There is tremendous competition in the price segment of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. In this price range you Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1, Nokia 5.1 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro And realme 1 Like popular smartphones will be available. What Honor 8C What makes these handsets a strong challenger? Let us know…
Honor 8C design
The body of Honor 8C is plastic. The build quality is satisfactory. But it does not feel as premium as the glass and metal body handsets of this price segment. looks old Honor 7C Also came with metal blackplate.
There is definitely some difficulty in using this phone with one hand. The notch-equipped display isn’t actually borderless. It has a very wide chin. There is an option to hide the notch in the settings menu. In this feature, the area next to the notch actually becomes black. If you want, you can choose between on-screen buttons and EMUI gestures, which we found difficult to use.
Fingerprints easily appear on the glossy plastic back. The phone also slips easily in the hands. A soft cover is present in the retail box. Its quality is not very great, but the phone gets protection from scratches and the grip is also good. A 10-watt charger and a micro-USB cable are also provided in the retail box. A headset is not available, which may be disappointing for some users.
Cameras are provided in vertical position on the rear panel. The fingerprint sensor is in the center of the device. Honor has tried to copy the gradient color backpanel of its own Honor 10 in this phone, but it has not been completely successful. We didn’t like the black and blue gradient we received for review.
The SIM tray is on the left side of the smartphone. It has a separate slot 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 great. At the bottom is the micro-USB port, primary microphone and speaker, which is small but produces loud sound. The secondary microphone and 3.5 mm headphone jack have been placed at the top. In the era of USB Type-C ports, it is disappointing to see a Micro-USB port.
Honor 8C specification and display
Qualcomm’s new 14nm Snapdragon 632 processor has been used in Honor 8C. 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 card up to 256 GB.
The smartphone has a 4,000 mAh 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 praise worthy. Viewing angles are decent. Colors come punchy. Brightness level is not sufficient. Text and images do not appear sharp due to the HD+ resolution.
Honor 8C performance, software and battery life
Performance is fine. The smartphone performs well in general use. But starts lagging behind in most of the tasks. We also experienced slight lag while navigating the UI. This problem was also seen while scrolling heavy websites on Chrome. Honor 8C is the world’s first smartphone with Snapdragon 632 processor. It is not clear whether the drop in performance is due to the processor or Honor’s optimization is lacking somewhere.
There was a complaint of frame rate drop while playing Asphalt 9 and PUBG games. But we were able to play the game.
Face recognition works fast. This feature worked quickly when there was enough light, but you have to hold your smartphone right in front of your face. In low light, the phone increases the brightness of the screen, so that it is easier to scan the face. This feature is effective to some extent. We also found the fingerprint sensor to be fast and accurate.
Honor 8C runs on EMUI 8.2 custom ROM based on Android 8.1 Oreo. EMUI is a custom ROM with many features, but it seems very complicated and many unwanted apps are also part of the UI. There’s a strange mix of Google’s own apps and Honor’s default apps. For example, the Chrome browser and Android’s default messaging apps are there, along with Honor’s custom versions of the dialer, file manager, and gallery. Facebook, Messenger, Netflix, and Camera 360 are preinstalled. Apart from this, company apps like HiCare, Huawei Health, Themes, Honor Store and Honor Club have also already got a place. The good thing is that EMUI also has one handed mode.
The Honor 8C’s battery lasted 14 hours and 30 minutes in our HD video loop test. These figures are excellent. Performance is solid even in general use. The battery will easily last you the whole day. EMUI has many power saving features. One of these features further reduces the screen resolution when the battery is low. The smartphone does not support quick charging. The 10 watt charger given 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. Along with this, a 2 megapixel depth sensor with F/2.4 aperture works in Jugalbandi. An 8-megapixel camera with F/2.0 aperture is provided on the front panel. Both camera setups come with a single LED flash.
The iOS-inspired camera app has many 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 didn’t like the AI enhancements. When shot in AI mode, the pictures came out sharper than expected and the colors were also more saturated. With AI turned off, photos taken in bright light had more natural colors and decent detail. In wide aperture mode you can take pictures with depth of field effect. These photos were slightly better than average. However, the image quality was a bit weak compared to other phones in this price range.
When there was not enough light, the pictures taken with this phone came out dark and murky. Sometimes autofocus was also having problems. With the help of AI enhancements, the app is able to capture slightly more light. But the problem of lack of detail and noise in photos persists.
Tap to view Honor 8C camera samples in full size
The front camera is also fine. In our experience, most photos came out soft and overexposed. The performance was very poor even in low light. Front flash proves helpful to some extent. But the pictures lack details. Colors are not accurate and images appear overly sharp. Beauty mode is also available for front and rear cameras. But the pictures look artificial. There is also support for AR stickers. You will be able to record videos of maximum 720 pixels from the front camera and 1080 pixels from the rear camera. Our test videos lacked detail and recorded shaky videos due to no stabilization.
our decision
The Honor 8C is nothing that can challenge smartphones like Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 and Nokia 5.1 Plus. Honor has tried to make an all-round device, but this phone doesn’t excel in any one department.
The phone neither looks nor feels premium. Its performance in low light is disappointing. General performance is decent and the user interface is cluttered. Battery life is good. 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 level of race in the budget smartphone segment. In such a situation, Honor needs to do a lot more to come on top.