Honor is Huawei’s “e-brand”, which is aimed at a much younger demographic. We check out their latest phone aimed at the “millennials”.
The options are increasing by the day, and there are plenty of great phones out there, but, the younger generation of customers is still demanding much more. The Honor 8 hopes to cash in on them and this phone certainly does make a strong case for itself. The phone looks very similar to the Huawei P9 and you could easily mistake the two. With the Huawei P9 forming its foundation, the Honor 8 comes with both the good and the bad.
Obviously, those dual-lenses have made a return to the Honor 8, and so does Huawei’s Emotion UI Android skin. It’s also identical in size to the P9, but is just a bit thicker at 7.9mm, and it’s also heavier at 153g. But it’s a good size and it’s very practical. It also looks quite premium thanks to the thin bezels around the display. It also gets a level 4 fingerprint sensor, which is circular rather than the square of the P9, and it’s very easy to use. The scanner has been upgraded with a “Smart Key” function, too, which essentially sees the fingerprint sensor also become an extra button. You can program the button to perform a variety of shortcuts.
What I liked most about the phone though is its battery. It lasts long and the phone uses a USB Type-C port and supports quick-charging, which allows you to charge the battery up to 100% in just an hour. You can find this port alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and speaker on the bottom of the phone. A volume rocker and power button sit on the right edge.
The phone comes with 32GB or 64GB of storage as standard, and can be expanded by up to 256GB through the microSD slot, which is double the Huawei P9’s support. The 5.2-inch display is nice, with a full HD resolution of 1,920×1,080. It’s great for browsing and playing games, or even watching videos. There is also a blue filter mode called “Eye Comfort”, which tweaks the colour temperature to make it less harsh at night.
The Honor 8 uses a Huawei octa-core Kirin 950 processor with i5 co-processor. This is paired with slightly more RAM at 4GB compared to the Huawei P9. For day-to-day use of the phone I encountered zero problems, and not once did the phone slow down or stutter on screens. I also liked the dual-sensor camera that uses Sony’s 12-megapixel IMX286 sensors – one RGB, one monochrome. If you like total control, you can adjust the aperture from f/0.95 to f/16 and use “Pro” photo modes. The pictures come out nice and clean.
Overall, the phone seems to be a very good choice if you want great performance and great storage. Plus, it looks premium and has a great camera. For the price, it certainly is a good choice for the young and highly demanding.
