Honor has sneaked in a final phone launch for 2017, revealing the Honor 7X with its edge-to-edge widescreen display, dual-lens camera and snazzy design. In some ways this fresh phone is a decent update of the Honor 6X, launched at the other end of the year. In other areas, things haven’t changed much.
The Honor 7X sits beneath the flagship Honor 9, which also came out earlier in 2017, packing premium specs for a refreshingly affordable £380. Specs-wise it’s also more basic than the Honor 8 Pro, although the new 7X offers a bigger display and arguably the better design.
As for the pricing, this new Honor smartphone is similarly placed to the Honor 6X, starting at under £200. That’s not too surprising given the similar internals and camera tech.
Here’s how the Honor 7X and Honor 6X compare, so you know which mid-range handset to pick up.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Specs
| Phone | Honor 6X | Honor 7X |
|---|---|---|
| Screen size | 5.5-inches | 5.93-inches |
| Screen resolution | 1920×1080 | 2160×1080 |
| Fingerprint sensor? | Yes | Yes |
| Water resistant? | No | No |
| Weight | 162g | 165g |
| OS | Android 7 + EMUI 5.1 (post-update) | Android 7 + EMUI 5.1 |
| Processor | Kirin 655 | Kirin 659 |
| Memory | 3GB | 4GB |
| Storage | 32GB | 32/64/128GB |
| microSD? | Yes (256GB) | Yes (256GB) |
| Battery | 3340mAh | 3340mAh |
| Rear cameras | 12MP + 2MP | 16MP + 2MP |
| Front camera | 8MP | 8MP |
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Design
Like last year’s Honor 6X, the new handset offers up a 2.5D glass front panel, latched onto a metal rear plate. However, the bezels surrounding the Honor 7X’s display have significantly slimmed down, meaning you get more screen space packed into roughly the same-sized chassis. The panel now stretches almost fully to the right and left edges, with less wasted space above and below as well.
Around the back, you still get a rounded fingerprint sensor stuck in the centre of the surface, right where your fingertips naturally lie. The jutting dual lens camera has been redesigned for the 7X however, with lenses that are flush with the surface and housed in the top left corner. That’s the same setup as other, more premium Honor phones like the Honor 9.
Once again there’s no water resistance, as you might expect at this price point.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Screen and media
The Honor 7X sports a bigger screen, complete with different proportions to the old Honor 6X. On the new handset, the display is just as wide as before, and now longer also. The result is a fashionable 18:9 aspect ratio, which is more ‘widescreen’ as a result. Good news if you like watching movies on your travels, as you’ll get reduced letterboxing.
To keep your visuals crisp, the resolution has been boosted to 2160×1080 for the 7X (compared with 1920×1080 on the 6X). The panels are just as sharp as one another, offering respectable detail levels despite their size.
The screen tech hasn’t changed at all, so you once again have an IPS LCD panel. You can expect strong brightness levels, although neither display offers particularly punchy colours.
Want to carry a massive media collection or loads of apps? The Honor 7X is going to be a better pick. While the 6X maxes out at a modest 32GB, the new Honor offers a choice of up to 128GB of storage. That said, both blowers can have that space expanded using a microSD memory card.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Features and OS
Both of these Honor handsets rock Android Nougat, with Oreo just around the corner hopefully. You also get Huawei’s Emotion UI 5.1 on top, which changes the look and feel of the software while adding quite a lot of bonus functionality.
Check out our EMUI 5.1 review for all you need to know.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Performance and battery
As it’s emerging almost a full year after the Honor 6X hit UK stores, the Honor 7X naturally boasts upgraded specs. Although not by much.
As well as an extra gig of RAM, the 7X updates the chipset to a Kirin 659. That’s not exactly a huge step up compared with the Kirin 655 found stuffed inside the Honor 6X, however. You only get a jump in clock speed on some of the cores, with not much to talk about in terms of improved energy efficiency or connectivity updates.
Likewise, both phones offer the same size of battery. You should be able to get a similar full day of heavy use from the Honor 7X, complete with some basic fast charging support. Sadly the charging port of choice for both of these blowers is micro USB. No Type-C USB in sight, which is fully reversible and offers faster data transfer when hooked up to a computer.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: Cameras
When it comes to the camera tech, the Honor 7X once again sports a dual lens snapper on the rear, just like the 6X. However, the main lens has been boosted from a 12-megapixel effort to 16-megapixels, to capture even more detail than before.
Besides that, it seems to be business as usual. A secondary 2-megapixel lens helps to give these cameras proper depth perception, to add bokeh-style effects to your backgrounds. You get Phase Detection Autofocus to keep the shutter speed nippy and up to Full HD video recording. The camera app is stuffed with bonus modes, while an 8-megapixel selfie camera rounds things off.
Check out our in-depth Honor 6X camera review for an idea of what to expect.
Honor 7X vs Honor 6X: UK price and availability
The Honor 6X is available right now in the UK, with an asking price of around £150, whilst the 7X sells for £269 is available for pre-order right now.
Leave a Reply