Honor recently launched the new Honor 8X in India at a starting price of just Rs. 14,999. The budget-friendly mid-range device packs in an octa-core Kirin 710 chipset coupled with up to 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of internal storage. The device has a very premium look and feel, especially due to its nearly bezel-less 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display that looks absolutely amazing.
Powering the device is a substantial 3,750mAh battery that might not be as large as the batteries found on some of its competitors, but it surely is good enough to get you through the day no matter your workload. But exactly how long will the device last on a single charge depending on the workload? Well, we’re here to answer just that:
Charging Test
In case you’ve been keeping up with our coverage of the new Honor 8X, you’d already know that the smartphone ships with a standard 5V/2A charging brick in the box, with no fast charging support. However, Honor claims that the device has been optimized to charge faster even with the standard charger and here’s what we found:
In our testing the bundled 5V/2A charger managed to charge up the device from 12 percent to 50 percent in just 45 minutes, while taking a total of about 2 hours to charge up the device to 100 percent. If you’re familiar with how fast fast charging actually is, then you’d already know that the Honor 8X doesn’t charge quickly.
In comparison, the Redmi Note 5 Pro, which packs in a larger 4,000mAh battery, takes just 2 hours and 10 minutes to charge from 10 percent to 100 percent with a fast charger (but the device doesn’t ship with a fast charger in the box). I took a note of the charging time over multiple charge cycles and the Honor 8X consistently took the same amount of time to charge up.
This brings us to the conclusion that the Honor 8X isn’t as good as its competition when it comes to charging times, however, considering the fact that none of its major competitors ship with a fast charger, it’s slow charging isn’t much of a deal breaker.
Battery Life
Now with a massive 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display in place, you’d expect the Honor 8X to burn through the 3,750 mAh battery quite rapidly through the day, but let me assure you that that’s not the case. In order to get an accurate reading of the Honor 8X’s battery life, we put the device through two different use case scenarios – one with a normal workload and one with intensive use – and here’s what we observed:
Normal Workload
With a normal workload that consisted of some web browsing, listening to music, playing a game or two, along with the usual calling and texting, the Honor 8X comfortably managed to last a full day with enough battery left to power through the next day. The device managed to deliver a screen-on-time of around 4 hours and 30 minutes with moderate use, and had 44 percent battery left at the end of the day. This, in my opinion, is quite impressive.
Intensive Workload
Under an intensive workload, that consisted of running a whole lot of benchmarking applications that stress out the hardware, playing several games of PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9, watching a number of videos, along with the usual calling and texting, the device managed to last a full day with just enough battery left to get me back home and charge it up overnight (drawbacks of not having fast charging support).
The phone managed to deliver a screen-on-time of around 5 hours and 50 minutes with just about 20 percent battery left at the end of the day. I was quite impressed by the Honor 8X’s battery performance and I can safely recommend it to almost anyone looking for a mid-ranger with a decent battery backup, but you will have to live without fast charging.
Honor 8X Battery and Charging Test: Great If You Don’t Require Fast Charging
In conclusion, the Honor 8X’s 3750 mAh battery is quite substantial for any kind of workload and will definitely last you through a full day, no matter what you do on the device. In case you’re in the market for a mid-range device with a great battery life, then I can confidently recommend the Honor 8X to you, however, the device doesn’t support fast charging and when it does run out of juice, you’ll have to use it tethered to a wall outlet for quite some time. In case the aforementioned results don’t spark confidence in you, you can always opt for the Redmi Note 5 Pro or the ZenFone Max Pro M1, both of which sport larger batteries that deliver even better battery life.
