HONOR X5 Plus Review

HONOR announced their budget X5 smartphone in January this year, but it was never released in the Philippines.  But now, the HONOR X5 Plus has arrived in Philippine shores along with the 90 Lite, X6a, and Pad X9. 

So, we’re gonna check out the HONOR X5 Plus and see whether you should take a shot at this budget smartphone.

Design and Construction

The HONOR X5 Plus has a matte finish that’s light on the hand. If you don’t put a case on this phone, it isn’t a fingerprint magnet, so you don’t have to worry about any prints on the back of this phone.

The HONOR logo can also be spotted at the back, but it’s not too distracting or distinct for you to be annoyed with.

The camera island on the rear features two camera lenses – one for the main shooter while the other is a depth sensor paired with the flash.

We’ll get back to that in more detail later in Cameras.

Our unit is in this Midnight Black colorway, but it also comes in a Cyan Lake version if you want a splash of color.

Overall, it’s a pretty clean and straight-to-the-point design, although, as a budget phone, we can’t really expect any better than a polycarbonate body.

For I/O ports, the dual-nano SIM card tray is located on the top, while the bottom has the USB Type-C port, 3.5mm audio jack, microphone and a mono speaker.

On the right side, we have the volume controls and the power button that also serves as a fingerprint scanner.

Display and Multimedia

The HONOR X5 Plus sports a 6.56-inch HD+ TFT LCD display with 90Hz refresh rate and a 720 x 1612 resolution.

The colors are great out of the box which makes it enjoyable for watching videos. It was nice to see the colors pop in the X5 Plus.

As for sound quality, don’t expect too much out of it. Like I mentioned earlier, it only has one speaker. It’s not the loudest out there, so do take note if you’re looking for a phone that can produce loud audio.

Camera

Going to the cameras, for the rear, we have a dual-rear setup consisting of a 50MP main with 1.8 aperture plus a depth sensor with 2.4 aperture.

On the front, we have a measly 5MP camera with a 2.2 aperture.

Taking photos and videos with the device is a treat as it’s able to capture colors and details decently in well-lit environments. They’re not too dull, nor are they too over-the-top vibrant. You might see the noise in photos when you zoom in, however.

It does struggle when it comes to low-lit places with noise being evident however so take note of that if you’re into night photography.

Here are our sample shots that we took for you to get a better idea:

Performance and Benchmarks

The X5 Plus is powered by a MediaTek Helio G36 octa-core chipset with an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU. Mediatek claims the G36 is made for entry-level gaming phones, but honestly, I’m not too impressed as I’ve experienced the device heating up whenever I play this device.

We ran Asphalt in low settings and it was able to run the game with some lag, but increasing the quality to medium heated the phone up a bit faster. Not too hot to the touch, but it gets really warm.

Casual gamers may be consider grabbing the X5 Plus if they don’t mind bumping the settings down to the lowest level. if you’re into graphics in a video game, this may not be the one for you.

The device has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which can then be upgraded up to 1TB through a microSD card.

We ran the device for benchmarks and here’s what we got:

AnTuTu Benchmark V10.0.7: 148,086
AnTuTu V10.0.7 Storage: 8,931
PCMark Work 3.0: 5,456
GeekBench 6 CPU Single: 179
GeekBench 6 CPU Multi: 805

OS, Apps, and UI

Operating the HONOR X5 Plus is the MagicOS 7.1 based on Android 13. So, if you’re already an HONOR smartphone user, you’ll feel very familiar with the layout of this device.

If you’re new to the OS, however, then it’s essentially like your usual Android devices with slight differences in layout.

There are pre-installed apps in the device like Netflix and Booking.com, you can simply uninstall these apps if you have no use for them.

Both the Google Play Store and HONOR’s App Market are available to install any application you need as well.

Battery and Connectivity

The HONOR X5 Plus is equipped with WiFi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, and NFC. No 5G here, just 4G/LTE connectivity so take note of that.

For the battery, it packs a 5,200mAh Li-Ion battery, but it can only charge at 10W so it doesn’t have the fastest charging speed out there.

Our results for our video battery loop test got us a total of 16 hours and 6 minutes. This is where we replay a 1080p video at 50% brightness, 0% volume, and in airplane mode.

Conclusion

Overall, it’s a decent smartphone to have for casual use such as viewing photos and videos, scrolling through social media, and taking pictures.Just don’t expect it to be a good gaming device or a fast charging one though. 

For the price of PHP 5,490, the HONOR X5 Plus is a decent budget friendly device for those who would use it casually. It is currently available in Shopee and Lazada.

What do you think of the new X5 Plus? Let us know in the comments below.

What we like:

• Vibrant display
• Decent camera in well-lit places
• Not a fingerprint magnet

What we didn’t like:

• Struggles in night photography
• Mediocre chipset
• Slow in charging

HONOR X5 Plus specs

6.56” HD+ TFT LCD
720 x 1612 pixels, 90Hz refresh
MediaTek Helio G36
8-core, up to 2.2GHz clockspeed
4GB RAM
64GB storage
Supports microSD up to 1TB
Dual rear cameras:
– 50MP f/1.8 main
– Depth (f/2.4)
5MP f/2.2 selfie shooter
Dual nano-SIM
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz and 5GHz
Bluetooth 5.1
GPS/AGPS/GLONASS/BeiDou/Galileo
USB Type-C, USB 2.0
3.5mm audio jack
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
MagicOS 7.1 (Android 13)
5200mAh battery
75.07mm x 163.32mm x 8.35mm
~188g
Cyan Lake, Midnight Black