We go hands-on with the Honor 4X!

While there has been several affordable LTE equipped smartphones from local brands, there hasn’t been a lot of the same devices from international brands. That’s all about to change with Huawei’s game changing Honor 4X. The Honor 4X is an affordable LTE smartphone from Chinese brand Huawei under their affordable Honor lineup – a sub brand that started life as a way to combat Xiaomi in their home country. Priced at RMB 999 for the 2GB version (which is confirmed to be coming to the PH market) the Honor 4X has the potential to shake up the local LTE game both for international and local brands if priced correctly.

Huawei Honor 4X

• 1.2GHz Kirin 620 octa-core 64-bit A53 CPU
• 1GB/2GB of RAM
• 5.5-inch HD IPS display, 1280 x 720 resolution
• 8GB of storage, expandable via microSD
• 13-megapixel rear camera
• 5-megapixel rear camera
• Dual-SIM
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
• 3000mAh battery
• Android 4.4 KitKat with Emotion UI 3.0

Hands-on, first impressions: largely made out of plastic with good build quality

Because the Honor 4X is part of the company’s lower-end lineup, Huawei decided to use plastic rather than metal in its construction. But even though the phone is made out of plastic, it’s not cheap, and the build quality for the phone feels good, with very little creaks or flex in the device.

The back of the Honor 4X is textured to give you a better grip. The phone’s controls are located on the right side of the device, with the USB port located on the bottom and the 3.5mm jack located on the top.

Like Huawei’s other offerings, the Honor 4X uses their own, homegrown processor solution. This has a lot of advantages – since Huawei makes the processor themselves, the overall price of making and putting in the SoCs is far lower than if they bought them from a third party like Qualcomm or MediaTek. Another is the fact that Huawei doesn’t need to pay patents for radio technologies to anyone (since their main business is telecommunications equipment), the price of the device is reduced further, giving both the brand and the device teeth to fight off Xiaomi in China and other territories where both devices are sold.

The phone felt quick in our hands during our brief time with it, but like the Honor 6 Plus we were unable to run and install benchmark apps in the device. We’re unsure how the lower-end octa-core Kirin 620 processor would fare during normal use, though on paper Huawei’s solution looks solid, and that 64-bit support would be useful once Android 5.0 rolls around.

Obviously Huawei PH did not give us a firm date when this product will roll out in the PH, only hinting a late Q1 or early Q2 arrival. The company will only sell the 2GB version of the Honor 4X in the country, and the price is expected to be a bit more than what they are asking for in China. Just how much? We’ll have to wait to find out.