Since its inception in 2014, Huawei’s Honor brand has come a very long way in a very short duration of time. Offering smartphones equipped with the most advanced technology, Honor has become a hot favorite among buyers. The company is known for offering smartphones with premium features at affordable prices. Following the same convention, Honor has launched its latest flagship smartphone- Honor 8, in India.
Design
The first thing about Honor 8, that will grab your attention is its striking design. The elegant body of the Honor 8 is made with 2.5D glass on front as well as on the back. The narrow bezels are finished with aluminium alloy and feel smooth to touch and hold.
The front of the phone has a 5.2-inch screen. Above the display, there is a front shooter along with proximity sensor, earpiece and LED notification. Below the display, there is Honor branding. Left edge had SIM card try. Volume rockers and power button are placed on the right edge.
Top edge houses IR blaster.
3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C port and speaker grill are located on the bottom edge.
On the rear, you get dual cameras along with dual LED flash, Laser auto focus, fingerprint scanner and Honor branding. We have the gloss Blue unit with us and its reflective back looks gorgeous. The rear is made with 15 layers of glass and has a pleasing light catching effect. The glass rear does look gorgeous but it is a fingerprint magnet and also feels a bit slippery.
Fingerprint sensor is pretty quick registering fingerprints as well as unlocking the phone. Besides unlocking the phone, it supports Smart Key feature that lets users perform various tasks such as launching an app etc.
Overall design and build quality of the phone are remarkable.
Display
The Honor 8 features a 5.2-inch full HD display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and 423ppi pixel density. The display is bright and vibrant. Colors are great and sharpness is excellent. The viewing angles and sunlight legibility of the screen are also good. We enjoyed watching movies, playing games and browsing websites on this phone.
It comes with an ‘Eye Comfort’ option that helps filter out blue light to relieve visual fatigue. With the Eye Comfort enabled, the screen will have a warm yellowish tint to avoid straining eyes.
There is a colour temperature adjusting feature as well that alters screen’s white balance, making it warmer or cooler.
Camera
Honor 8’s camera need a special mention here. Following the footprints of Honor 6 Plus, the Honor 8 boasts of a dual camera set up on the back. It has bionic 12 mega pixel dual lenses on the rear. One of the lenses captures images in color while the other lens is monochrome that gives more light and sharpness to the images. It supports hybrid auto-focus that enables laser auto focus for short range and precise depth focus for long range and contract focus for enhanced quality images in complex lighting conditions.
It has an inbuilt dual ISP that improves focus speed and process time while capturing images. There is a wide aperture mode, that lets users blur backgrounds from f/0.95 to f/0.16. Users can change the focus of images even after when the image is taken. There are a lot of modes onboard like, Pro mode, Beauty mode, HDR, Night mode and Good Food, among others. On the front, it sports an 8 mega pixel front facing camera that captures stunning selfies.
We captured a few images with the Honor 8 and we are really impressed with the color reproduction, clarity and quality of the images which it has captured. Here are some sample images taken with the Honor 8:
Hardware & Performance
The honor 8 packs an octa-core Kirin 950 (16nm processor) coupled with T880-MP4 GPU. It houses 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory and supports expandable storage up to 128GB via microSD card. On testing the device on AnTuTu benchmarks, we got score of around 86600 points. It handles multitasking and gaming smoothly. We played a few games like Asphalt 8 and Frontline Commando 2, which it handles seamlessly but it got a slightly warm from the rear, which is acceptable considering how demanding both games are. Apps launch quickly and there were no lags or stutters that we noticed during day-to-day usage.
Overall, the Honor 8 is fairly fast and is one the most powerful smartphones you can buy in this price range.
Battery
The Honor 8 is armed with a 3000mAh battery and supports quick charging. It with a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfers. Equipped with 9V/2A fast charging technology , the phone charges from 0 to 47 percent in just 20 minutes. It also offers 2 hours of phone-call time or 6 hours of offline music listening with just 10-minute charge. On a single charge, the Honor 8 easily lasts for a day on moderate usage.
Software
On the software front, the Honor 8 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1 over its top. The interface is smooth and intuitive. It comes preloaded with several apps like Magic Tag and BetaClub. There is no app drawer and all the apps are located on the home screen. It comes features like One Hand UI and Floating Dock. One hand UI feature minimizes the screen view and can be enabled by sliding finger across the navigation bar. The floating dock feature provides easy access to various functions like Back, Home, Recent Tasks and more.
Fingerprint Sensor
The fingerprint sensor is quite fast and accurate in unlocking the phone. Besides, there are some customization options which you can add like sliding down finger on the fingerprint sensor will pull down the notifications panel. You can also swipe your finger right or left on the fingerprint reader to switch yo the next or previous photo, when viewing in full screen mode. There are some touch and hold gestures as well like, touch hand hold the fingerprint sensor to take a photo or video, touch and hold to answer a call and more.
Additional Features
The Honor 8 comes with an IR blaster and supports Smart Control 4.0 technology allowing you to control compatible devices even when you don’t have access to internet.
The phone features double antenna switching technology that helps it select the antenna with strongest signal to ensure that the user’s have the best possible reception. It also supports NFC tag.
Verdict
The Honor 8 has all the ingredients of a high-end flagship smartphone. From camera to hardware and performance, this phone excels in every department. It is a gorgeous looking phone that checks all of the boxes for important features like good display, fast fingerprint sensor, commendable camera, long lasting battery, IR sensor, NFC and more.
