Divorces can be messy, especially when there is one clear winner.

In the case of Honor moving away from the Huawei umbrella, the ledger is yet to be tallied, but if recent smartphones are anything to go by, Honor appears to be doing just fine after the split.

While the company does not try to highlight it in its marketing, the fact that you have original Huawei DNA without the caveat of no Google Play Services is a great selling point.

Add to that some aggressive pricing and Honor seems primed to duke it out with the other phone vendors that recently entered SA and are trying to carve out niches from themselves.

An example of this is the Honor X8, which is a mid-range device that proves competitive in what is an increasingly competitive market. Much like the recent Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 phones sans 5G that we reviewed on Hypertext, there is a lot to like about this phone.

The only real missing element is the aforementioned 5G, but for those who are not necessarily concerned with this feature just yet, the Honor X8 makes a strong case for independence.

We spent the past couple of weeks with the device to see just how it performs.

Eye catching

Starting with aesthetics and the Honor X8 borrows a trick from Huawei off the bat, with our review model coming in Titanium Silver.

It is an eye catching colourway and it reminds of the Huawei Mate 40 Pro from a couple of years back. The back cover changes depending on how the light hits it, which is why placing a generic plastic cover on it is such a pity, but ultimately necessary to protect the device.

In terms of other notable design elements, the bezels around the 6.7″ (2388×1080) display are supremely slim, with no unsightly black borders are present. There is a central notch to house the 16MP selfie camera. The Honor X8 deftly ticks the boxes in terms of a modern mid-range device.

It is also supremely lightweight in hand, with the 177g body well balanced too. All in all then, Honor has ensured that the aesthetic elements are well taken care of and certainly surpass what you think of when it comes to a R4 999 (RRP) phone.

One oddity

Once you have setup the device and registered a fingerprint for biometric elements, the Magic 4.2 UI, which is layered atop Android 11, is pleasant enough.

In terms of UI’s from Chinese vendors, Oppo’s ColorOS likely shines brightest, but Magic is fine. There is a little bit of app duplication and bloatware to contend with, but in general, the layout is solid, easy to navigate and design language is sound.

We did, however, encounter an oddity regarding some of the benchmarking apps we use when reviewing phones. More specifically GeekBench 5 and 3DMark failed to install, which is peculiar given all the other apps we normally use when testing a phone installed without a problem.

As such, we unfortunately were unable to benchmark the device, so cannot measure its performance against other similarly specced phones or indeed the Honor 50 that we reviewed late last year.

That said we try not to place too much weight in benchmarking for phones and rely more on the actual in-hand experience. On this front the X8 really shines, launching apps quickly and multitasking without sluggishness thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 880 chipset on offer, as well as the 6GB of RAM.

Shifting to battery life and performance on that front, the X8 is fitted with a 4 000mAh battery.

By modern mid-range phone standards that’s a little less than the norm from devices in this price bracket, but the X8 is economical in its power consumption and should last a full day’s use without much problem. There’s also 22.5W SuperCharging on offer should the need arise.

Sharp shooter

Now onto one of the areas that the Honor X8 truly shines – its camera array. Our focus here is on the rear and the quartet of lenses found therein.

This again is a fairly normal orientation, but Honor has been able top squeeze as much quality out of the 64MP primary, 5MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensing lenses on offer.

It is a particularly great all-around shooter and surprised us in terms of its low light performance, which can often be a stumbling black for phones in this price bracket. Outdoor photography is also noteworthy, with the camera app offering a really simple point and shoot functionality that yielded solid pictures most of the time.

You will therefore be happily snapping along without concerns that your phone is up to the task.

Final verdict

In an increasingly competitive mid-range phone space, the Honor X8 is well appointed, serving up solid performance in terms of app multitasking, battery life, display visuals and the camera array.

If we were to critique it, it would be to say that it does not do enough to stand out from that aforementioned crowded space, which is something that 5G support could have done.

That said, if we are comparing the Honor X8 to some of the similarly specced and priced Huawei devices on the market, the support for Google gives it a distinct edge. Add 5G to the mix for future phones and Honor could start to make some real inroads.

Provided 5G is not a element in your buying decision, the Honor X8 is a great looking phone that is well priced and performs as expected.