Honor X7b hands-on review

Say hello to the Honor X7b, the company's just announced smartphone that costs $249, but offers a solid punch and perhaps the best battery life around

Let's first look inside the box. The X7b ships with an Honor SuperCharge adapter that maxes out at 35W, a case, and a USB cable. A pretty solid set and much better than some far more expensive phones offer.

Unboxing the Honor X7b

We have the Midnight Black model despite the promising-looking Flowing Silver pictured on the retail box.

Upfront, the Honor X7b has a 6.8-inch 2412x1080px LTPS IPS LCD with a 90Hz refresh rate. It's a bright panel with good contrast and solid viewing angles. It's also plenty sharp at this size and resolution.

The back is plastic and has a fine finish with a textured paint job that shimmers under light. There are two camera islands and the 108MP and Honor badging.

The plastic panel encompasses the sides as well. There's a SIM tray on the left side, as well as the volume rocker and power button on the opposite side. The power button doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

Honor X7b

There are three cameras on the back of the Honor X7b and one on the front. The main camera is a 108MP f/1.8 unit that takes 12MP shots by default, but you can shoot the full 108MP with the High-Res mode. Next is a 5MP f/2.2 fixed-focus ultrawide.

The third sensor is a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera that you access only via the Super-macro mode (it won't automatically launch when you're too close to a subject with another camera). Finally, on the front, there's an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera.

We took a few shots with the Honor X7b. The main camera offers a good amount of detail in the default 12MP output. Looking at fine textures like the tree branches or the objects in the indoor scenes reveals good definition. Contrast is strong with bright highlights and well-developed shadows. There's no noise to speak of. Color rendition is vivid even on bleak winter days like today.

The 2x mode from the main camera hikes up the sharpening to excessive levels, but that's to be expected when you're digitally zooming into a scene. We'd say the tradeoff is worth it because you can get closer without a dedicated camera on board.

Main camera, 2x from main camera

The ultrawide is pretty rough - its output is grainy and blurry in broad daylight, which doesn't bode well for the prospect of low light.

Main camera

Ultrawide

Selfies are very good. There's a lovely amount of detail in faces and the background is nicely developed. The 8MP front camera is also wide for those group shots.

Selfies

One of the Honor X7b's biggest selling points is the battery. It's a 6,000mAh unit that should provide ample runtime. And when you do need to charge the Honor, the 35W adapter is plenty powerful.

Finally, the X7b has a 6nm Snapdragon 680 chipset mated to 6GB of RAM and 128GB built-in storage (a version with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage is also available). And in all a capable package that should serve those that need a phone with a long-lasting battery and don't insist on 5G connectivity.