Honor 8X: the perfect phone for a last-minute Christmas gift

What makes the perfect phone for a Christmas present? It's brilliant performance and design, so your friend or loved one is truly impressed when they unwrap it.

Even better, most of our budgets don’t stretch to the £900 some phone-makers ask for this kind of “wow” factor.

The Honor 8X has it in spades, and costs just £229. Santa won’t get heart palpitations when he sees in on a Christmas list this year.

Shinier than Christmas decorations

What makes the Honor 8X so special? Sit yourself down, there’s a lot to cover. The phone’s striking Aurora Glass duo tone design is the first thing you'll notice after unwrapping.

This uses 15 layers below the rear glass for a 'visual grating' effect. Turn it around in the light and the Honor 8X’s colour seems to shimmer and shift for the sort of dynamic look you might usually only expect in a phone several times the price. It’s more eye-catching than your favourite Christmas tree bauble.

Every part of the Honor 8X is surprisingly special, from the slim 7.8mm thickness to the FullView display. Honor has slimmed the phone’s border down to just 4.25mm. No space is wasted, and almost the entire front is filled with bright, sharp, colour-saturated screen.

The FullView display’s benefits don’t end at its appearance either. This phone has an enthusiast-grade 6.5-inch screen, perfect for gamers, video streamers and those who like to read books and articles on their phones. However, as the surround is so thin the footprint is not a stretch for hands or pockets.

More power means more fun

Years ago you had to think carefully about whether someone would get on with a large-screen phone, but you can buy someone the Honor 8X knowing they'll be more than able to enjoy the power it brings.

Rivals might struggle to compete with the sheer versatility of this phone. The Kirin 710 and 4GB RAM give the Honor 8X the power to handle some of Android’s more demanding apps and games with ease.

The 64GB storage means you don’t have to worry about running out of storage any time soon, even if you do load the phone up with every Christmas tune under the sun.

If you do somehow manage to use up all the room, you can just slot in a microSD memory card too.

Honor's GPU Turbo feature hones the power of the octa-core processor and GPU to ensure you’ll see smooth frame rates comparable with some of the most expensive phones on the market.

Say “Cheese”

We can’t forget the camera. The Honor 8X has a 20-megapixel rear camera with an ultra-fast f/1.8 lens and second depth sensor for dramatic background blur photos. You can test it with a family portrait shot with just the light of a flaming Christmas pudding and be impressed with the results the Honor 8X brings.

The wide aperture offers great low-light sensitivity, and the Night Shot mode lets you take high-quality photos in the kind of dark conditions that some other equivalent phones leave looking grainy and blurred.

It gets smarter too. The Honor 8X’s AI mode analyses the scene so it always knows the settings you’ll need to get the most striking, detailed results. No filters are required here, your photos will always look their best right after hitting the shutter button.

There’s high-class design and high-end features galore, but the Honor 8X's battery life is very likely to become one your favourite elements. A 3750mAh battery means you can always be sure the Honor 8X will soldier on long after your turkey-stuffed friends and family have started reaching for the charger.