Honor, the budget conscious subsidiary of Huawei, has announced their arrive into the US market in a big way. Their first phone to launch here, the Honor 5X, is a 5.5″ unibody design and is only $199.99 right now at Amazon. The phone will start shipping on January 31st but pre-orders are being taken now. For the price, you get an impressive phone.
To start, the Honor 5X has a 5.5″ 1920 x 1080 Full HD display that is powered by 1.5Ghz Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor. It has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of Storage and can be expanded up to 128GB thanks to a MicroSD card slot. It has a 3000 mAh battery, a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera. Here in the US it will support LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 12 and 17 and WCDMA bands 1,2,4,5 which means that it will work on any carrier here at some level. Be sure to refer to my guide on LTE bands for more details on carriers here in the US and their LTE bands.
Honor 5X – Available January 31, 2016 – Pre-Order for $199.99 from Amazon
Honor 5X Comes With Android Lollipop Installed
If there is one knock on this new phone it is that it will ship with Android Lollipop and not Marshmallow. As I put in my market share post yesterday, I personally don’t like the idea of any new
Honor 5X
phone shipping with last years version of Android. While Huawei has announced that other Honor phones will receive an update to Marshmallow, mum has been the word on the Honor 5X. It would be a real shame to see such a nice phone not see the latest and greatest version of Android and hopefully it will be updated. But, as a buyer, you need to keep this in mind if you are considering a purchase. Lollipop is solid and works very well, but there are some security advantages and other features (like Doze) that make Marshmallow really impressive.
While this phone isn’t going to compete with the Huawei top end devices from a specs perspective, it certainly is a well rounded phone for the mid-market. If you are looking for a solid budget friendly phone, this one should be high on the list to consider.
