Huawei Honor 5X Hands-on

Huawei is bringing its Honor line to the U.S. with the 5X in 2016. The $199 smartphone offers exceptional build at an impressive price, and comes with the company’s Emotion UI built on top of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The internal specs are not especially noteworthy, but in our short time with the phone, the Honor 5X has performed admirably, on-par with the current best-in-class budget smartphone, the OnePlus X.

We still have to put Huawei’s super budget smartphone through its paces, but the initial impressions are positive. It all starts with the phone’s exquisite aluminum build, a construction that feels far beyond its asking price.

Check out our hands-on photos, and be on the lookout for the full review in the coming weeks!

1 of 16 The Honor 5X is the first of Huawei's low budget series to come to the United States. It features an aluminum build, 5.5-inch 1080P screen and 13 megapixel camera for the off-contract price of $199.

2 of 16 The design shares language with Samsung's latest Galaxy devices, particularly evident with the camera.

3 of 16 There is minimal branding on the phone, just the Honor logo on the bottom. Huawei's own logo doesn't appear anywhere on our review unit of the device.

4 of 16 The buttons sit along the right side (when the screen is facing toward the user), with little to differentiate them other than size.

5 of 16 The camera, like many in recent years, juts out from the aluminum frame. While not the most elegant, it has yet to be an annoyance and doesn't seem to affect the phone's ability to lay flat on a table.

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7 of 16 Like the Nexus 6P, the Honor 5X features a fingerprint scanner on the back. Placement is largely the same, but the shape has been modified. Unlike the 6P, the 5X's scanner is a rounded square.

8 of 16 The front of the device is a minimalistic slab of glass, with the only defining features being the front-facing camera and earpiece.

9 of 16 The front-facing camera comes in at 5 megapixels.

10 of 16 Honor 5X's software is built on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop but is heavily skinned with Huawei's Emotion UI.