All about the HONOR X6a and X5 Plus

Two new budget smartphones, this time from HONOR, enter the fray. The company recently announced its latest offerings in the X-series – the HONOR X5 Plus and the HONOR X6a.

In the Philippines, the HONOR X5 Plus was announced with a PhP 5,490 price tag while the HONOR X6a is tagged slightly higher at PhP 6,990. As of writing, the units are available for pre-order and come with bonuses and freebies. More info on the deals here.

HONOR X5 Plus

Coming in as the most affordable of HONOR’s latest unveiling, the HONOR X5 Plus does come with features that make it appealing as a budget device.

To start, it has a slightly above-average 5200 mAh battery. In our time with it, even if we weren’t too conservative in using the features of the X5 Plus, it was able to last a little more than a whole day.

You’ll have to carve out some time to charge, though, as this phone only supports 10W charging and it’s got a pretty big battery to fill up.

One of the reasons the battery is able to last long is because of the use of LCD instead of AMOLED. It is a budget device so an LCD is reasonable but I’m pleasantly surprised at finding a higher 90Hz refresh rate on this device.

For other display specs, we have 6.56 inches for its size and 720×1612 for its display resolution. There’s also an in-display fingerprint sensor as well as face unlock for security options.

For cameras, the HONOR X5 Plus is equipped with a 50-megapixel main shooter with a 2-megapixel depth camera. You’ll be relying on that 50-megapixel camera alone but thankfully, the X5 Plus does output pretty detailed and well-saturated photos. But because you only have the option of that main camera, there is no wide angle on this device.

For selfies, you have a 5-megapixel front-facing camera which performs as expected. You won’t get too much from this camera but it works well enough in bright light.

Diving inside the HONOR X5 Plus, we’ll find a MediaTek Helio G36 at its core supported by 4GB of RAM. In our time with it, we’ve experienced stable daily performance with a few issues here and there. Overall, a good daily driver for your most essential tasks.

Gaming is still possible though don’t be surprised to experience lag every so often. Unexpected, though, given the segment but performance is at par with price.

Out of the box, the HONOR X5 Plus comes with just 64GB of storage but this can be expanded up to 1TB which does give you extra breathing room.

Other need-to-know things about the HONOR X5: it runs MagicOS 7.1 based on Android 13 out of the box, it’s dual SIM-ready, and it comes in two colors – Midnight Black and Cyan Lake – similar to the HONOR 90 Lite 5G that was also recently released

HONOR X6a

The HONOR X6a and HONOR X5 Plus share a few similarities.

The HONOR X6a is also equipped with a 6.56-inch LCD display with a fast 90Hz refresh rate and 720×1612 resolution. We also have mono speakers, a 5.5mm headphone port, a side-mounted fingerprint reader, and facial recognition. It’s also running MagicOS7.1 out of the box

The camera setup is almost similar as well with the X6a also having a 50-megapixel main and 2-megapixel depth. But in addition to that, ti also has a 2-megapixel macro camera. Photos produced are quite similar to the HONOR X5 Plus – clean, well-detailed, and with good saturation.

With a 5-megapixel selfie camera as well, you’re also getting results similar to the X5 Plus.

The addition of the macro lens didn’t add significant improvement to the overall camera experience but it’s there should you ever need it, I suppose.

At its heart, we also have a MediaTek Helio G36 with 4GB of RAM. Unlike the X5 Plus, however, the HONOR X6a has a more generous 128GB of internal storage which is also expandable via microSD card.

With similar internals, we’ve found performance to be similar. Its pros of being battery efficient and well-rounded for light to medium tasks remain. It also harbors the same weaknesses including screen freezing every so often.

On the X6a, it’s less frequent, however, both in gaming and everyday operation. It’s possible that the larger built-in storage may play some part in making the phone run a little smoother.

Battery-wise, we have the same above-average 5200mAh capacity. The HONOR X6a is also able to last a little over a day which is good news for power users. But charging times are faster with the X6a thanks to support for 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge.

Final thoughts

The budget smartphone space is always interesting because of the different mix of features available. HONOR continues to make its phones stand out and more importantly, of good value thanks to adding features like large storage, fast refresh rates, and high-quality cameras while keeping the price tags within reach.

The HONOR X5 Plus is now available for PhP 5,490. It’s available in two colorways, Midnight Black and Cyan Lake, and in a single 4GB+64GB configuration. The HONOR X6a on the other hand comes in Sky Silver and Midnight Black with a single configuration of 4GB+128GB. It’s currently priced at PhP 6,990.

Both devices are now available in-store and through HONOR’s official e-commerce stores on Shopee and Lazada.

 

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realme C55 review: Redefining the C Series

04/21/2023

realme Philippines just introduced the realme C55 smartphone in the Philippines. It’s a midrange phone with a sub-PhP8K price tag but offers an array of features and capable performance. It also sports the new Mini Capsule similar to the Dynamic Island found on Apple’s iPhones.

With that affordable pricing, can it really deliver on its promises? We find out.

Unboxing

Let’s begin with the box. Not much has changed when it comes to packaging and you still get an all-yellow box and once you open it, you’ll be greeted and welcomed to the realme family.

Lifting and opening this smaller box reveals the usual manuals and guides in addition to its included jelly case if you want to add some sort of protection to your device.

What’s left in the box is the realme C55 unit and digging deeper will introduce you to the power brick and USB-C cable that supports SuperVOOC charging. More on that later.

Design

For the device itself, the realme C55 has a sleek and modern design with a well-designed back that’s available in two colors – Sunshower and Rainy Night. Even though the back panel is made of plastic, it still exudes that premium look and feel thanks to its rounded edges.

What we have here is the Rainy Night color and just like its name suggests, the back has these textures and patterns that look like showers of light rain pouring at certain angles. Looking at it could get trippy.

The phone feels comfortable in the hand, and the buttons are well-placed and easy to reach. All the buttons are on the right side with the volume rocker sitting above the power/lock button that also doubles as a fingerprint scanner. There have been a few fingerprint misreadings during our time but overall, it has been quick and responsive and had no major issues.

The left side houses its dual SIM tray and microSD slot for storage expansion. Meanwhile, at the bottom, you have an audio jack for wired headphones, its USB 2.0 Type-C port, and a speaker grille.

As for the rest of its back panel, there are two prominent camera sensors at the back namely a 64-megapixel main and a secondary 2-megapixel depth sensor. We’ll expound on the optics later on.

Display and multimedia

In terms of display, this phone comes with a 6.72-inch FHD+ IPS display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels. The display is bright and vibrant, and the colors are accurate. There’s a bit of chin at the bottom but the rest of the bezels are pretty thin but still a bit noticeable.

The realme C55 also features a 90Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling and navigating through the UI feel smooth and fluid. I always turn set my phone’s refresh rate to the highest since scrolling just looks very fluid even though it depletes the battery faster. That’s what its fast-charging tech is there for, at least for me.

Using it when watching videos on YouTube or streaming TV shows and movies on Netflix, its large display makes for easy viewing. Although I would appreciate it better if it had stereo speakers rather than just one bottom-firing grille. But of course, that would bump up the price.

Camera

As mentioned earlier, the realme C55 has a dual camera setup on the back, which includes a 64-megapixel main camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Having the same main sensor as the realme GT Edition, the camera performance is impressive for its price point, with good color accuracy and detail in well-lit conditions.

Photos have a generally cool tone to them and dynamic range is actually good as it preserves details both in the dark and light areas for each shot even with HDR turned off.

One of the things I noticed, though, is that it sometimes struggles in focusing when taking photos of subjects up close. Usually, this is where a macro feature would come in handy, but that’s not present in this phone. Night Mode also works well and is able to get needed light into its sensor for a clear image at the expense of holding still for about 3 seconds on average.

Something that I missed shooting with a realme phone is its Street Mode which automatically applies Kodak-approved filters to produce more of those street-style vibe photos. But, this is the entry-level C series, after all, so we’re not complaining.

Video recording maxes out at 1080p at 60fps which is good enough for shooting reels. But since this phone isn’t meant to specialize in videos, we don’t have any complaints.

The phone also features an 8MP front-facing camera, which takes decent selfies. One of my observations, though, is that its night mode has the same long shutter approach so it wasn’t the best thing to use in low light with a large group of people unless they’re willing to keep still for about 3 seconds while the selfie camera lets more light into its sensor.

Performance

This midrange phone is powered by a MediaTek Helio G88 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. This is the first time that a model from the C series comes with this RAM and storage combo.

In terms of daily usage, switching between apps is effortless and its realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13 makes navigation intuitive. The phone, in general, can handle your usual social media apps and even video editing software for creating short videos on TikTok or IG Reels, for example.

The phone also features a Mali-G52 GPU, which is capable of handling most games and apps. I did experience some frame drops when playing resource-intensive games like Genshin Impact. It’s quite understandable but I was still able to enjoy playing on the device and lags were not something I experienced on a regular basis.

Special to this phone is realme’s Mini Capsule feature that appears on top of the screen to show useful notifications. As of writing this review, it just displays the battery status that pops up when the battery is running low, charging, or fully charged. It can also alert you of your data usage when you’ve consumed more than 90% of your daily data usage limit.

realme says it will still add more features to the Mini Capsule via downloadable updates in the future.

Battery life

The realme C55 has a 5000mAh battery, which provides impressive battery life. The phone can easily last for a full day on a single charge with moderate usage and we were even able to use the phone as our wireless display for our DJI RSC 2 while shooting our video reviews.

The phone also supports 33W SuperVOOC fast charging, with claims that it can charge the phone from 0 to 100% in about an hour. This proved true during our experience and even just charging the phone for 30 minutes already yielded around 50% of battery life from empty.

For context, previous iterations from the C series could only charge up to 18W with their Quick Charging feature.

Price and conclusion

The realme C55 has a starting price in the Philippines of PhP 8,999 for the 6GB and 128GB model while the 8GB and 256GB variant that we have is at PhP 10,999.

Overall, the realme C55 is a solid midrange smartphone that offers good value for money. The phone has a sleek and modern design, a large and vibrant display with a high refresh rate, powerful performance, and a capable camera system.

The phone also has excellent battery life and supports fast charging. So if you’re looking for an affordable smartphone that offers good overall performance, the realme C55 definitely reinvents offerings from the C series and is well worth considering.

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