XOLO 8x-1000 review – Octa Core running Hive

The XOLO 8x-1000 is another octa core powered handset but what makes it different is the XOLO’s custom made UI called the Hive. The 8x-1000 is priced at approx Rs. 12,900 but you can get it for under Rs. 12,000.

Box Pack
Inside the box you will find the handset, warranty card / user guide, screen guard, SIM / Micro SD tray ejector pin, travel charger, data cable and earphone with extra plug caps.

Design and Display
The XOLO 8x-1000 come packed with a unique design. The sides with matte finish are slightly angled inside (check video / images). The back panel houses a glass layer that is scratch resistant (to some extent). The back glass conceals the camera and the flash, overall giving a very premium look to the handset.

Weight with battery is 150 grams and dimensions are 70.07mm x 139.99mm x 7.77mm.

Handset feels tough, build quality and finishing is very good. Power button and volume rockers are on the right side. Speaker vents are at the bottom, there are two vents but there is only one speaker. 3.5mm audio jack and micro USB port are placed on the top.

This is a dual SIM handset and the dual SIM tray is located on the left side – you need 2 micro SIM’s. The micro SD card tray is located on the right side.

The handset sports a 5 inch screen and supporting 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. Aashi dragon glass is on the front and gorilla glass 3 on the rear. Touch is smooth and responsive and viewing angle are good.

There are 3 sensors light, proximity and accelerometer. There is LED notification too.

OS, Memory and Storage
This handset sails on Android KitKat 4.4.2 with Hive User Interface. Hive is XOLO’s in house development (made in India). It gives you a completely different android experience.

There is 2GB RAM and 16GB storage plus micro SD card support. On the first boot you will get about 896MB of RAM free. Of the 16GB storage 3.94GB is allocated for apps and 9.45GB is the internal storage space. Apps can be installed on external storage. OTG is not supported.

Performance
The XOLO 8x-1000 is using the 1.4GHz MT6592 MediaTek octa core processor with Mali 450 MP GPU. Performance is lag free and handset does heat up a bit which is normal.

Benchmark scores

Camera and Entertainment
This 8x-1000 handset can play FHD videos. Rear camera is 8MP and front camera is 2MP resolution. The camera quality is very good. Check the sample images and videos at the end of this review. Rear camera can shoot 1080p videos.

Gaming
Asphalt 8 and MC5 got installed on the external storage. Asphalt 8 is playable in high visual mode but not very smooth. It worked best in low visual mode. There were no issues with MC5 (Modern Combat 5).

Hive OS
As mentioned the Hive interface is unique and gives a different android experience. When you tap the menu button you will get the apps listed alphabetically, you can change to pre-installed listing and get it category wise.

The Hive consist of 4 core apps Edge, Secure, Power and Connect. The Edge provides access to ringtones, wallpapers and themes – users can download, comment on it and even share it with their friends.

The Secure app helps protect your smartphone, it comes with lot of options like locking the phone in case you misplace it, factory reset lock (only you can factory reset the phone), SIM change notification and a very interesting feature called secret picture – the phone will use the front camera and snap the image of the person when unlock attempts fails (you will get the image via email). You need to register 2 mobile numbers and your gmail id.

The Power is the battery saving option, you can select from the available modes, that includes low battery mode.

The Connect option is to collaborate, get software updates, connect with Hive team and service centres.

There is chameleon widget that changes colour based on the wallpaper you have used (check video review).

Others
The incall / Speaker sound is loud and clear. No issues with 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth.

Battery
There is non-removable battery of 1920mAh capacity. Here are the test results.

For moderate to heavy usage you can expect battery backup of up to 3 to 4 hours.

Verdict
The key attraction on the XOLO 8x-1000 is the Hive OS. It is octa core running Android with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. The camera quality is also very good. Battery backup is average. For the price of under Rs. 12,000 this is a good option.

XOLO 8x-1000 is priced at Rs. 11,166.

XOLO 8X-1000 image gallery

Sample Images Front Camera