Review of the HONOR 8A smartphone. State employee for every day. | Smartphones | Reviews | DNS Club

Batteries

These smartphones use the same 3020 mAh batteries. Theoretically, it can be assumed that Honor 8S should work longer, because the processor is simpler and the screen diagonal is smaller. However, to my surprise, the operating time coincides almost to the minute.

Video playback at maximum brightness: 7 hours 30 minutes

Gaming at maximum brightness: 5 hours 15 minutes for 8A Pro and 4 hours 50 minutes for 8S.

The average screen glow at automatic brightness for the Honor 8A Pro is 4 hours 30 minutes, for the Honor 8S it is approximately 4 hours. Also at the level of error.

8A Pro

The 8A Pro smartphone charges faster (2 hours) due to the presence of a 2A network adapter. It takes about 2 hours 30 minutes to fill the Honor 8S with energy.

In progress

Honor 8A runs on Google Android 9.0 Pie operating system with EMUI 9.1 shell.

This is what the smartphone menu looks like when you turn it on for the first time. You can note a large number of pre-installed applications, but they can be completely removed, leaving only applications from Google and a few applications from Huawei.

In the settings you can activate the main menu with applications.

It is worth noting that the smartphone interface does not work very smoothly. Lags are noticeable even when simply surfing the smartphone menu. The problem is the slow RAM, which is only 2GB. For a modern smartphone this is no longer enough. Running resource-intensive games/applications significantly reduces operating and loading speeds.

The smartphone interface can be decorated with various branded themes.

There is a simple mode of operation, this is for those who do not want to bother with the settings.

You can assign specific actions to the fingerprint scanner. The scanner itself works very accurately and quickly.

Touch control buttons can be replaced with gestures.

I was pleasantly surprised by the ability to operate the radio without a connected headset.

The MediaTek processor – MT6765 (Helio P35) is responsible for the performance of the smartphone. The chipset has 8 ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 2.3 GHz and an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU.

You can see the results of synthetic tests in these screenshots.

The high CPU temperature both at idle and under load is surprising.

The permanent memory in the smartphone is 32GB. In fact, there is only 21GB free, so most likely you won’t be able to do without a memory card. Well, the range of different sensors in a smartphone is not the maximum. You can fully install applications on a memory card.

The call speaker volume is very high. The sound is clear without distortion, the speaker does not produce noise at full volume. Sound in mono format. There is support for LDAC and HWA. The earpiece is also quite loud. The interlocutor can be heard perfectly, and there were no problems with speech reception and transmission. According to this indicator, HUAWEI/HONOR smartphones are among the best on the market.

Excellent work on navigation, all modern geolocation standards are supported.

Appearance and controls

HONOR brand smartphones offer one of the lowest prices on the market. Moreover, the quality and functionality remain at the highest level. For example, Honor 8X with 128 GB memory costs less than 20 thousand rubles in official retail! The closest “competitor” costs 3.5 thousand rubles more. And in technical terms, such “competitors” are completely inferior to Honor 8X.

Smartphones in the “X” line begin their history with Honor 3X. Starting with the 5X model, the smartphone body began to be made of metal, and a fingerprint scanner appeared. In the 6X model, the manufacturer used a dual camera. 7 X received a screen with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Well, the 8X model has incorporated the main trends of 2020, these are the so-called “bangs” at the top of the screen, a frameless screen with rounded corners of the matrix and a glass back. It can be seen that the smartphone receives new and interesting features in each new model.

In addition, the HONOR brand pays a lot of attention to the appearance of its products. For example, I really like the way the back of the Honor Play is designed, but the Honor 8X also has its own twist in terms of design.

When you take a smartphone in your hand for the first time, you immediately pay attention to the back side of the smartphone. Firstly, there is a glass design on the back side. 15-layer glass with anti-reflective coating is used. In our case, glass is used purely for beauty; there is no wireless charging in the model.

The second point is a gradient color with a double texture.

There will be three body color options on sale: blue, red, black. Many people say that the color in the red case is the most beautiful.

A stripe with a matte texture runs along the right edge of the back side. The rest of the smartphone is already glossy, and the color is lighter than the matte part. This solution looks fresh and unusual. The back side was definitely a great success, and I don’t want to hide such beauty in a case.

The smartphone body is a unibody design. Metal base with glass. The smartphone holds and feels great in the hand. The weight of 175 grams is not felt at all. You can work with one hand, with your thumb covering the entire width of the screen and you can reach above the middle, but you still won’t be able to capture the entire area. The thickness of the smartphone is small.

The corners of the case are smoothly rounded. The ends of the smartphone are also slightly rounded. The screen and back side are covered with glass with a 2.5D effect, as a result of which all the contours are smooth and do not cut into the hand.

The design of the smartphone turned out to be universal; it looks great in a woman’s or man’s hand. The smartphone is still a little big for children.

At the top end there is a hole for the first microphone.

The antennas of the wireless modules are located on the side faces in the upper part of the case. On the right side there is a paired volume button and a power button. The location of the buttons is good; the thumb or index finger intuitively fits in the right place.

At the bottom there is a speaker for calling, a second microphone hole, a 3.5 mm jack (mini-jack). Please note: the 3.5 mm jack is located asymmetrically, which creates an imbalance at the bottom end. An outdated Micro-USB connector is used for charging and connection. It is difficult to say for what reason Type-C is not used, because the cost of such a connector is practically no different from a Micro-USB connector.

On the left side at the top there is a tray for installing two nano SIM cards and a micro-SD memory card. Moreover, there is no need to make any compromise in the choice; you can install two SIM cards and a memory card at the same time! The tray itself is made of plastic, the plastic is quite elastic, so the tray will not bend during installation.

The dual main camera is located on the left side, at the moment this is the most popular place for placing dual modules. Please note that the cameras protrude above the body of the smartphone. If you use a smartphone without a protective case, there is a possibility of getting scratches on the optics, but the case included in the package does not compensate for protruding cameras.

However, after scouring the web, I found cases that will protrude slightly above the main camera module.

The fingerprint scanner is located closer to the top edge of the smartphone. The scanner is located very conveniently, the index finger immediately hits the right place.

At the top of the screen you can see the so-called “bangs — unibrow”. Many people do not like this element, and most, for some reason, have a negative attitude towards such an element. But you should understand that this is an absolute trend in 2020! Personally, I like this element in the screen and does not cause any discomfort in use.

The highlighted area contains the main camera, earpiece, proximity sensor and status indicator. If for some reason you don’t like the “bangs” on the screen, you can hide them from the screen using a software method.

The part of the screen on the sides of the “bangs” is filled with black when the corresponding item is activated in the screen settings.

Touch buttons are located on the screen. By default, the back button is located on the left side.

Classic touch control buttons can be replaced with one function button.

The package includes a transparent silicone case.

The case is made quite well.

All cutouts in the case perfectly match the connectors on the smartphone body.

I had the smartphone for review for almost a month, and all this time it acted as my main smartphone. I can say with confidence that in appearance this is one of the best smartphones on the market. It’s a pity that we weren’t able to use the smartphone in red. During the entire testing period, I did not have any questions about the build quality of the case; everything was at a very high level. The only thing is that I had to get used to the Micro-USB connector again, after the Type-C connector in my Samsung S9 Plus.

Impressions

In each section I wrote the final result. Therefore, the reader can easily evaluate the item he needs. I wouldn’t overpay for the Honor 8A Pro, since 14,000 rubles is extremely expensive for it.

But Honor 8S, for its 8,000 rubles, is one of the best solutions on our market: compact body, bright and contrasting screen, up to 4 hours of screen light, fast lens for the main camera, Bluetooth version 5.

In Russia, Redmi 7A 2/32 GB is sold for 8,500 rubles. The battery here is 4000 mAh, after all, it has a Qualcomm processor.

For 9,000 rubles you can get Redmi 6 3/32 GB: 3000 mAh, two cameras, but the processor is again MediaTek, albeit with 8 cores.

As an option — BQ Strike Forward 2/16 for 7,000 rubles. Pros: lower price, VoLTE and 8 cores.

Review of LTE smartphone BQ Strike Forward (5528L)

Or consider a more interesting option — BQ Magic with NFC, 2/32 GB for 8,000 rubles.

Review of the affordable BQ Magic 6040L smartphone

Displays

Below is a table with the main screen parameters:

Judging only by the numbers, the displays are almost the same, 0.39 inches does not count. The brightness of the Honor 8S matrix is ​​approximately 300 cd/m2, the brightness of the 8A Pro matrix is ​​about 280 cd/m2, but the contrast of the 8S is much higher — 550:1, since the 8A Pro has only 400:1.

(Right – 8A Pro)

Both colors lie: the younger version goes into cool shades, the older version goes into warm shades. The 8A Pro matrix fades more in the light, although the 8A behaves so-so. On both, the cutout can be hidden.

Overall: rather weak screens with simple brightness and contrast settings, but I would give preference to the Honor 8S display.

Cameras

You may have already noticed that none of the devices have an additional camera. Although, of course, marketers could squeeze a fake module in there in order to “wind up” customers for themselves. In general, Huawei acted honestly.

13 MP main cameras, autofocus, decent aperture for its price — f/1.8! Front cameras – 5 MP (f/2.2) for the younger version of the phone, 8 MP (f/2.0) for the older one.

Photos during the day turn out very good: correct white balance, high sharpness throughout the frame, fast focusing. The quality is absolutely the same.

The Honor 8A Pro is already starting to come out ahead a little indoors: less noise, a higher percentage of clear photos, a little more accurate white balance.

In low lighting conditions, the older version definitely performs better. However, Honor 8S is great for its 8,000 rubles!

The front cameras are approximately the same, only the white balance of the 8A Pro varies: from warm to cold shades.

Both phones shoot video in FullHD resolution. The quality is slightly better on the 8A Pro.

The interface is familiar to all Huawei devices of the Honor brand.

Total: very good photo quality, with an advantage over the older model.

Examples of photos of Honor 8S

Examples of photos of Honor 8A Pro

front camera
























front camera

Communication capabilities

I will again provide a table in which you can see that the parameters of these two models are almost the same.

Honor 8S turned out to be a little more advanced with Bluetooth version 5.0, and the presence of BeiDou is also a plus. Another strange point: the Honor 8S works a little better with the network, connects to 4G faster, and is less likely to drop out of data transmission. But the 8A Pro finds satellites faster and determines positioning a little more accurately.

Overall: I would again give preference to the Honor 8S – small but smart!

Delivery kits

• Smartphone
• Network adapter
• USB cable
• Instructions
• Warranty card

Multimedia

The phones have one speaker for music output. The volume is slightly higher on the Honor 8A Pro, the quality is equally good, plus or minus, without wheezing, without overload.

I checked the sound on several devices: Meizu Flow, Meizu POP, Bose QC35, Huawei FreeBuds lite and JBL Armour. The best, oddly enough, is JBL. Next — Bose, Huawei, Meizu Flow and POP. The sound quality of smartphones is about the same average, but not bad. The volume is 10-15 percent higher in the older model. But this is purely subjective.

FM Radio app is present in both Honor 8S and 8A Pro.

Total: Honor 8A Pro is a little more musical than Honor 8S.

Memory, CPU and Performance

Honor 8S RAM speed is extremely budget friendly.

Honor 8A Pro RAM speed – 4200 MB/s, budget-friendly, for 14,000 rubles you could get memory in the region of 7000 MB/s.

The speed of the built-in memory of Honor 8S is 250/130 MB/s, not bad!

The speed of the built-in memory of Honor 8A Pro is 196/100 MB/s, normal.

Surprisingly, the budget smartphone outperformed the more expensive one, and by a decent amount.

MediaTek Helio A22 MT6761 processor was introduced last year. Quite an interesting chipset, considering the 12 nm process technology – low heating, high energy efficiency. There are 4 cores working inside with a clock frequency of up to 2000 MHz.

Towards the end of 2020, MediaTek Helio P35, aka MTK6765, was shown. Again 12 nm, but already 8 cores with a clock frequency of up to 2300 MHz.

In real life, Honor 8A Pro behaves better: less lags and slowdowns, more stable operation of all services and predictable behavior of the phone as a whole.

The Antutu test on Honor 8S failed and showed no results. The Honor 8A Pro ran the benchmark for about 15 minutes and produced 77,000 points — this is very low for an 8-core phone. Everything is fine with games on the first device, but PUBG will slow down even at the minimum settings. It is quite possible to play on a second smartphone even at medium settings of the PUBG game.

Total: Honor 8S is slow and clearly not for games, Honor 8A Pro is faster, but games are not very good either. One way or another, the older model comes out ahead in terms of overall performance.

Both smartphones operate on the Google Android operating system version 9. We did a similar review:

Detailed review of MIUI 9.0

Android P review

Positioning

Smartphones Honor 8S and Honor 8A Pro appeared in Russia at the beginning of summer. They are devices in the budget price segment. The 8S is Honor’s most affordable phone, while the 8A Pro is a slightly more advanced version.

Since the smartphones have no fundamental differences, I decided to combine them into one review. In addition, this format for presenting material is better perceived by the reader: there is a table with a comparison, and all the necessary parameters of the two devices are visible.

The Honor 8S device is easy to find in Russian retail at a price of about 8,000 rubles, the Honor 8A Pro device costs 14,000 rubles and is sold only on Tmall.

Related links

Review of the Redmi 7 smartphone

Review of the Honor 7C smartphone

Review of the Honor 8A smartphone

Review of the Honor 8C smartphone

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