Gadgetory

the mid-range smartphone market is becoming increasingly crowded with some terrific options but what actually elevates one company's offerings over another when we can cover the basics pretty well for cheap the huawei gxa gives off a terrific first impression but it also forces us to ask some tough questions and recommending it I'm Juan Carlos bag now for pocket nap and we're going to determine who the gx8 is actually for as reviews go it's usually bad form to delve too far into comparisons they should be separate videos but the gx8 faces intense competition not only from other manufacturers but from other devices made by qual way instantly on Twitter we saw a lot of conversation surrounding the war thickness of the gx8 versus phones like the honor 5x and redmi note 3 rather than shy away from that chatter we're going to answer a few of those comments in this review now what features warrant a higher price tag obviously technology like processors screen resolution Ram storage and battery are all points that one might examine to decide which phone to buy against the honor 5x these two phones share quite a bit of the same hardware DNA so what makes the GX 8 worth an extra hundred dollars first the build quality is nicer in the hand than the less expensive huawei the GX eight corners and seams are wonderfully finished compared to the slight defects we found on the honor at arms-length both phones look aesthetically pleasing but up close the GX 8 continues to impress with machining we'd normally associate with a more expensive HTC screen brightness on the 5.5 inch 1080p display lands very close to the outdoor view ability of LG LCDs it's not quite able to compete against AMOLED screens with high brightness and high contrast modes but you will be able to see the screen in sunlight in this market a fingerprint scanner is still a pretty novel piece of hardware to include on a sub $400 phone plain and simple Huawei makes a terrific fingerprint scanner even on mid-range phones this implementation turns on your screen and unlocks your phone faster than any home or power button mounted solution found on other flagships happily the GX 8 does seem to be ever so slightly faster than the less expensive honor 5x in our completely anecdotal testing I'm moving over to software the GX 8 is running android 5.1 with a custom launcher emui is huawei skin and the GX 8 comes with a theme that matches the color of the phone Hardware it's a sharp overall look for the pre-installed apps but installing more software obviously breaks that consistency we've covered this user interface in greater detail on our honor 5x and mate 8 reviews but as a brief overview emui brings an iOS like style to the table there is no app drawer and all apps are installed onto your home screens sure you can organize those apps into folders but mixing app shortcuts and widgets often looks cluttered and can increase the number of swipes it takes to get to the content or shortcut that you want to interact with this aesthetic continues to the notification shade and the lockscreen Quick Menu there are some very welcomed customizations like being able to reorganize the software navigation buttons a la LG and a doc sliding gesture to shrink the screen to a one handed mode motion gestures can mute calls in the screen can be turned on with a quick DoubleTap and I'm a really big fan of using the aforementioned fingerprint scanner to pull and clear my notification shade ultimately though for folks who like the way Android organizes your stuff you'll probably want to install a third-party launcher to bring back your app drawer now there are no surprises in terms of performance the Qualcomm 6-1-6 is a pretty well known chipset and the GX 8 won't play games any better than the honor 5x older simpler titles like Skyforce will be fluid expect some framedrops in games like Riptide gp2 but overall a pretty fluid experience and more aggressive games like marvel future fight will become slideshows on medium graphics settings this chipset on a phone at any price point will be more than capable of tackling the basics there shouldn't be any reservations in using this device for messaging phone calls social media and email sliding through the UI it's a snappy and responsive handset surprisingly the GX 8 seems to handle battery benchmarking better than its lower-cost sibling even though both phones pack 3000 milliamp hour batteries the GX 8 handled our playback test better streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi and medium brightness resulted in 5% battery draw 2 percent better than the honor and one of the better overall performers we run through this test in general this power advantage was reflected in daily uses we'd end each day with a little extra remaining juice than the honor outside of maybe a more power efficient screen we can't really account for this large of a battery difference from one manufacturer but it is a nice little benefit speaker playback on the gx8 is nice enough for a single bottom firing speaker don't let all those extra holes in the bottom of the phone fool you there's only one speaker on the right-hand side there's clear separation in the mid-range for instruments in game audio nicely designed around speakerphone performance it's a subtle bump up from the honor 5x which had a dull and buzzy speaker but obviously falls far behind the stereo speakers on an Alcatel Idol 3 the headphone playback was a bit more difficult to pin down on our review units the gx8 was on average around two decibels quieter than the honor 5x but more subjectively I liked to playback better on the gx8 than I did on the honor the honor had a slightly more aggressive EQ curve with heavier bass and brighter highs it sounds juicier at first but over longer periods of time listening the slightly more even response on the GX eight was my preference electronica and hip-hop had a little less oomph but rock jazz and classical were all better represented in the mid-range the differences here aren't radical though and depending on what headphones you use many folks would be hard-pressed to hear a significant difference taking a second listen to the earbuds which come with the GX eight they're still disappointing mediocre reproduction and they create little to no seal around the ear canal to block noise around you it's a shame they contribute to the overall price of this phone and to my ear there was very little difference in phone call performance from the front speaker and I didn't get any complaints from people on calls so that's good enough for me one area where the GX 8 noticeably outperforms the honor is camera output no way around it folks though both phones have 13 megapixel sensors with F 2.0 apertures the GX 8 with optical image stabilization produces the better images and smoother video the differences in outdoor bright lighting conditions will be difficult to distinguish but moving to shade and then tonight shots the GX 8 extends a significant lead in producing clear bright and sharp photos similar to the rest of the phones UI the app is also organized like the iPhone utilizing a sliding action to move between modes and it lacks the manual controls of more expensive Huawei phones it's not a bad app and we get fun features like HDR and panorama support but this camera is good enough that it would benefit from more manual options so where does that leave us with the huawei GX 8 Huawei has made 2 phones which look really similar on paper and perform similar when covering the smartphone basics it's when we expand to more specific smartphone needs like audio reproduction battery life and camera performance that a number of GX 8 tweaks and improvements add up to a nicer device is it $100 nicer though and that depends on what features you care about most I know for a fact there are people out in our audience who would appreciate the slightly nicer build quality the better camera performance and getting a little extra battery runtime and it's up to those people to decide for themselves how they're going to spend their cash however this phone doesn't exist in a vacuum and it faces intense competition from Xiaomi a sous Alcatel Motorola Oppo and others but it also manages to give mid Ranger's from Samsung LG and HTC are run for their money ultimately it's another point of evidence that this market has gotten more competitive and competition is a good thing for all consumers what are your thoughts on the Huawei GX 8 how do you think it compares to other phones in the lineup and what do you think we'll see in 2016 to take the mid-range up a notch drop us some comments below and hopefully we'll get into some fun debates as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Vaughn Carlos back now you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram is some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next review