Honor eight evaluate: A brand new competitor within the U.S.

Standard software program frustrations, wrapped up in a incredible package deal for $399.

After seeing appreciable progress and model consciousness in Europe, Honor is correctly launching itself within the U.S. Positive it launched its budget-minded Honor 5X earlier this yr … however that was a bit extra of a check run — this, the Honor eight, is the true embodiment of what Honor is able to proper now, and it is launching within the States proper on cue with the launch in China and Europe.

Although Honor’s telephones can cowl a variety of costs, the Honor eight actually hits the present candy spot relating to getting worth on your cash: $399 beginning for an unlocked telephone with virtually all the specs you need in a high-end telephone, wrapped up in hardware that rivals that of the better-known model names on the market. It has a crowd-pleasing measurement, nice display, fingerprint sensor and good efficiency, and although its software program is not main the business it has improved immensely in current months.

That is just the start of an extended play for Honor within the U.S., with the apparent aim being to deliver the Honor identify to the U.S. and beginning to construct model consciousness. Because of this the Honor eight itself does not should promote within the tens of hundreds of thousands, and Huawei can definitely eat the prices, however it should not have to fret about that — the Honor eight is poised to be an amazing budget-conscious, flagship-challenging choice. Learn on for our full assessment.

About this evaluate

I (Andrew Martonik) am scripting this evaluation after simply over every week utilizing an unlocked U.S. model of the Honor eight, operating on T-Cellular in New York Metropolis, San Francisco and Seattle. The telephone arrived with software program model L04C567B122 (with the July 1 safety patch), and was not up to date in the course of the course of the assessment. The telephone was offered to Android Central by Honor for this evaluation.

Properly-executed design

Honor eight Hardware

If there’s one factor we have all discovered from watching Android telephones up to now couple of years, it is that the worth you must spend to get some nice hardware has decreased dramatically. Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has been among the many largest producers pushing this notion alongside, in each the super-budget area but in addition the mid-range phase with telephones just like the Honor eight.

Externally, Honor appears to have taken some affect from the Galaxy S6 and S7 and put its personal spin on issues — glass panes on each side of the telephone are accented by a really properly crafted metallic body that has simply sufficient texture so as to add grip, aided by shiny chamfered edges close to the glass. The glass itself takes on the acquainted “2.5D” curved design down into the metallic, and Honor executed the construct immaculately. The whole lot else is commonplace fare: a headphone jack, USB-C port and speaker on the underside, fingerprint sensor within the again and easy-to-press however robust to differentiate energy and quantity buttons on the fitting.

With only a 5.2-inch show the Honor eight is sort of compact, although the bezels round it are simply average-sized these days. The show itself is a 1920×1080 IPS LCD that is implausible at any worth, and additional spectacular in a $399 telephone. It is higher than the OnePlus three’s, and is true up there with the flagships — minus the Galaxy S7 — in all-around readability, brightness and colours.

Inside, you will see a processor identify even lesser-known than the Honor model: Huawei’s personal Hisilicon Kirin 950, which is an octa-core unit that is not the bleeding edge from the corporate however is darn shut, and greater than able to driving the interface at 1080p decision when paired with 4GB of RAM. There’s additionally an ample 32 or 64GB of storage inside, paired with a microSD card slot if that is your kind of factor.

Width	Peak	Thickness
	5.73 in 145.5 mm
2.eight in 71 mm		zero.three in 7.5 mm
5.Four oz 153 grams

• Show:
  • 5.2-inch IPS LCD
  • 1920×1080 (423 ppi) decision
• Cameras:
  • Twin 12MP f/2.2
  • 1.25-micron pixels
  • 8MP f/2.Four entrance digital camera
• Battery:
  • 3000 mAh battery
  • Non-removable
  • 9V/2A quick charging
  • USB-C connector
• Chips:
  • Kirin 950 octa-core CPU
  • 4GB RAM
  • 32/64GB storage
  • microSD card slot

More: Full Honor 8 internal specs

There are actually simply two downsides to this glass-backed design. The primary being how slippery it’s … and never in your palms, however on flat surfaces. Like we noticed again with the Nexus Four, the Honor eight is completely flat on the again. That appears very nice in photographs, however signifies that it simply straight up will not keep put if you lay it on a desk, desk or countertop. My Honor eight often slid dangerously near the sting of tables at dinner and I began charging it on the ground subsequent to my mattress as an alternative of on my nightstand for worry that it’d fall and break.

The opposite draw back right here is sturdiness. In only a week utilizing my Honor eight, it has a number of easy-to-see scratches on the again, and one massive gouge that is surprisingly deep. Glass backs will scratch, that is all the time the case, however I am used to mine lasting a bit longer earlier than displaying such indicators of wear and tear.

These are truthfully fairly minor “points” which might be legitimate trade-offs with a purpose to have a glossy and delightful telephone. Ergonomically the Honor eight works rather well, and the one factor that is reasonably robust to succeed in on the display is the notification shade — which itself is completely dealt with by the inclusion of a swipe-down gesture on the fingerprint sensor to carry out the motion.

Nonetheless so irritating

Honor eight Software program

Huawei has come a great distance with its EMUI software program, now in model Four.1 and constructed on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The pre-installed apps are intuitive and quick, the settings space is soundly designed and there are many baked-in options that you have not come to anticipate on each different telephone.

Visually, I can not complain a lot about what EMUI has settled on contemplating that it is all very constant and clean — it is only a bit dated. Although cohesive and arguably lovely, huge areas of the expertise just like the lock display, notification shade and launcher all characterize heavy-handed designs that do not jive with trendy expectations for Android telephones and are miles behind the graceful and intuitive expertise you get from different producers which were promoting tens of millions of telephones within the West for years.

The large pile of little options obtainable within the Honor eight is fairly astounding, although it makes the telephone a bit formidable to get arrange and use instantly. You possibly can configure presses of varied buttons to carry out sure actions, configure the fingerprint sensor’s button to do dozens of issues (like convey down the notification shade, which is good), and may configure nearly all the things. On the bottom of that, you will additionally nonetheless go loopy with all of EMUI’s warnings about energy consumption and notifications — and in the event you faucet the improper factor or set issues up improperly you are going to be lacking notifications and probably see additional points with app efficiency.

Too many options are one factor, however utterly damaged and user-hostile ones is one other

The notification shade does not correctly deal with many increasing notifications, the lock display by default does not present notifications and after turning them on continues to be odd to make use of, and the launcher is like sandpaper to my eyes. Lots of EMUI’s built-in options are heavy-handed and by default are set to usually user-hostile states, emphasizing battery financial savings over all else.

Nothing within the software program is downright horrible or a deal breaker for me, however none of it feels preferrred, environment friendly or anyplace close to one of the best software program expertise you will get on the market on a telephone at this time. There are nonetheless plenty of tough edges right here that want tuned up if Honor expects to attract U.S. shoppers away from what they’re used to getting from Samsung, HTC, Google and scrappier upstarts like OnePlus. And if rumors and leaks are to be believed, Huawei has a serious redesign of EMUI within the works that may probably tackle these points — I am extraordinarily hopeful that that is the case.

Every single day

Honor eight Every day use

After I acquired every little thing configured and made myself acquainted (once more) with the quirks of EMUI, I actually loved utilizing the Honor eight. The telephone was refreshing to carry because of its smaller measurement and wonderful construct high quality, and stroke a chord in my memory of the Galaxy S7 in that respect. I can not keep in mind a single time when the software program slowed down or an app stuttered, regardless of how arduous I pushed it, and even with that the battery held up each single day.

The only software program outlier I discovered was that location providers appeared to utterly lose monitor of the place I used to be in the event that they weren’t in use for an extended time period, then shortly snap again to the right place once I requested — one thing that looks like a transparent bug, and is probably going straightforward to repair.

Battery life

The 3000 mAh battery is a totally normal and anticipated capability for this measurement of telephone, and it is able to providing actually strong battery life as properly. Even with a lot of the annoying battery-first settings within the software program disabled or mitigated, I nonetheless made it by way of a full heavy day on the Honor eight.

Even once you disable all the power-saving options, you simply get a full day of exhausting use

The way it dealt with one notably robust day impressed me: over three hours of screen-on time, a pair hours of hotspotting, the entire day on LTE, taking pictures, maintaining with messaging and social media apps I made it virtually 17 hours earlier than plugging in. On easier days once I did not push it onerous, and spent extra time on Wi-Fi, I ended the day with 30 or 40% battery left within the tank — that is extraordinarily spectacular.

The Honor eight does not supply wi-fi charging regardless of its glass again, however does work with its personal proprietary fast charging answer that you’re going to solely discover from its in-box charger — utilizing a 9V/2A brick that may add 45% to the battery in simply 30 minutes. When plugging it into my Fast Cost three.zero wall plug or Fast Cost 2.zero battery it might solely pull about 5V/1A, which is moderately sluggish … a “commonplace” 5V/2A charging plug gave it one of the best speeds outdoors of its personal in-box charger. It is relatively annoying to not have a Fast Cost-compatible system right here that lets me use my different commonplace equipment to the fullest with the Honor eight, since I am actually not more likely to carry this pre-packaged charger only for this telephone.

Cameras

Honor is making an enormous deal concerning the twin 12MP cameras on the again of the Honor eight, rightfully so, however that is additionally a recognized amount after debuting on the Huawei P9 earlier in 2016. Although we misplaced the Leica branding (and sure, it was simply branding), we’re taking a look at a really fascinating dual-sensor setup with one offering the telephone with a shade picture and the opposite monochrome — the mixture of which purports to supply higher general picture high quality. Every sensor sits behind the identical comparatively sluggish f/2.2 lens and there is no OIS to be discovered right here, and each of these specs are considerably disappointing these days if we’re pitting the Honor eight towards its direct competitors.

The Honor eight’s digital camera software program is comparatively easy from the primary view, supplying you with fast entry to often-used toggles and reside filters. You possibly can take a single swipe to leap into the settings, and swiping the opposite course will get you into capturing modes. Sadly there is no choice for automated HDR … which is actually desk stakes in 2016. The app is comparatively fast and may open up from a double-press of the quantity down key when the display is off, or could be set to open with a double press of the fingerprint sensor button.

The standard you get right here is admittedly nice when the sunshine is sweet, however that must be anticipated from each telephone over $200 or so in 2016. Colours pop, edges are crisp and there is a ok dynamic vary that I did not all the time want to hop into HDR mode (although I did typically to realize a sure look). In decrease mild, the slow-ish lens and lack of OIS have been obvious — if I steadied my hand and took a number of totally different photographs I might often get one which was good and crisp, however any random shot once I pulled the telephone out and did not have bodily stabilization it would be extra of a combined bag. Conditions in between with respectable however less-than-great mild virtually all the time required HDR or guide metering to get the proper of shot.

This can be a actually strong digital camera, that could possibly be so a lot better with OIS and quicker lenses

General, this can be a strong digital camera when it comes to being fast and sometimes capturing the shot you anticipate to get, however it takes a little bit of massaging in some conditions and in decrease mild falls in need of what the OnePlus 3 can do on the similar worth. With the addition of OIS and a quicker lens, I’ve little question that these sensors and this processing might present a top-tier general digital camera expertise.

The front-facing digital camera is an 8MP unit (with 1.Four-micron pixels) that annoyingly defaults to an unnatural skin-smoothing “magnificence” mode, however aside from that does the job. There’s a whole lot of decision to work with there and some software program settings, however for probably the most half is a point-and-shoot state of affairs — plus an additional function of detecting smiles to auto-capture.

Odds and ends

A number of fast hits to spherical this factor out:

• Cellular community efficiency was nice in all places I went.
• The speaker is small and unremarkable.
• Due to the flat again, the vibration motor feels very weak when the telephone is on a desk.
• There’s an IR port on the highest for controlling home equipment and TVs.
• A number of EMUI’s ringtones are … very dangerous.
• You possibly can uninstall all the pre-installed “bloat” apps, and disable many built-in Honor apps.
• EMUI makes it lots simpler to modify launchers now, nevertheless it’s nonetheless comparatively hidden.

Strong telephone, nice worth.

Honor eight Backside line

Earlier than even approaching the pricing of the Honor eight, this can be a actually nice telephone. Externally, it is slick and may seize eyes with a number of delicate design options whereas additionally feeling strong and constructed with excessive tolerances. The metallic and glass shield actually nice inner specs that may energy the telephone by way of your whole common duties, with a battery that lasts all day (after which some), and you may view all of it on a very top-end show. The digital camera, whereas arising in need of superb, is nice in lots of conditions and leverages its twin sensors for neat results and higher picture high quality.

The one actual disappointment right here is that the Honor eight is launching with EMUI Four.1, which is serviceable however removed from the good expertise you will get on different telephones immediately — each at this worth and under. The promise of EMUI 5 could also be sufficient that will help you put up with the quirks, heavy-handed design and piles of annoying options, however I would not blame you when you determined that you simply’d somewhat decide a telephone with software program you realize is nice at present.

However now, let’s speak about that entry worth for the Honor eight: sure, you get all of this for simply $399. For that worth you by no means anticipate to get the little fringe options which are lacking right here, however you additionally do not all the time get efficiency, battery life, a display and a digital camera which might be collectively this good both. You do not typically get that sort of package deal even at a better worth. And at $399, chances are you’ll even be capable of cope with the software program for just a little bit when you anticipate an replace.

The Honor eight is a very nice telephone that’s going to provide everybody within the U.S. who’s first experiencing Honor one thing constructive to speak about. If the software program can enhance and advertising can convey individuals to remember that Honor truly exists right here, the longer term is wanting brilliant for this model.

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