A year later, the company has now launched its upgraded variant, the Honor 8. Like the previous phone, the new handset also places its place in the upper mid-range segment. This phone will compete with the OnePlus 3 (Review) and Asus Zenfone 3 (ZE553KL).
Currently, OnePlus 3 remains our top recommendation in this price segment. But will Honor 8 be able to change our opinion? Will this phone be able to garner praise with its attractive features and specifications on paper? Know the pros and cons of this phone in our review.
Design and build
Honor has completely changed its design and the new handset looks attractive. This phone reflects the 2016 variant of Samsung’s A series. For beauty, the phone has a metal frame between two curved glass sheets. With this look, Honor 8 gives a completely premium look but the fingerprints on it look very bad. If you are not careful, there is also a fear of the phone slipping from your hand.
The Honor 8 has a 5.2-inch display and thanks to its Full HD resolution, text looks quite sharp. The quality of the display panel on the Honor 8 is good and colours look good. Viewing angles are good and the phone is easy to use in sunlight. You can toggle colour temperature and a blue light filter from the Settings app. The thin borders around the edge of the display make it easy to use the phone with one hand. Weighing 153 grams, it is a lightweight phone.
The buttons on the phone are easy to use. There is also a hidden notification LED in the earpiece grille, an infrared emitter on the top, a USB Type-C port on the bottom and a SIM and a microSD card tray (up to 128 GB) on the left. Although there is a cutout in the SIM slot for a second nano SIM, the phone does not recognize it.
There is a dual camera, laser autofocus sensor and a dual tone LED flash on the rear of the phone. The fingerprint sensor is quite sensitive and it unlocks the phone quickly. Apart from this, the fingerprint sensor can also be used to lock apps, access hidden files, as a gesture to answer a call, take selfies and view the notification shade. Honor has gone a step further and placed the sensor above the physical button, which the company has named Smart Key. Depending on how much you press your finger on it (once, twice and for a long time), you can perform various functions like voice recording, toggling the flashlight, taking a screenshot or launching an app.
The Honor 8 comes in the box with an 18W charger, data cable, SIM projector tool, and an instruction leaflet.
Specifications and Features
Honor has used Huawei’s processor in this smartphone. The Kirin 950 octa-core processor is a useless processor for most popular apps. In the benchmark test, we got good figures from this smartphone. Although these figures are better than any other smartphone with Snapdragon 820 processor. But during actual use it is very difficult to tell the difference between the two phones.
Honor 8 has 4 GB RAM. The phone has 32 GB inbuilt storage. Apart from this, features like dual band Wi-Fi B / G / N / AC, Bluetooth 4.2, USB OTG and NFC are provided for connectivity. FM radio is not provided in this phone, which may be disappointing for some people. Honor 8 supports 4G LTE for FDD and TDD bands. VoLTE support is not available in India right now. But the company says that this feature will be available through software update in future.
The biggest feature of this smartphone is the company’s custom UI on Android Marshmallow. The latest version (4.1) also comes with Android’s Now-on-Tap feature. Apart from this, there are many new customization features. This is a single layer interface that comes with its own icons, settings app and notification shade. The layout of the onscreen buttons can be changed at any time, which is good.
The Link+ section in ‘Wireless & networks’ can help with improvements like better signal, faster network connection when roaming, enabling auto updates, and Wi-Fi+ (automatic switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data).
EMUI also has a number of gesture-based features and the voice control feature can also be accessed by going to ‘Smart Assistance’ in Settings. One can activate single-handed mode for the dial pad or the entire display by swiping right on the navigation bar. Apart from this, if you say ‘where are you’ through voice control, the phone will ring, vibrate and turn on the LED flash light so that you can easily find the phone. Voice control works well and most of the time it was successful in recognizing our commands.
Apart from this, the phone also has a gesture feature called Knuckle Sense, which lets you take screenshots or record the screen by touching the screen with your knuckles or drawing a circle. Tapping the display with your knuckles is fine but we had to apply a lot of pressure to draw a circle, which is quite awkward. Apart from this, there is a floating dock for general tasks which is similar to MIUI’s Quick Ball.
The Honor 8 doesn’t come with a lot of apps preinstalled. But you do get the Google App Suite, Smart Controller, which works well for basic functions with IR appliances.
Performance and Battery Life
Multitasking is very easy on the Honor 8. Popular games like Mortal Kombat X-Werq also run smoothly on the phone. We did not face any heating issues with the phone. However, in our review unit, we did face a problem of the phone getting very hot while using the camera. Honor says that this is an isolated incident as it was a preproduction unit and the retail device will work normally.
The media playback experience is great on this phone, thanks to the display and support for high-resolution video files (including 4K). The stock music and video player has a sleek design and supports DTS audio (headphones only). The mono speaker at the bottom is quite loud but sounds weak when using apps like YouTube. The audio quality from headphones is good but the sound could have been better.
The most special feature of the Honor 8 smartphone that the company is presenting is its dual camera. The dual camera has 12 megapixel color and monochrome sensor. The rear camera has f/2.2 aperture while the 8 megapixel camera comes with aperture f/2.4. Landscape and macro photos come with good detail and colors are also good in natural light. The camera blurs the background well but it can be improved with the wide aperture mode. Apart from this, the blurred background can be adjusted using a slide near the focus. There is a lack of detail in the photos taken in low light but the quality is still decent.
The features provided in the camera app can be easily controlled and one gets used to the camera app very quickly. Pre mode is available for videos and photos. Controls like HDR, Panorama, Slow Motion, Light Painting (Slow Shutter), Time Lapse and Beauty are provided. The recorded video quality is also good. Videos can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 1080 pixels at 60 frames per second. But 4K video recording is not possible from the phone. We liked the quality taken from the front camera, which takes pictures with good detail even in low light.
The Honor 8 has a 3000mAh non-removable battery that supports fast charging. Using the adapter and cable that come with the phone, we were able to charge the battery up to 45 percent in just half an hour. Once the phone is charged, we could easily use it for a full day. In our video loop test, the battery lasted 11 hours and 7 minutes. We found the ROG power saving mode quite useful. When activated, the display comes down to 720 pixels, which reduces battery consumption.
Our verdict
If you’ve read our full review, it’s clear that the Honor 8 is as good a handset as it sounds on paper. The only drawbacks are the lack of VoLTE support (for now), the absence of FM radio, a slippery body, and poor camera performance in low light.
Talking about the price, Rs 29,999 is a bit high as the OnePlus 3 and Asus Zenfone 3 are better phones at a lower price. But like most other smartphones, we expect the price to drop slightly from the launch price.
Overall, the Honor 8 is a fantastic all-rounder in every way. And if you’re looking for something different, it’s a better choice than the OnePlus 3 or the Zenfone 3. It has a powerful processor, useful software tricks, a very good display, capable cameras, and an all-day battery.
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