Huawei Honor 5X review: Aiming High

Performance

The Honor 5X is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 616 CPU with cores clocked at 1.5 GHz. The phone performs quite well for the price. It does lag every now and then, perhaps when loading a heavy game for the first time or opening a heavy app from a fresh boot like Facebook or Tumblr.

Once open, though, app switching is quick enough for the occasional juggle between more than five apps at once. Still. The Honor 5X could be quicker in everyday tasks. Turning off the animations helps the device think a little faster and work a little quicker.

For GeekBench 3, the Honor 5X scored toward the upper middle range of midrange devices with 5.5 inch, 1080p displays. We threw the iPhone 6 Plus in here too, to make it a 5.5 inch display party. The reason the iPhone falls in these areas at all is because iOS' software is so well optimized, it doesn't need as powerful a CPU as Android phones need.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Meizu m1 metal
  4825
• Lenovo K3 Note
  4067
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  3619
• Huawei Mate S
  3475
• Huawei Honor 5X
  3053
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  2884
• OnePlus One
  2663
• Meizu m2 note
  2649
• Motorola Moto X Play
  2608
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3560)
  2402
• LG G3
  2370

AnTuTu 5 made the Honor 5X sweat a bit when competing with similar phones. It scored very close to the Moto X Play which has a similar CPU and GPU setup. While the Snapdragon 616 should outperform the 615, the Moto X Play was able to match the 616 in the 5X, likely due to Motorola's minimal skinning of Android.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Meizu m1 metal
  49508
• Lenovo K3 Note
  46283
• Huawei Mate S
  44393
• LG G3
  42038
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3560)
  41154
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  38263
• Motorola Moto X Play
  37020
• Huawei Honor 5X
  36908
• Meizu m2 note
  32054

Seeing how the CPU and GPU work together for games, the Honor 5X scored near the Moto X Play again. With their similar setups, the Moto X Play, 5X, and Huawei Mate S all got within 0.5fps of each other.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18.6
• OnePlus One
  12.1
• LG G3
  11
• Meizu m1 metal
  8.4
• Lenovo K3 Note
  6.1
• Motorola Moto X Play
  5.8
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5.6
• Huawei Mate S
  5.4
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  4.1
• Meizu m2 note
  2.3

This time around, the Honor 5X scored dead in the middle of the pack. It scored the same 6.1fps like both the Moto X Play and the Lenovo K3 Note. The OnePlus One has the best performing graphics this time around.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus One
  12.9
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  8.3
• Meizu m1 metal
  8
• LG G3
  7.7
• Huawei Honor 5X
  6.1
• Motorola Moto X Play
  6.1
• Lenovo K3 Note
  6.1
• Huawei Mate S
  5.8
• Meizu m2 note
  2.3

As an all-around device, the Honor 5X did not get a great all-around score compared to the other devices in the bunch. The Honor 5X could perform better, but its software optimizations need to be on point in order to beat more of the other devices. Perhaps optimizations will come with the Marshmallow update.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18297
• OnePlus One
  13129
• LG G3
  10580
• Meizu m1 metal
  8526
• Lenovo K3 Note
  5656
• Huawei Mate S
  5368
• Motorola Moto X Play
  5032
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5009
• Meizu m2 note
  3946
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  3922

The Honor 5X scored toward the middle of the bunch in the Basemark OS II 2.0 benchmark test. Again, the Moto X Play scored adjacent to the 5X, leaving both the Galaxy J7 and the Meizu m2 note in the dust.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• OnePlus One
  1230
• LG G3
  1189
• Meizu m1 metal
  1039
• Lenovo K3 Note
  984
• Huawei Mate S
  914
• Huawei Honor 5X
  874
• Motorola Moto X Play
  809
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  709
• Meizu m2 note
  673

Opening large apps or games might take a bit longer than you'd expect; however, once open, games and apps run fluidly with minor hiccups. Of course, heavier games will surely see dropped frames with the Honor 5X's Adreno 405.

Even with the metal back plate, the Honor 5X tends to heat up a bit with occasional heavy usage or playing games for an extended period. Even downloading large files or apps can leave our palms feeling the warmth.