Honor X7e Review

With the high price of smartphones these days, it’s a bit hard to find something that fits what you need, especially for those on a tight budget.

Fortunately, manufacturers like Honor are still offering decently packaged, budget-friendly smartphones like the newly released Honor X7e.

For those who were able to catch this phone during the 7.7 sale on TikTok, Shopee, and Lazada, the Honor X7e was available at a discounted price of only PHP 9,999. It’s a whole PHP 5,000 off its SRP of PHP 14,999. Its highlights include a large battery and a well-protected body.

With that in mind, what else does the Honor X7e offer, and how does it stack up against the other budget smartphones available on the market? Well, let’s find out.

Design and Construction

Regarding the design of the Honor X7e, it might just be from my perspective, but the back panel sort of reminds me of the standard iPhone 16 and 17. There’s a vertical camera island that houses the single main camera.

Yes, it’s just one camera; don’t be fooled by the dual camera island design.

Honestly, it’s a clean, simple design, with the Honor logo at the bottom left corner of the back panel. Our review unit is in the Midnight Black colorway, which looks nice with the gold accents on the camera rings. It’s a bit subtle, but for those who want something louder, users can also choose between Light Blue and Sunrise Orange colors.

At the end of the day, style is subjective. But what’s not is the protection the Honor X7e offers. It might feature a plastic back panel and frame, but it features the same 5-Star SGS Premium Drop Protection as the Honor 600 Pro in addition to its IP64 rating for dust and water resistance.

With that, this phone can’t technically go for a swim or be submerged in water. So users will have to be extra careful near bodies of water or a pool. But hey, at least you can drop it multiple times over and over, and it should be fine.

Despite the plastic back panel and frame, it doesn’t have the cheap plastic feel. As expected, it feels sturdy, and it’s quite ergonomic to use. The volume rocker and power button are on the right side, while the dual-SIM card slot, microSD slot and Honor’s dedicated AI instant button are on the left.

At the bottom, there’s the USB-C port, while at the top, users will find a 3.5mm audio port and the loudspeaker. It’s an interesting placement for a loudspeaker, as most are found at the bottom.

Display, Multimedia, Biometrics

As expected of new phones in this price point, the Honor X7e does not come with an OLED panel. Instead, it features a more basic 6.61-inch TFT LCD display. With that, we have to set our expectations when it comes to the screen, especially for users who are used to higher-end displays.

Despite that, the display of the X7e is rather decent. The colors are still vivid, assuming users set it to vivid in the display settings. However, it’s the blacks that are the limitations of the screen. Depending on the scene, some of it shows up as a dark gray hue instead of the deep blacks usually seen.

Thankfully, it makes up for the TFT LCD panel by having a 120Hz refresh rate, giving it smooth and fluid animations. With that, users can still enjoy watching videos on this phone or play games. Well, we’ll talk about the latter later on.

As for the speakers, as mentioned earlier, the single loudspeaker is located at the top, which is quite an odd placement. One thing’s for sure, it certainly helps prevent the speaker from being blocked when watching. But in terms of quality, it’s relatively decent for a single speaker setup. Not to mention it’s loud too, with little to no distortion of sound when maxed out at 200%.

For biometrics, users can choose between face unlock and a side mounted fingerprint scanner. Both work equally fast, so users can just choose which one suits them best.

Cameras

Moving on to the cameras, the Honor X7e features a single 50MP rear main camera. While there is another circle, it appears to be an auxiliary camera. At the front, there’s a 5MP camera for selfies.

Given the single 50MP rear camera, we had our reservations regarding the quality of the images. Surprisingly, the images came out better than we expected as long as we were shooting in well-lit environments. Even in regular photo mode, we were able to get sharp images and even decent bokeh even at the regular 1x zoom.

Speaking of zoom, even at 2x zoom, the images still look great, and we can effectively zoom up to 4x before noticing a significant drop in quality. In addition, the colors are relatively accurate, with minimal post-processing applied, giving it a natural look.

Then again, all of this assumes users are again in areas with decent lighting. The moment lighting drops, there’s a very noticeable drop in quality. The images end up not sharp, and since there’s no stabilization, it can end up shaky. Not even night mode can help as it ends up losing even more details, and the photos look overly smoothened.

As for videos, it’s a similar story to the images. The X7e can record up to 1080P@30FPS max. Again, no stabilization, so those without a steady hand will end up with shaky footage. It’s decent in well-lit environments, but not so great in low-light.

Still, the cameras are not bad considering the limitations of the phone. You can check out the sample photos and video below.

Honor X7e Photos

Jul 7 – 10

Performance and Benchmarks

Under the plastic back panel, the Honor X7e packs a MediaTek Helio G81 Ultra chipset. Our review unit comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. If users find the storage lacking, there is a microSD card slot available to expand storage further.

Since this is a budget smartphone, users have to set their expectations when it comes to the performance. For day-to-day scrolling the web, social media, and other productivity tasks, it is more than adequate. Even if we leave apps running in the background, we can quickly pick up where we left off.

As for gaming, it’s where the X7e feels lacking. It can run lighter titles like Mobile Legends smoothly without issues. Best of all, users can take advantage of the 120Hz refresh rate display for a smoother gameplay feel.

However, on more graphic intensive titles like Genshin Impact, it has a harder time running the game. Even on the lowest settings and at 60FPS, there’s noticeable lag and stuttering even when we’re simply exploring the map. It gets even more noticeable when we start spamming skills, and going up against enemies.

But at least for users who simply need a phone to get work done and play light games, this can handle it. The benchmark also showed similar results, and users can check them out below. Again do set your expecations.

OS, Apps, and UI

The Honor X7e ships with Android 16 skinned with MagicOS 10 out of the box. For users who have tried an Honor smartphone before, it feels more or less similar to their other devices albeit with more basic features.

It still features Honor AI, but it feels a bit more limited. Users have Magic Portal, AI Subtitles and AI Translate to name a few, which can help with every use. Meanwhile, the AI Button can also be used to open various apps depending on what the user chooses in the settings.

Of course, Gemini is still available and can quickly be accessed by holding the power button. Other AI functions includes AI editor in the gallery to fix photos in post.

While there is some bloatware, it’s not that noticeable on the home screen since most of the apps are in two folders. There are no irritating pop-up notifications from these apps either so good job there.

Battery and Connectivity

One of the main highlights of the Honor X7e is the large 7,500 mAh battery pack. It’s bigger than most smartphones today, even compared to more expensive models. That said, we had our hopes up that this phone will last a very long time before needing to recharge.

Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint. From experience, we used this phone for nearly an entire day to take photos, record video, and even play games to test for this review. And afterward, we noticed that the battery barely dropped.

The PCMark Battery Benchmarks showed similar results too, recording 21 hours and 44 minutes, which is a very long record, no doubt. Meanwhile, the video loop test recorded 14 hours and 19 minutes.

When users do need to recharge, the X7e features 45W wired charging, which is decent speed. There’s also reverse wired charging, which allows users to help other friends out by turning the X7e into a power bank.

For connectivity, it’s limited to 4G LTE. It does feature dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.1, though.

Conclusion

Overall, the Honor X7e is a decent budget smartphone for users who want something that’s sturdy and have a long battery life. Performance isn’t the best, but if you plan to use this phone just for day-to-day tasks and light games, it shouldn’t be a problem either. Not to mention the camera is decent too, provided there’s enough lighting.

For those who were able to get the Honor X7e during the 7/7 promo price of PHP 9,999, then it’s definitely a good deal given the price of phones nowadays. But at its SRP of PHP 14,999, some might find it a tough pill to swallow given the specs and performance it offers.

Then again, you do have to remember that prices of smartphone models from nearly all brands are going up, and unfortunately, this will likely become the new norm for budget phones.

Still, what do you guys think of the Honor X7e? Would you cop or wait for something else? Whatever the case, share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:

• Long battery life
• Sturdy exterior
• Great promo price

What we didn’t like:

• Performance is lacking for gaming
• Display isn’t the best
• No 5G

HONOR X7e specs:

6.61-inch display
TFT LCD, 120Hz refresh rate
1604 x 720 resolution
MediaTek Helio G81 Ultra processor
6GB RAM
128GB Storage
50MP AI main camera
5MP front camera
MagicOS 10
Dualband Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.1
GPS
3.5mm Audio Jack
7500mAh battery
45W HONOR SuperCharge
7.5W Reverse Wired
Instant AI Button
5-Star SGS Premium Drop Protection
IP64 dust and water resistance
Midnight Black, Sunrise Orange, Light Blue