Honor X50 Review The whole machine is resistant to drops from all angles, providing quality and eye-protection with a curved screen under a thousand yuan

The Honor X50 is a drop-resistant phone with a curved screen under a thousand yuan, offering quality and eye-protection

【phoneauto】A brand of ten years, a series of ten years, there are too many stories, and too many expectations. From the release of Honor 3X in 2013 to the release of Honor X50 in 2023, with twelve generations of products changing, the Honor X series has been running forward while creating its own legend. Over the past ten years, the X series has continuously made breakthroughs in endurance, screen, performance, imaging, design, and other dimensions, constantly exploring the boundaries of its class. The Honor 4X made full network compatibility a standard feature, the Honor 6X popularized dual cameras, the Honor 9X bridged the performance gap, the Honor X10 ignited the 5G storm, and the Honor X40 started the curved screen revolution. This time, what does the Honor X50 bring us?

As the pinnacle of ten years, the Honor X50 brings many breakthroughs in industry quality standards, further enhancing the quality label of the X series, and deeply popularizing the concept of inclusive technology, which can be said to redefine the concept of the thousand-yuan bucket machine and reconstruct the experience of a thousand-yuan phone.

This time, the biggest surprise that the Honor X50 brings me is its extreme anti-drop performance, achieving a ten-sided anti-drop effect on both sides, four edges, and four corners of the entire device, which means it can withstand daily falling scenarios. The Honor X50 pioneers the Taiji shock absorption architecture, innovatively borrowing from the technical principles of hydraulic engineering, and pioneering the dual innovations of “three dimensions and one body” process and materials.

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The first layer starts from the “point” and innovatively reinforces the shock-absorbing material at the narrow gap position of the screen receiver, constructing a screen protection system; the second layer reinforces the screen all around, absorbing impact force through its own deformation during the phone’s fall; the third layer fully fills the internal gap, firmly fixing all small components inside. In addition, the Honor X50 also pioneers the patent-level low modulus shock-absorbing material, controlling the internal gap at the micron level. As a result, it can absorb 1.2 times the impact force at most during a fall, achieving a soft landing, which makes the Honor X50 possibly the most drop-resistant phone in the industry.

After the release of the Honor X50, it seems that Ming Ge’s phone dropping at press conferences has become a common occurrence. This shows Honor’s confidence in their technology. At the same time, the Honor X50 is also the world’s first product to receive the Swiss SGS five-star drop resistance certification, which extends the lifespan of the phone from a physical level. The Honor X50 can handle various falling scenarios encountered in daily life with ease.

In daily life, I have seen many people still using phones with cracked screens. If the phone’s drop resistance is further improved, it can better handle unexpected falls in life, whether it’s a delivery person rushing by or a child dropping the phone. It enables the phone itself and the user experience to have a soft landing. From an experiential perspective, instead of adding some fancy features, it is better to focus on improving drop resistance, making it a timely help. When Honor popularizes drop resistance technology across its product line, it will also receive a wave of positive reviews from users.

The Honor X40 from last year left a deep impression on me. Its slim body and 5100mAh large battery allowed it to have both a good feel and long battery life. Before the release of the Honor X50, there were leaks suggesting that its battery capacity would reach 5800mAh. Frankly, I didn’t really believe it. However, when I got the actual device, I realized I was wrong. It indeed has a capacity of 5800mAh, and the body size has been well controlled, continuing the advantages of being slim and having long battery life.

From the data, the thickness of the Honor X50 body is 7.98mm, successfully controlled within 8mm. The weight of the Honor X50 is 185g, although it is slightly heavier than the previous generation’s 172g, it is not a disadvantage in the face of the increased 700mAh battery capacity, but rather provides a stronger sense of security. This feeling reminds me of the Honor Magic 5, which was well received in the consumer market for its 5100mAh battery and slim design. I believe the Honor X50 will also bring surprises this time.

Regarding the Honor X50’s large battery, I have also conducted a simple test for everyone. After 30 minutes of high frame rate “King of Glory” gameplay, the battery consumption is 6%; after 30 minutes of TikTok usage, the battery consumption is 2%; after 30 minutes of Weibo video playback, the battery consumption is 5%; after 30 minutes of video playback, the battery consumption is 4%. Overall, the performance is good. As for fast charging, the Honor X50 brings 35W super fast charging this time. According to the test, it can charge 16% in 10 minutes, 39% in 30 minutes, and fully charge in 97 minutes. Moreover, even after 1000 charge-discharge cycles, the battery can still maintain over 80% of its health. Honor promises that during the first sale period of the Honor X50 from July 14th to July 31st, 2023, if you purchase and activate the Honor X50 from any official authorized channel in mainland China, you can enjoy a two-year Honor PowerBank entitlement. That is, within the validity period of the service, if the actual battery capacity is less than 80% as tested by the Honor authorized service center, you can get a free replacement of the original battery, only replacement without repair!

Same as the previous generation, the Honor X50 still adopts the design of a full moon ring. It has made some adjustments in the details. The “MATRIX AI VISION CAMERA” is still prominently placed in the center, and the camera and flash are placed on the outer ring. The main camera position has been moved from the right side of the previous generation to the left side, and the pixel count has been upgraded from 50 million to 100 million. The ring has also become wider, making it look more coordinated. On the edge of the ring, the Honor X50 also has a special design with a scale texture, which further enhances the design aesthetics. From a horizontal perspective, it has a similar design concept to the Parisian nail design on the Huawei Mate 50 series.

The front of the body, the Honor X50 is equipped with a 1.5K ultra-clear eye-protecting curved screen, supporting 1.07 billion colors, a 120Hz screen refresh rate, and a local peak brightness of 1200nit and a global peak brightness of 1000nit. For products in this price range, it is basically a top-level screen standard. On this basis, Honor also brings unique sleep aid display technology, which matches the variation of screen color temperature with the secretion rhythm of human melatonin, avoiding interfering with the normal secretion of melatonin at night, effectively promoting a 20% increase in melatonin and ensuring sleep quality. Of course, the 1920Hz high-frequency PWM dimming is also an important part of the eye protection ability of the Honor X50. It can better protect the user’s eyes in low-light environments. For users who are using their phones for longer and longer periods of time, this is undoubtedly very helpful.

From the front view, the Honor X50 gives people the impression of a flagship machine worth several thousand yuan. It no longer has the typical large black chin of a thousand-yuan machine, nor does it have thick bezels. With this high-quality curved screen and narrow bezels, the Honor X50 easily attracts consumers’ attention. When you start to notice it and then pick it up and use it, you will be attracted by its thinness and weight. This progressive attraction is hard to resist.

In terms of imaging, the Honor X50 is equipped with a 100 million pixel imaging system. The main camera has a 1/1.67-inch sensor and an f/1.75 large aperture, bringing an excellent shooting experience. Let’s take a look at a set of sample images below.

It is worth mentioning that, based on the 100 million pixel main camera, the Honor X50 also brings 3X optical quality zoom, which can help us take some telephoto photos. It can be enlarged up to 8X, and the picture quality is still usable, which is indeed surprising.

Honor X50 3X sample

Honor X50 8X sample

The Honor X50 can be said to have achieved a significant performance improvement. The previous two generations of products have been criticized for using the Snapdragon 695. This generation of products directly debuts with the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, bringing better performance. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 adopts a 4nm process, with a 40% increase in CPU performance and a 35% increase in GPU performance. With the help of the Turbo X system engine, the performance can be better utilized. At the same time, the Honor X50 also brings the first 16GB large memory in the same category, allowing better multitasking, background activity retention, and app startup performance.

We have tested the gaming frame rate performance of the Honor X50 for you. The average frame rate of “Honor of Kings” can reach 60 frames, and the frame rate remains stable throughout the game. Even in some 5v5 team battle scenes that require high performance, it can handle it well, and the body does not get hot after a game.

It is worth mentioning that the Honor X50 also has a version with 16GB+512GB of large memory. This means that the phone’s multitasking processing capability and background app retention rate will be greatly improved, and the large storage can cache more videos and photos, which is very friendly for users who like to cache short videos or TV dramas. The experience of having a large dual storage makes daily use smoother and more fluid for users.

Recently, the updated control center and notification center of the latest MagicOS 7.1 have become popular designs among many netizens. Many flagship products have not yet received the update, but the Honor X50 can experience the new system right away, which is indeed very attractive for users. I won’t go into detail about the functions this time, but I will talk about the new capabilities of the new system, which I believe will impress everyone.

The Honor X50 is equipped with the latest MagicOS 7.1.1. The new status bar separates the control center and the notification center. Sliding down on the left side brings up the notification center, while sliding down on the right side brings up the control center. You can try it out when you get your hands on it. The left modules of the new control center are WLAN and Bluetooth, and the right modules are YOYO suggestions, which recommend functions such as screenshot and mobile data based on usage habits. The bottom part includes a brightness bar and volume adjustment, and on the left side is the music playback control module. Below that is the quick switch bar, and at the very bottom is the smart interconnection module, where you can connect to tablets, PCs, and other devices.

Another feature is mask face unlock, which is first introduced in the Honor X50. After registering your face normally, you can use the mask face unlock function. Currently, there is no separate switch for this feature, but a switch for mask unlock will be added in the future. Although fingerprint unlock is already very convenient, using it together with mask unlock will provide a better experience. Of course, if this capability had been introduced in the past two years, it would have attracted even more attention.

As the pinnacle of the Honor X series after ten years, the Honor X50 can be said to be full of sincerity. Its excellent anti-drop features provide a sense of security for all users, ensuring the safety of daily use. The outstanding screen quality, 5800mAh large battery, and the first launch of Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 along with MagicOS 7.1.1 guarantee the user’s software and hardware experience, breaking the traditional impression of budget phones and redefining the concept of budget phones. With the launch of the Honor X50, I believe the budget phone market will undergo a new round of reshuffling.

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