Introduction
As promised, a well-known smartphone in China
V9 reached European stores under the name Honor 8 Pro, becoming one of the best tablet phones of the beginning of the year. Available for order are black, blue and gold models with 6 GB of RAM, the price is 549 euros. Along with the smartphone, you can choose from a 128 GB microSD memory card or a 10,000 mAh Huawei external battery, and there are other nice little things like a selfie stand.
This is a pretty reasonable price, especially when you factor in the gifts and the VR device. For fans of modern technologies, Huawei Honor 8 Pro offers a lot of interesting things. One of the big advantages of the device is the 4000 mAh battery, which fits into a thin 7 mm case.
Kirin 960 performs great in honor 8 pro
Belonging to a certain segment can be determined by two characteristics: equipment and price. In the first case, we are referring to the performance of the smartphone. Yet modern smartphones are increasingly used as mobile game consoles and for other digital entertainment. Even everyday applications sometimes turn out to be quite resource-intensive.
The company decided to use the proprietary Kirin 960 chip, which we have already seen in the Mate 9, P10 and P10 Plus smartphones from Huawei. In the first two cases we carried out our own tests, the SoC convinced us in almost all areas. The chip is based on four Cortex A53 and four A73 cores, as well as a Mali-G71 MP8 GPU, the fastest ARM variant to date.
The Kirin 960 in the Honor 8 Pro smartphone provides more than sufficient performance, although it cannot maintain the maximum level for a long time.
The SoC is manufactured using the 16nm FFC process, the RAM capacity of the Honor 8 Pro is a decent 6 GB (LPDDR4), the 4 GB model will only be sold in China. Actually, the smartphone was already presented there in February as Honor V9. The internal flash memory is connected via the UFS 2.1 interface, but the transfer speed of the Honor 8 Pro is still inferior to the P10. In any case, speeds of up to 469 and 89 MB/s for reading and writing remain quite high.
The same goes for regular tests, be it 3DMark, AnTuTu, Geekbench or GFXBench: Honor 8 Pro performs well everywhere. It’s quite interesting to compare the new model with the P10. This is especially true for multi-threaded performance of the CPU, as well as the GPU. In the latter case, we were somewhat disappointed with the P10 tests on the Kirin 960, but now the graphics module has shown better performance, beating the Adreno 530.
The Honor 8 Pro smartphone pleasantly surprised with its high GPU performance (3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited)
However, high performance is maintained for a short time. In our tests, performance began to decline after about two minutes — the difference from the maximum level was more than a third. The reason lies in the high heat generation. At the back of the Honor 8 Pro, the temperature was about 44 °C; according to utilities, the Kirin 960 processor in similar scenarios heated up above 60 °C.
We did not encounter such temperatures in the case of the Mate 9 or P10 smartphones, although their chip did not provide the maximum level of performance for a long time. So Honor appears to be using more aggressive temperature tolerances. However, we did not find any differences in everyday scenarios.
A comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S8 will be very interesting. The Korean smartphone uses an Exynos 8895 chip with a Mali-G71 graphics core, but in the MP20 version. On the other hand, the GPU runs at just 546 MHz — likely to minimize overheating issues.
Autonomous operation
The battery capacity is 4000 mAh, the same battery is used in the Huawei Mate 9. At the same time, the screen resolution here is higher, which does not prevent the developers from promising two full days of battery life or one and a half with intensive use of the device. What exactly is called saturated use is not specified.
Testing with the screen off showed 8 hours 39 minutes of operation. This is not a particularly outstanding result, but it is the best result for smartphones with a QHD screen resolution.
For comparison, Huawei Mate 9 worked for more than 12 hours in tests, Honor 8 worked for 8 hours with a 3000 mAh battery. As you can see, you have to pay for additional benefits in the form of virtual reality.
For such a large battery, being able to fully charge it in 1 hour and 46 minutes is a remarkable achievement. This is a record fast charging time for devices with 4000 mAh batteries. This result was achieved using the included charger. During charging, the smartphone did not even heat up.
Where to buy honor 8 pro and price
You can buy Honor 8 Pro at the best price
. The price of Huawei Honor 8 Pro with 6GB RAM / 64GB ROM is $499.99!
Design
Even in press materials, the developers talked about an impressive 4000 mAh battery in a thin body, but in reality it is even more impressive. The body is made of light metal alloy, all color options are matte. This review is about a blue smartphone. The screen size is 5.7 inches, the device weighs 184 g. It is lighter and more compact compared to the iPhone 7 Plus with a screen size of 5.5 inches, which also has a dual camera on the back.
Honor 8 Pro is still a fairly massive smartphone, especially when compared with the modern Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6, where the screen occupies most of the body and the frames at the top and bottom are minimal. For this reason, Huawei Honor 8 Pro is not very comfortable to hold, especially with one hand, especially not with the largest hand.
Luckily, the smartphone has software tricks that reduce the size of the interface for easier finger access, with a fingerprint scanner located on the back just under your index finger. The same scanner works as a touchpad, through it you can control the notification panel so that you do not need to use two hands to do this.
Along the edges of the case there is a volume control and a power button on the right, quite thin, but at the same time they are easy to press without looking and they have a good tactile response. There is a USB Type C connector for charging and data transfer at the bottom, and at the top there is an infrared sensor that is rare these days for controlling consumer electronics and TVs.
Interface and functionality
Honor 8 runs on Huawei EMUI 5.1 shell on top of the operating system
. This is the same fast and functional interface that is used in the recently launched smartphone
and which got on the device
after updating to Android Nougat. Notifications and communication toggles are now located in one place in the notification panel, and new convenient gestures have been added, like swiping from left to right to split the screen into two parts for different applications.
Speaking of gestures, the developers could add a downward swipe to expand the notification panel or a double tap to wake and lock the screen. In reality, this uses the lock button and the touchpad functionality on the fingerprint scanner, although a choice would have been nice.
Huawei Honor 8 Pro promises a smooth virtual reality experience and even comes with a cardboard browser and a pre-installed Jaunt VR app with plenty of video content. Customers will also be able to immerse themselves in the world of Galaxy on Fire 3, the first 3D game on the Vulcan GUI. It is available for free.
Cameras
Huawei Honor 8 Pro has a dual rear camera, one monochrome sensor, the second RGB, 12 MP lenses. This allows you to take photos in black and white or combine them with color images to take better photos automatically. Thanks to the dual camera, it offers a wide aperture mode for photos and videos, and you can create more pronounced background blur in photos. The degree of this blur can be adjusted after the photograph is taken. On the front there is a camera with a resolution of 8 megapixels.
The camera application contains many photographing modes, of which there are even more than in Huawei Mate and Honor 8, the device quickly takes and saves photos. Double-pressing the volume down while locked launches the Camera app and allows you to take a photo in one to two seconds.
It has been noted that it takes some time to achieve focus, especially when shooting moving subjects and when the lighting is not the best. If you want, you can tap the screen to manually focus, but smartphones usually handle this task on their own.
Auto mode produces images with cold, featureless colors, especially outdoors. True, the photos were taken on a cloudy day, but even in the sun the colors lack saturation, unlike most other cameras. You can change the camera settings if you wish, but most users will use it as is. Otherwise, the images are quite sharp and without unnecessary digital noise, the level of detail is high.
Colors look better indoors in low light and are more vibrant here. Dynamic range is above average, with bright objects coming out overexposed, which is common with most smartphone cameras in low light.
Unlike Honor 8, the Pro model supports 4K video recording at 30 frames per second, which is thanks to the faster processor. There’s software image stabilization that works well at 1080p resolution, but it’s off by default. There is no stabilization at 4K resolution, so the video turns out jerky. As in photographs, video colors are not very bright, and detail at 1080p resolution is only slightly above average.
Number of calls
The Honor 8 Pro is also average in this regard, and this applies to both sides of the phone conversation. The speaker in the ear is quite strong, but the sound turns out empty and lifeless, the interlocutor complains about the same thing, despite the presence of two noise-canceling microphones.
Delivery set:
- Honor 8 Pro smartphone;
- Cardboard virtual reality device with lenses;
- Cable USB-C
; - Fast charger 9/5 V, 2 A;
- SIM card removal tool, user manual, warranty card.
Cons of honor 8 pro
- Slow camera focus and shaky 4K video;
- Dull colors in photos and videos;
- Inconvenient to use with one hand;
- Cool screen colors.
Multimedia
EMUI 5.1 introduces the Highlights feature, which was developed jointly with GoPro. It independently categorizes photos and can automatically generate video stories that are easy to customize and available in the gallery. The audio capabilities of the smartphone are at an average level, this applies to both the speaker and headphones.
Pros of honor 8 pro
- Best battery life for smartphones with Quad HD screen;
- Fast charging;
- Functional interface with wide gesture support;
- Large amount of RAM and intelligent management of it;
- Vulkan GUI;
- H.265 encoding in 4K format allows you to reduce the size of videos.
Processor and memory
The smartphone runs on a modern Huawei Kirin 960 processor with a Mali-G71 graphics chip. This is an 8-core processor that is also used in the Huawei Mate 9, its Cortex-A73 cores operate at 2.4 GHz and bring a high level of performance.
The amount of LPDDR4 RAM is as much as 6 GB, the minimum value of the built-in flash memory is 64 GB, there is support for microSD memory cards. As you can see, these are high flagship level characteristics. There are no freezes or slowdowns when operating the smartphone, applications load quickly, the device is capable of storing up to ten applications in memory simultaneously without noticeable slowdown.
Communication
The smartphone has two SIM card slots, one of which is hybrid and can be used to install a microSD memory card. LTE band support isn’t as extensive as Qualcomm’s modem in the latest Snapdragon processors, but all European mobile operators work.
From honor we only get usb 2.0
The set of sensors and interfaces of Honor 8 Pro can be called conservative. L The TE modem built into the SoC officially supports Cat 6, which gives download speeds of up to 300 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Unlike the Chinese version of Honor V9, the European model supports the important LTE Band 20 (800 MHz).
The quality of telephony also completely convinced us. Honor only has two built-in microphones, but they provide fairly effective suppression of background noise. The main voice speaker covers a sufficient frequency range for telephone communication, and the volume is also quite sufficient. The second speaker also showed a high volume level, distortion appears quite late. But there are not enough mid frequencies, and there are practically no low frequencies. The operating modes of two speakers in a pair are not supported, unlike the same P10 Plus.
Typical for Huawei: Honor 8 Pro is equipped with a USB Type C socket, but we only get USB 2.0 speed.
Regarding the wireless network, WLAN 802.11ac is supported. For short distances, Bluetooth 4.2 and NFC are available. Thanks to the built-in IR transmitter, Honor 8 Pro can control a TV and other devices; the corresponding application is installed on the smartphone. Charging, data cable and headset are connected via a USB Type C jack, but there is also a 3.5mm audio jack.
If the built-in 64 GB of memory is not enough, it can be easily expanded using a microSD card, cards up to 128 GB are supported. But, as usual, you will have to abandon the Dual-SIM function. By the way, the Dual-SIM function is different from most other Huawei and Honor models. Although the Honor 8 Pro only has one SIM card that can work on the LTE network, the second one can register on 2G and 3G networks; LTE support is available on the SIM card that previously only worked in 2G.
Screen
The smartphone is equipped with a Quad HD LCD screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, so it is a clear flagship. For such a screen, a large battery is a necessity, since at such a resolution the operating time is always less than that of smartphones with 1080p screens with batteries of similar capacity.
The pixel density exceeds 500 ppi, but otherwise it is a typical IPS LCD panel with good viewing angles, high maximum brightness (563 nits) and minimal glare, allowing images to be seen in sunlight. The weak point of such panels is color rendering, since the colors are closer to the cold part of the spectrum, green is oversaturated. You can try to correct the situation in the screen settings, but it is unlikely that many users will do this.
Conclusion
Honor 8 Pro is an improved version of the Huawei Honor 8. It has a larger screen size, a faster processor, more RAM, more battery capacity, and a very thin and elegant metal body. In general, the smartphone does not differ too much, offering a pleasant, functional interface at a lower price compared to competing models.
The smartphone is an attractive purchase in the price category above $500. The bright high-resolution screen is capable of handling virtual reality devices, the battery is sufficient to ensure its operation, and fast recharging can also be highlighted. The dual camera copes well with most tasks, and it is now possible to record video at 4K resolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn9kgmwvu4E
The smartphone is quite large and holding it with one hand will be uncomfortable, so you need to prepare for this in advance. Videos and photos come out rather dull in automatic mode, but there are enough settings to liven them up. As a result, Honor’s next offer is very solid, once again cementing its reputation as a manufacturer of devices with a good price-quality ratio.
