There is tremendous competition in the price segment of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. In this price range, you will find popular smartphones like Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1, Nokia 5.1 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro and Realme 1. Does Honor 8C give a strong challenge to these handsets? Let’s find out…
Honor 8C Design
Contents
The body of Honor 8C is made of plastic. The build quality is satisfactory. But it does not feel as premium as the glass and metal body handsets of this price segment. If seen, the older Honor 7C also came with a metal backplate.
There is a bit of difficulty in using this phone with one hand. The notch-equipped display is not really borderless. It has a very wide chin. There is an option to hide the notch in the settings menu. In this feature, the area around the notch becomes black. If you want, you can choose between the on-screen buttons and the EMUI gestures, which we had difficulty using.
Fingerprints are easily visible on the glossy plastic back. The phone also slips easily in the hands. There is a soft cover in the retail box. Its quality is not very good, but the phone gets protection from scratches and the grip is also good. A 10 watt charger is also provided in the retail box and there is also a micro-USB cable. A headset is not provided, which may disappoint some users.
The cameras are placed in vertical position on the rear panel. The fingerprint sensor is placed in the middle of the device. Honor has tried to copy the gradient color back panel of its own Honor 10 in this phone, but it has not been completely successful. We did not like the black and blue gradient very much in the phone we got for review.
The SIM tray is on the left side of the smartphone. It has separate slots for two nano SIMs and a microSD card. The power button and volume rocker are on the right side of the phone. The buttons are small, but the response is good. At the bottom is the micro-USB port, primary microphone and speaker, which is small but produces loud sound. The secondary microphone and 3.5mm headphone jack are placed on the top. In the era of USB Type-C port, it is disappointing to see the micro-USB port.
Honor 8C Specifications and Display
Honor 8C uses Qualcomm’s new 14nm Snapdragon 632 processor. We have reviewed the variant with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage which is priced at Rs 12,999. A cheaper variant with 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage will also be available in the market. Its price will be Rs 11,999. Both variants will support microSD cards up to 256 GB.
The smartphone has a 4,000mAh battery. It will run on EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. Connectivity features include Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, GLONASS, Micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack.
The phone has a 6.26-inch HD+ (720×1520 pixels) TFT IPS LCD display. The aspect ratio is 19:9. The display is not commendable. Viewing angles are decent. Colors are punchy. Brightness level is not enough. Text and images do not look sharp due to HD+ resolution.
Honor 8C performance, software and battery life
Performance is decent. The smartphone handles well in normal use. But it starts lagging in heavy tasks. We also felt some lag while navigating the UI. This problem was also seen while scrolling heavy websites on Chrome. Honor 8C is the world’s first smartphone to be powered by Snapdragon 632 processor. It is not clear whether the lack of performance is due to the processor or Honor’s optimization has fallen short.
There were complaints of frame rate drop while playing Asphalt 9 and PUBG games. But we were able to play the games.
Face recognition works quickly. The feature worked quickly when there was enough light, but you would need to hold your smartphone right in front of your face. In low light, the phone increases the screen brightness to make it easier to scan faces. This feature works to some extent. We also found the fingerprint sensor to be fast and accurate.
The Honor 8C runs on EMUI 8.2 custom ROM based on Android 8.1 Oreo. EMUI is a feature-rich custom ROM, but it feels very cluttered and many unwanted apps are also part of the UI. There is an odd mix of Google’s own apps and Honor’s default apps. For example, there is Chrome browser and Android’s default messaging app, along with Honor’s custom version of the dialer, file manager and gallery. Facebook, Messenger, Netflix and Camera 360 are preinstalled. Apart from this, company’s apps like HiCare, Huawei Health, Themes, Honor Store and Honor Club are also preinstalled. The good thing is that EMUI also has a one-handed mode.
In our HD video loop test, the Honor 8C’s battery lasted 14 hours and 30 minutes. These figures are excellent. Performance is solid even in normal use. The battery will easily last you a full day. EMUI has several power saving features. One of these features reduces the screen resolution further when the battery is low. The smartphone does not support quick charging. The 10-watt charger provided in the retail box takes about two and a half hours to fully charge the phone.
Honor 8C cameras
Honor 8C has a 13-megapixel primary rear camera with F/1.8 aperture. In tandem with this, a 2-megapixel depth sensor with F/2.4 aperture works. On the front panel, an 8-megapixel camera with F/2.0 aperture has been provided. Both camera setups come with a single LED flash.
The iOS-inspired camera app has a lot of useful features. There is also a Pro mode in which users can control ISO, exposure, shutter speed and white balance. The smartphone can identify the selected subject or scene being shot and then optimize the image settings. Currently, the smartphone can detect 22 different types of objects and 500 scenes. We did not like the AI enhancement. When shooting in AI mode, the photos came out overly sharp and the colours were too saturated. With AI turned off, the colours were more natural and the details were also present in the photos taken in adequate light. In the wide aperture mode, you can take photos with depth of field effect. These photos came out slightly better than average. However, the image quality was slightly weaker than other phones in this price range.
When there is not enough light, the photos taken with this phone turned out dark and murky. Sometimes the autofocus also had problems. With the help of AI enhancements, the app is able to capture a little more light. But the problem of lack of detail and noise in the photos persists.
Tap to see full-size Honor 8C camera samples
The front camera is also decent. In our experience, most of the photos came out soft and overexposed. The performance was also very poor in low light. The front flash helps to some extent. But the photos lack details. The colors are not accurate and the photos seem overly sharp. Beauty mode is also available for the front and rear cameras. But the photos look artificial. There is also support for AR stickers. You will be able to record videos of up to 720 pixels with the front camera and 1080 pixels with the rear camera. Our test videos lacked details and the videos were also shaky due to the lack of any stabilization.
Our verdict
The Honor 8C is nothing that can challenge the likes of the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 and the Nokia 5.1 Plus. Honor has tried to make an all-rounder device, but this phone doesn’t excel in any one department.
The phone neither looks nor feels premium. Low light performance is disappointing. General performance is decent and the user interface is cluttered. Battery life is solid. You get a dedicated microSD card slot and the fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate. Brands like Xiaomi, Nokia, Asus and Realme have raised the bar in the budget smartphone segment. Honor needs to do a lot more to come on top.
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