honor 8 pro design
Compared to the previous Honor 8, the design of Honor 8 Pro is slightly different. The older variant had a glossy glass rear while the Honor 8 Pro has a metal unibody. This phone is available in Midnight Black and Navy Blue color variants. The smartphone is quite thin and is just 6.79 mm thick and has curved edges. The surprising thing is that despite having a thin body, the phone has a 4000 mAh battery.
On the front, the phone sports a 5.7-inch AMOLED panel with super-slim side borders. The top and bottom of the phone are thick and an Honor logo is given below the screen. Above the screen is an 8-megapixel selfie sensor along with an earpiece and sensors. The phone has a power and volume button on the right side. The power button is easy to reach but you will have to make a little effort to reach the volume buttons. There is a SIM slot on the left side of the Honor 8 Pro. Honor has provided a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom. Apart from this, the loudspeaker and primary microphone are also below. At the top, there is a secondary microphone and an IR ammeter through which home appliances can be controlled.
Talking about the most important feature of Honor 8 Pro, it has two rear cameras and a dual-tone LED flash in the left corner on its rear. Unlike other phones, both the cameras are under glass with the body of the smartphone, meaning there is no bulge of any kind. Due to being under the glass, there will be no scratches on the lens. There is also a fingerprint sensor on the rear and we feel that it would have been more convenient if it was placed a little higher. You have to move your fingers a bit or adjust the device to your hand to reach the fingerprint scanner.
Honor has provided an 18-watt charger and a USB cable with the phone in the box. But the good thing is that the box can be converted into a cardboard-style VR headset. The phone comes with everything you need including a lens.
honor 8 pro specifications
Attractive specifications have been given in Honor 8 Pro. The 5.7-inch display comes with a Quad HD resolution. The density of the screen is 515 pixels per inch. The front panel of the phone is equipped with 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass for protection. The colors on the display are stunning and vivid. Some users may not like the bright color reproduction and there’s no way to reduce it. The user only has the option to change the color temperature as per their preference. Apart from this, there is also a night mode which is claimed to provide relief to the eyes in low light. We enjoyed watching the videos on the display. The single speaker of the phone produces loud sound but we feel that it would have been better to provide stereo speakers at the front.
Huawei has given its Kirin 960 processor in Honor 8 Pro. The phone has an octa-core processor that is equipped with four Cortex A73 cores clocked at 2.3 GHz and four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. Compared to the Snapdragon 835 in the OnePlus 5, it looks a bit old. Honor 8 Pro has 128 GB storage with 6 GB RAM. Storage can be increased through microSD card. The phone has a hybrid SIM slot. Up to 100 GB storage remains free in the phone.
The phone supports Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi ac and NFC. The Honor 8 Pro is a dual SIM device that comes with two Nano-SIM slots. The phone has 4G, VoLTE and carrier integration.
Honor 8 Pro software and performance
Honor 8 Pro has the company’s EMUI 5.1 skin which is slightly newer than the skin of Honor 8 Lite. The UI is based on Android 7.0 Nougat. And our review unit comes with the June security update pre-installed. With 6GB of RAM, the Honor 8 Pro faced no issues while installing apps and games. Even when switching between apps, we found that they took less time to reload. After a day of use, 3.5 GB RAM was available in the phone at all times, which is fantastic.
Additionally, the phone also has a one-handed mode which makes it easier to use the larger device. With the fingerprint scanner gesture, the notification shade can be pulled down and notifications can also be dismissed. There are a few apps that Honor has pre-installed on the phone but most of them can be uninstalled.
The software also has some battery saving options. There is a power saving mode which reduces background apps and auto-sync is disabled. Additionally, Ultra Power Saving Mode turns off everything except the apps you select. We also saw a screen power saving option, which claims to reduce the display’s resolution to save battery. This option did not work during our experiment as our device always displayed QuadHD resolution.
The phone has a voice control feature that works with a phrase ‘Dear Honor’. If you can’t find the phone, you can loudly ask the device where it is and the phone will respond with a loud tone and the flashlight will also light up. Additionally, you can also use custom commands, but we noticed that most of these didn’t work, making the feature worthless.
We tested Honor 8 Pro on benchmarks. The phone scored well in benchmarking tests but the OnePlus 5, which comes with Snapdragon 835 processor, performed better. The phone lasted for 10 hours and 19 minutes in our HD video loop test and for a full day with normal usage.
honor 8 pro camera
The most important feature of Honor 8 Pro is the dual 12-megapixel rear camera given in it. Unlike the telephoto lens for the second camera in other smartphones, both these sensors have been used for RGB and monochrome. Honor claims that the monochrome sensor will provide better pictures. Honor has provided its own camera app which has many modes. By default, Auto mode is set, while for photos and videos you can take control by using Pro mode. For a black-and-white photo, you can set Monochrome mode to use only the monochrome sensor. We found that the phone got hot while using the camera but it did not get hot while playing games or doing other tasks.
The pictures taken with the phone are very good and the detailing was also better than average. The colors were accurate and we had no problems even when shooting against the light. Macro shots were also good with a good contrast between the subject and the background. In low light, we noticed that the camera sharpens the images, which increases noise and lacks detail. Selfies are good and our camera app makes them more beautiful. By default, the camera app adds a watermark to photos promoting the phone’s name. You can disable it but this option is not found in the Settings menu. We hope that this default will not remain in the units received by customers.
Honor 8 Pro can record 4K video but does not have continuous autofocus. You can switch to 1080 pixels at 30 frames per second or 60 frames per second to enable autofocus. While recording video, we encountered some problems with the viewfinder but it did not affect the results.
our decision
Honor has given the best technology in its Honor 8 Pro smartphone, which is the best as per the industry standards. Kirin 960 is Huawei’s best processor currently but it is inferior to Snapdragon 835 processor. Honor 8 Pro runs on the latest version of EMUI. Compared to the OnePlus 5, you get double the storage and higher screen resolution at a lower price.
The camera performance of the phone is much better and the dual camera function also gives great performance. The monochrome sensor helps and we found the detail in each image to be quite good. Overall, we liked the photos taken with the Honor 8 Pro.
The Honor 8 Pro seems to be a great all-rounder. It may not be a perfect package but it’s not far behind. And it’s definitely less expensive than the Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro and Moto Z2 Play. At Rs 29,999, it is cheaper than the OnePlus 5 and has all the makings of a flagship smartphone.