDXC slot as well. It’s a useful addition considering the internal storage is only 64 GB.
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The power button on the right also doubles as the fingerprint scanner on the X5 Plus. There is also the usual bottom-firing speaker, Type C port, and the ever-disappearing 3.5 mm headphone jack at the bottom of the device. Being an entry-level smartphone, there is a noticeable chin at the bottom of the smartphone. Other than that, the X5 Plus is a well-built solid device that will withstand heavy and rough usage.
The Display
The display on the X5 Plus is a 6.56-inch TFT LCD panel with HD+ configuration. The resolution stands at 720 by 1612 pixels with a 20:9 aspect ratio and 269 ppi density. The slightly larger display on the X5 Plus allows for the screen-to-body ratio to be bumped up to 84.3%.
As mentioned before, the front chin stands out as an eyesore in 2023. But given the ultra-budget positioning of the X5 Plus, it only makes sense that Honor had to cut corners.
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However, it's not all gloomy with the display. Even as a TFT panel, the screen showed good contrast and balance. The blacks weren’t completely washed out and there wasn’t also any noticeable blue tint. What’s even better is that users will be getting a 90 Hz refresh rate on the X5 Plus.
It’s not a great display by any means. But for its price, it doesn’t get any better than this.
The Camera
There is a dual camera module on the X5 Plus. The main camera is a 50 MP f/1.8 wide-angle shooter with PDAF. There is no OIS and EIS for stabilization. Pictures during the daytime came out pretty well. There were good details in the images with post-processing color pop. The boosted colors rendered a better result as the color reproduction was almost always on point. However, the camera failed to replicate the same in shades or under artificial lights. The dynamic range was also average with passable details.
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The story continues the same in low light conditions as well. There were noticeable noises in the pictures and most shots came out softer than one would like. The shutter speed on the night mode is pretty slow. But if one can keep a steady hand, the images would come out far better than they usually do.
There is an additional 2 MP f/2.4 depth sensor. It aids a bit in the portrait shot but nothing other than that.
The front-facing 5 MP shooter can be considered generic at best.
Videography is rated at 1080P at 30 fps. But without any form of stabilization, the results aren’t really passable per se.
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11 months ago