Huawei Honor 5x Now Available For Purchase In The US [UPDATE]

At CES 2016 last month, Huawei made an already expected, and actually pre-announced, announcement. For the first time, it was bringing its sub-brand honor to the US. And with that, it unveiled the Honor 5x. No, that's not a Huawei-branded Nexus 5X, though it's easy to confuse the two besides the name. Like the LG-made Google smartphone, the Honor 5x would also be considered to be a mid-range handset. Unlike the Nexus 5X, however, Huawei's honor frontrunner for the US boasts of a metallic flair and a $199 price tag.

Huawei calls the Honor 5x a no-nonsense smartphone and maybe there is some truth to that. Spec-wise, the device is as you would expect, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 616, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of expandable memory, and, a 5.5-inch screen that thankfully has a 1080p resolution. Huawei also boasts of the 13 megapixel main camera from Sony and the 5 megapixel front camera from Samsung.

That's not to say that the Honor 5x doesn't have its fair share of special features. For one, it might be one of the few mid-range devices in the market that can flaunt a full aluminum alloy body. The sides feature a sand-blasted matte texture for a better grip. It also has a fingerprint scanner on the back, a hardware component not yet so common in this tier. And since this is Huawei we're talking about, that fingerprint scanner doubles both as a security guard and gesture-based control center.

Normally, smartphones with those features occupy the $300 or so price range. In fact, the plastic Nexus 5X, with an admittedly more powerful Snapdragon 808 processor, only recently went below $300. The Honor 5x, however, is being sold for $199.99. Available in Gold, Grey, and Silver colors, Honor's first US smartphone is being sold through Amazon, Newegg, and Honor's own website.

UPDATE: Honor has reached out to us to correct a mistake in the early press release. The processor inside the Honor 5x is actually a Qualcomm Snapdragon 616, not a 615. One key difference between the two is the modem, with the 616 sporting a newer X5 LTE modem with Global support. honor also boasts that since the honor 5x went live, it quickly sold out on Amazon, becoming #2 in the unlocked best sellers and hot new releases, while it also joined the ranks of best selling unlocked phones on Newegg.