Huawei Honor 7X review

EMUI 5.1 on top of Nougat

Android 7 Nougat with EMUI 5.1 is a combination we've seen time and time again in both Huawei's and Honor's ranks. In that regard, there is nothing special or unexpected about it. However, that should not be misconstrued as criticism against the company's UX. In fact, Emotion UI is constantly getting better, with behind-the-scenes improvements, like better RAM management, improved miss-touch detection and higher touch accuracy, to name a few.

Plus, we appreciate the constantly shrinking amount of bloat, bundled in the ROM (although, there is still fat to trim) and the number and convenience of the baked-in features.

Home screen and panels, without an app drawer

For instance, you don't have to be stuck with or without an app drawer. EMUI offers both and switching between them only takes a few seconds. You can be as organized or disorderly as you want.

Enabling the app drawer takes a few seconds

And there are some other launcher options to explore as well, ranging from layout arrangement, to more advanced search and suggestion features. You can also swap the navigation bar controls to match your preferences. Honor didn't skip on a theme engine either and you have a rich selection of free themes in the online store.

Launcher settings • Navigation bar settings • Theme engine and store

Speaking of neat advanced features not necessarily found in cheaper devices, the Honor 7X has a split screen mode. It is a pretty good way to make use of the extra screen height, but we can't fail to complain about the still limited app support for the feature.

Notification and battery management

And while we're on the topic of convenient extra accessibility perks, EMUI has a few other notable ones. In no particular order, these include a powerful notification and battery managers, some gestures, quick access floating controls, one-handed UI and even app twins (only for a limited number of supported apps, though).

Smart assistance • Floating dock • Motion control • One-handed UI • App twin

Performance

We realize the parallels are getting kind of repetitive, but can't avoid referencing the Mate 10 Lite yet again. It already offered some benchmark numbers and painted a pretty decent and usable picture for the Kirin 659 chipset. It is more of the same with the Honor 7X. Its scores are pretty much the same (within margin of error).

That being said, you can expect pretty similar conclusions. The Kirin 659 has a total of four Cortex-A53 cores. Four of those take the heavy lifting and work at 2.36GHz, while the other four take care of less power-intensive tasks while ticking at 1.7GHz.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Honor 9
  6149
• Huawei P10
  6069
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  4456
• HTC U Ultra
  4201
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  3958
• Motorola Moto X4
  3956
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  3672
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  3610
• Sony Xperia XA1
  3554
• Huawei Honor 7X
  3457
• Huawei Honor 6X
  3351
• Huawei P10 lite
  3307
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  3294
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  3256
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  3016
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3011
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  2621
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  2353

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Honor 9
  1940
• Huawei P10
  1927
• HTC U Ultra
  1647
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  1546
• Huawei P10 lite
  886
• Huawei Honor 7X
  873
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  865
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  862
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  832
• Motorola Moto X4
  828
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  819
• Huawei Honor 6X
  801
• Sony Xperia XA1
  800
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  799
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  795
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  764
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  695
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  681

These actually handle number-crunching quite decently. We decided to post the older GeekBench 4 scores here for comparison purposes with slightly older devices in our database, like the Helio-X20 Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. The newer version of the benchmark paints an almost identical story. You can pretty much expect CPU performances slightly above the Snapdragon 625 and slightly below the Helio P20 and Snapdragon 630.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Huawei Mate 10
  3415
• Honor 9
  3072
• Huawei P10
  2910
• HTC U Ultra
  2222
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  1728
• Motorola Moto X4
  1532
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  1417
• Huawei Honor 7X
  1398
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  1362
• Sony Xperia XA1
  1351
• vivo V7
  1310
• Huawei Honor 6X
  1309
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  1309
• vivo V7+
  1290
• Huawei P10 lite
  1284
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  1262
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  1228
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  1198
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  1163
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  1107
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  1050
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  1038
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  1031
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  1007
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  999

This looks about as expected for the 100Mhz clock speed bump over the older Kirin 658 (Huawei P10 Lite). However, we do have to mention that we don't exactly appreciate the absence of 5GHz Wi-Fi in this chip. Other than that, its 16nm fabrication process isn't quite as efficient as Qualcomm's increasingly popular 14nm one, but still provides enough wiggle room for the Honor 7X to run cool and remain throttle-free under loads.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Huawei Mate 10
  175426
• Honor 9
  143583
• HTC U Ultra
  139750
• Huawei P10
  126629
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  85162
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  74488
• Motorola Moto X4
  71224
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  67540
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  64983
• Oppo F5
  63889
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  62316
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  62217
• Huawei Honor 7X
  62177
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  61762
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  61616
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  61020
• Huawei P10 lite
  60895
• Sony Xperia XA1
  60707
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  58068
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  57902
• vivo V7+
  57791
• Huawei Honor 6X
  57012
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  55657
• vivo V7
  54970
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  49094
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  46400
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  45742

Overall, paired with 4GB of RAM (as in our review unit), as well as 3GB, the Kirin 659 definitely delivers in everyday workloads. Unfortunately, the same can't be said when you add GPU rendering tasks to the mix.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor 9
  33
• Huawei P10
  30
• Huawei Mate 10
  23
• Sony Xperia XA1
  15
• HTC U Ultra
  13
• vivo V7+
  13
• vivo V7
  13
• Motorola Moto X4
  11
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  9.4
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  9.4
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  9
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  7.4
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  7.3
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  7.2
• Oppo F5
  6.8
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  6.7
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  6.7
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  6.7
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  6.4
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  6.3
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  6.2
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  6.1
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  6.1
• Huawei Honor 7
  5.2
• Huawei P10 lite
  5
• Huawei Honor 7X
  4.7
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.6
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  3.6

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P10
  16
• Honor 9
  14
• Huawei Mate 10
  13
• HTC U Ultra
  10
• Sony Xperia XA1
  7.9
• vivo V7+
  6.6
• vivo V7
  6.6
• Motorola Moto X4
  5.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  5.4
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  5.4
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  5.2
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.8
• Oppo F5
  4
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  4
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  4
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  3.9
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  3.8
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  3.7
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  3.5
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  3.5
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  3.4
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3.4
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  3.4
• Huawei P10 lite
  3
• Huawei Honor 7X
  2.8
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  2.4

Now, to be fair, Huawei and its HiSilicon chipset division have come a long way since the old days of integrating what seemed like a tiny person with a pencil to churn out pixels.

However, there are only two Mali-T830 cores inside the Honor 7X and those really struggle with modern graphics loads.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Huawei Mate 10
  40809
• Huawei P10
  39433
• HTC U Ultra
  35875
• Honor 9
  29398
• Xiaomi Mi Max
  15487
• Motorola Moto X4
  14479
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  13666
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
  10482
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  10472
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  10446
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  10424
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  10401
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  10394
• vivo V7
  9987
• vivo V7+
  9955
• Sony Xperia XA1
  9714
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  9598
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  9543
• Huawei Honor 7
  9377
• Oppo F5
  9205
• Huawei Honor 7X
  8616
• Huawei Honor 6X
  8458
• Huawei P10 lite
  7588
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  7004
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  5383
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)
  5258
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  5160

Still, to be fair, most of its competitors in this or similar price brackets don't really have it much better. That is, not counting some odd exception, like the severely depreciated HTC U Ultra.

If you are really into mobile gaming, then a recent Qualcomm chipset might be able to provide slightly better graphical fidelity for your buck. It is also worth noting that unlike the deliberately tasking synthetic tests, real-world game engines have become increasingly optimized, so you shouldn't loose too much sleep over the GPU aspect of things.