Honor has only built two cameras into this smartphone—here’s why we still recommend it

With very inexpensive phones, it’s still possible to find just one rear camera and a selfie camera on the front. But with a phone that costs over US$ 460 (for example, at TradingShenzhen starting at US$ 463)—and that’s only because it’s a Chinese import? Nevertheless, Honor can convince us in our in-depth test with this model. 

While we’re not thrilled about the camera’s lack of flexibility and zoom capabilities, the manufacturer has packed the Honor X80 Pro Max with so many other standout features that you might be able to overlook the camera—provided it isn’t the single most important feature for you.

Highlights beyond the camera

The phone actually boasts one of the longest battery lives we’ve ever tested on a smartphone, thanks to its massive 11,000-mAh battery. Yet the phone is neither particularly thick nor heavy, and its understated design gives it an elegant look.

The screen is very bright, has accurate colors, and is responsive, though you’ll have to put up with PWM flicker since it’s an AMOLED panel.

Only a single camera on the back

So the Honor X80 Pro Max has a lot to offer, but let’s take another look at the camera system: It consists of a rear main camera with a 50-megapixel resolution, optical image stabilization, and an f/1.88 aperture. The photos we took with it during our test are quite nice. However, upon closer inspection, some of the details look artificial and heavily edited.

Videos can be recorded at up to 4K at 30 fps, and at lower resolutions, even at 60 fps. We’re quite pleased with the image quality here, and the autofocus performs reasonably reliably.

On the front is an 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture. At first glance, the resulting selfies are quite sharp, but the HDR processing of bright backgrounds looks a bit artificial, and in some cases, they’re overexposed.

A hit despite the camera system

Overall, you probably shouldn’t buy the Honor X80 Pro Max just for its camera system, but there are plenty of other reasons to choose this phone.

You can find all the details and numerous test results in our in-depth review.