Honor 8X Tips & Tricks

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor is known for its aggressively priced mid-tier segment smartphones, particularly with its ‘X’ branding smartphone line-up. Honor has launched its successor of the 7X — the Honor 8X with a 6.5-inch Full HD+ display that offers a screen-body-ratio 91%. It is powered by a Kirin 710 octa-core processor paired with 4/6GB of RAM and 64/128GB of storage. The Honor 8X also comes with dual cameras on the rear comprising of a 20MP and a 2MP primary and secondary sensors. On the front, the 8X features a 16MP selfie camera. The cameras on the Honor 8X are AI-powered with various AI features that include auto scene detection as well. In terms of software, the Honor 8X ships with Android 8.1.0 Oreo out-of-the-box.

However, it features EMUI running on top of it. We have tested the EMUI and here are some of the tips & tricks you can implement on your Honor 8X device –

Mirror Share

Similar to Chromecast, the Honor 8X users can cast their screens to their Smart TVs using built-in Mirror Share feature. The screen sharing is possible with those TVs that support Miracast.

Needless to say, users need to be on the same Wi-Fi as on the TV and the Honor 8X device. This feature can be enabled via Settings – Device Connection – Mirror Share on the Honor 8X device.

App Twin

App Twin enables you to have two different accounts logged in with the same app. This means you can use two different WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger accounts on the Honor 8X device.

This comes in handy to those who use different numbers & apps for personal and work accounts respectively. App twin, when enabled via Settings creates two apps on the home screen wherein you can enter your multiple login credentials.

Smart Screen Resolution & App Launch

Despite the conventional power saving mode & ultra power saving mode on the Honor 8x, the device also lets you adjust the screen resolution as well. The device features HD+ & FHD+ resolutions; however, if you enable the Smart Resolution, it automatically adjusts the screen resolution to save power drain.

App launch feature allows you to pick and identify specific apps and restrict their auto-launch (and also turn-off background running) as part of the Honor 8X power saving measures.

Color Modes & Eye Comfort

The Honor 8X features different color modes of the screen that lets you toggle them as per your taste. It features normal mode and vivid color modes; additionally, you can make your screen look more warmer or cooler as well. And, the Eye Comfort works similar to the color modes, the only difference it is pretty useful in the darker environments or in the night.

When enabled, it eliminates the blue light emission of the screen and makes the screen to look warmer and easily usable with less strain on your eyes in the low-lighting conditions.

Hiding Notch or Using full-screen display

Its been a year or more since the notch display phones have been the standard on pretty much every major brand phones in the industry, and the Honor 8X has one as well. If you’re still reluctant to face the notch, the 8X allows you to hide it as well, which can be enabled in the settings.

Likewise, if you are used to the notch, then you have another feature on the Honor 8X too, you can allow specific apps to use the full-screen display as well. Both these features can be toggled on/off in the display settings of the Honor 8X device.

Navigation Gestures

The Honor 8X comes with multiple navigation bar gestures that let you interact with the device more swiftly. Heading into System Settings on the Honor 8X, you can find three new navigation gestures along with the conventional navigation bar icons.

The three navigation gestures – single-key navigation, Navigation dock, and the standard gestures let you experience more screen real estate with intuitive navigation gestures filled with swipes around the user-interface of the Honor 8X device.

Fingerprint Gestures

The fingerprint scanner on the Honor 8X isn’t just for authentication any more, for instance, you can click photos using the sensor which can be pretty useful for selfie enthusiasts as it is quite a big phone to hold in hand and take a perfect selfie. After clicking, the fingerprint scanner also helps you scroll images in the gallery as well. Swiping left or light in the gallery scrolls the photos accordingly.

In addition to that, you can pull down the notification panel on this bigger display by swiping down the fingerprint scanner, which helps in one-hand usage or users with smaller hands. Moreover, it also allows you to stop the alarm or take a call by holding the fingerprint sensor. Any finger can be used to use these Gestures not necessarily the registered fingerprint for authentication.

App Lock & File Safe

Similar to all the Honor devices running EMUI, the Honor 8X also features App Lock feature. As the name suggests, it allows you to lock the apps with a secured PIN. These can be useful in securing your banking or wallet apps.

As for the security features, the Honor 8X also allows you to save & encrypt your photos, videos, music, and files in its File Safe vault with encryption and as well secured PIN as well. While App Lock is limited to apps, this FileSafe is more handy to control your privacy on the Honor 8X device.

Split-Screen Multitasking

While this feature isn’t new to Android or the Honor for that matter, it’s probably still the most used feature on any smartphone. As the name suggests, apps can be set to multitasking mode by utilizing the large 6.5-inch display on the 8X.

This can only be enabled through the multitasking pane, and you can pin the required apps accordingly. For instance, you can binge-watch Youtube and scroll through Twitter or text simultaneously.

Phone Clone

Phone Clone app is the phone management app that needs to be downloaded from the Google Play store manually. Once installed, the Huawei’s Phone Clone app allows you to have a smoother transition from the older Honor device to a newer Honor device.

By this feature, users can transfer their contacts, photos, calendar events and more from an older phone to newer phone without any hassle.

AI Camera features

The Honor 8X smartphone sports dual AI-powered cameras on the rear. It also features AI mode, when enabled helps you recognize scenes or objects in the frame an enhances the photo accordingly. It also features Night mode that lets you take multiple shots and stitches them together to get a better sharper photograph.

There’s aperture mode as well that lets users manually set the aperture to take in more light in a frame. The other conventional portrait modes are also available in the camera UI of the Honor 8X. The additional modes apart from them include – a PRO mode, Slow-mo mode, panorama, HDR, Time-lapse, etc.

AR Shopping

Paired with Amazon Assistant the AR Shopping mode allows you to scan any products or any barcodes for that matter, which can be further viewed on the Amazon app. The AR shopping mode is present in the camera interface on the Honor 8x.

There’s another feature related to the AR shopping experience, in which, users need to hold two fingers on the screen on any product photo on the screen. The HiTouch feature will then scan & identify the products displayed on the screen by utilizing the Amazon Assistant.

Regardless of these top useful tips & tricks on the Honor 8X, it also features a bunch of other notable features as well.

For instance, Wallpapers on the Home Screen can be set to random for a time frame, which then automatically changes the background wallpaper from within the EMUI’s collection of wallpapers.

Home screen app drawer can also be customized as per your preferences, which means either you can have a drawer of apps or you can use the array of apps stacked on the home screen. Another useful feature would be schedule power on/off feature, which lets you set a time to switch off and on the Honor 8X device.

Last but not least, the device also has a safety feature called Ride mode, which when enabled lets you get rid of notifications while driving and offers only minimal functionality.

Want to know more about the Honor 8X smartphone? You can head over to our full review of the 8X here.