Honor 8 review – shoot DSLR style

The Honor 8 has been launched in India. This handset is powered by Kirin 950 octa core processor and packed with 4GB RAM, but the main attraction is the camera. There are dual cameras on the back of 12MP resolution each.

Design and Display

I did not get the box pack, so am going to skip the Unboxing. But just to give you an idea, inside the box you will get the handset, user guide, warranty card, data cable and travel charger.

The Honor 8 is a beautiful handset, light weight at about 150 grams and dimensions are 71.25 x 145.78 x 7.40 (mm). The handset is very comfortable to hold and use. It is using a metal frame with matte finishing with shiny parallel borders. The honor 8 will be available in different color options.

This is a single SIM handset you can use Nano SIM + micro SD card. External micro SD card of up to 128GB is supported. This handset supports 4G LTE without VoLTE (VoLTE is currently missing but will be added via software update) and there is LED notification.  Honor 8 is loaded with Accelerometer, light, proximity, gyro, magnetic, step and hall sensors.

The smartphone sports a 5.2 inch screen supporting 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution – screen is scratch resistant to some extent. Touch response, viewing angles and color reproduction are excellent.

Memory, Storage and OS

The Honor 8 is loaded with 4GB RAM and 32GB ROM. On the first boot you will get around 24GB free space and on an average 1.8GB free RAM.

EMUI 4.1 with Android 6.0 (marshmallow) runs out of the box.

Performance

Inside the hood this smartphone is powered by HiSilicon Kirin 950 2.3GHz octa core processor (64 Bit) cortex A72 coupled with Mali T880 GPU. There is a dedicated co-processor for that manages the camera sensors.

Overall performance is very smooth and lag free. This handset does heat up with heavy usage specially when using the camera but the battery temperature is well under control – max battery temperature I encountered was 43 degrees.

Benchmark

• Quadrant – 33866
• Antutu – 90477 / 89935 | 3D score – 18031 / 17691
• Nenamark 2 – 60.9fps
• Internal storage Speed – Read (150MB/s), Write (67MB/s)
• Multi Touch – 10 Point

Gaming

Hardware is powerful and it played the Asphalt 8 in high quality mode and even the Modern Combat 5 game played really well – check the video review for gaming action.

Camera

As mentioned there is a 12MP RGB camera + 12MP Monochrome camera on the back with dual tone LED flash support. Focusing is fast and accurate. Front camera can shoot in 8MP resolution. Primary camera can record videos in 1080p resolution at 60fps. The Honor 8 in fact can play 4K videos.

Camera quality is awesome, especially when you shoot in wide aperture mode. There are different camera modes available – pro photo, HDR, panorama, food, night shot, light painting etc. Some modes like the light painting make it so easy for anyone to capture professional photos. Low light shots are really great.

When using wide aperture mode you can change the focus / and control the background blurring after the shot has been taken. Do check the sample images and videos.

Others

Sound is loud and clear, quality is also very good. No issues with in-call speaker and 4G network / signal / quality. 4G, WiFi, GPS, NFC and Bluetooth worked well.

Honor 8 comes with rapid 3D finger print sensor on the back. Finger print detection and accuracy is very fast. You can use the finger print module to snap photos, open notifications, answer calls etc. The finger print module also doubles up as a smart key button, you can actually press it. You can program the smart key to work as per your needs.

There are 3 options – button press, button double press  and press and hold – you can assign shortcuts or app. For example I am using double press to open camera app, when phone is in standby mode (screen off), I can double press the button –  phone will unlock and load the camera app instantly.

Finger print sensor can also be used to show notification slide down for next and double touch to clear.

This handset also comes with Infrared port that can be used to remote control your TV, AC, setup box etc, use the smart controller app and select your electronic device model.

Battery

There is a 3000 mAh (2900) battery that does a decent job. You can expect 4 to 5 hours of non-stop moderate to heavy usage on a full charge. You can get an easy over one day of mixed moderate usage.

Honor 8 Battery Performance (time / battery % drop / estimated battery temperature).

• Running Benchmark app – 14 minutes / 5% / 37 degrees
• Asphalt 8 + MC5 game play – 25 minutes / 11% / 42 degrees
• 4K video playback with full brightness (WiFi /4G on) – 24 minutes / 9% / 36 degrees.

It took me 1 hour 56 minutes to charge the handset using wall charger (9V/2A) from 7% to 100%.

Verdict

If you love photography you will love the Honor 8. In general the performance is very good, even for gaming users but when it comes to the camera, the output is mind blowing, looks like taken from a DSLR camera.

Definitely a very good buy

Rating 4 out of 5.

Honor 8 is priced at Rs. 29,999.

Image Gallery

Honor 8 video review

Honor 8 Rear camera sample

Front camera sample

FHD video shot using the Honor 8 handset