Honor 8 Pro Review

FEATURE

• Honor has just upgraded Honor 8
• One For Phablet Fans
• Honor 8 Pro with Dual Camera 

Specification:

• Operating System: Android 7.0 Nougat, EMUI 5.1
• CPU: Huawei Kirin 960, octa-core 4×2.4 GHz + 4×1.8 GHz
• RAM: 6 GB
• Storage: 64 GB, expandable up to 128 GB
• Display: 5.7 inches, 2560×1440 QHD (515 ppi)
• Main Camera: 12 MP + 12 MP f/2.2
• Secondary Camera: 8 MP f/1.9
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4 GHz/5 GHz,    Bluetooth 4.2, micro USB, 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Battery: 4,000 mAh, fast charging
• Dimensions: 157 x 77.5 x 6.97 mm
• Weight: 184 g

Design:

The Honor 8 Pro’s boosted dimensions definitely makes it one for phablet fans alone. This mighty 5.7-inch mobile is significantly larger than the LG G6 and Galaxy S8, although the screen stretches almost edge to edge for a narrow build. In combination with the curved edges and corners with comfortable. The Honor 8 Pro over and you’ll discover the shiny surfacing of the original Honor 8 has been ditched. Instead we have the same brushed finish of most other Honor handsets, available in a choice of three colours: gold, black and blue. We particularly like that navy model. The Honor 8 Pro isn’t water resistant sadly, the camera bar is flush with the surface, so there aren’t any jutting bits to speak of. The back is the fingerprint sensor, which is slightly too high up for our liking. We occasionally had to stretch or adjust our grip to reach the scanner. There’s a single speaker along with USB Type-C and the now-endangered 3.5 mm headphone port. Up top there’s an IR blaster and on the right hand edge you will find a textured power button underneath the volume rocker. All this is encased in a metal chassis that’s less than 7 mm thick.

Display:

The Honor 8’s Full HD display was impressive, but the Honor 8 Pro takes it one step further with its 5.7in QHD screen. With an impressive 1,440 x 2,560 pixels, the Honor 8 Pro kicks out a pixel density of 515ppi, resulting in sharp images and text. The colour temperature is adjustable, but I found it comfortable at its default settings. You are also able to activate an Eye Comfort mode from the notification panel to reduce blue light, which should reduce eye fatigue, especially during those late night browsing sessions. That quad HD display resolution goes some way to explain this, since those extra pixels certainly help when the screen is pressed almost directly to your eyeballs. Even then, it’s a very basic introduction to VR and, not surprisingly, isn’t as elegant as the Samsung Gear VR or Google Daydream. The included cardboard headset is no better nor worse than other cheap headsets on the market. The phone measures 157 x 77.5 x 7 mm, amazingly thin for a phone with a large 5.7in quad HD display and resolution of 2560x1440. Honor’s colourful software choice in the default wallpapers and icons. 

Camera:

The Honor 8 Pro has the same 12-megapixel f/2.2 camera as the regular Honor 8. The rear camera comes with laser autofocus and dual-tone LED flash, while the front selfie shooter is an 8-megapixel f/2.4 camera. A neat addition is ‘Ultra snapshot’, which takes a picture with double press of the volume down key when the phone is locked. It’s a good idea, but results are generally a tad burred despite the lenses supposedly being able to quickly focus on the intended subject. The 8 Pro can also shoot video at 1080p at 60fps, which is to be expected these days, and results were as expected. The 8Mp front facing camera is a standard affair, but will serve every purpose you throw at it from sleefies to Skype. The Honor 8 Pro is an actually perfectly fine smartphone camera. It practically has the same camera specs as last year’s Huawei P9, sans the Leica lens again. The Honor 8 Pro takes vivid, crisp, and detailed photos but trips up in low light situations like many of its kin. To be fair, even the Huawei P10 Plus, with its f/1.8 lens, sometimes has trouble here as well. There is also “Beauty Mode”, of course, and super night mode for those very dark and tricky shots. Interestingly, Honor notes that wide aperture mode and even beauty mode works for video as well.

Performance:

The 8 Pro has the high-end Huawei Kirin 960 processor, the same one found on the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus. Those phones are more expensive, but with the same chipset in the 8 Pro, it really can compete with those phones, commercially and technically, and all at a lower price point.It’s available with 64GB storage but is expandable to 256GB via microSD, or you can opt for dual SIM. Like the OnePlus 3T it has 6GB RAM, which is still a bit nuts, but paired with the Kirin 960 processor gave us insanely high benchmark results. Xiaomi has only begun and LG can only dream, but Huawei has long been making and putting its own mobile processors inside its smartphones. In the past, performance of the Kirin processors were on the lower side. With the Kirin 960, however, even the Kirin 955 before it, Huawei is daring to play in the big leagues. Performance and benchmarks of the Kirin 960 have been comparable with the Snapdragon 820, which remains one of the better processors this year, despite the Snapdragon 835. The Honor 8 Pro comes with Android Nougat, only 7.0 though, right out of the box. You might presume that to be a given by now, but you’d be surprised at the number of new devices that are coming out with Android Marshmallow. With Nougat, users can take advantage of the larger screen for split-screen multi-tasking. 

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Great value
• Gorgeous screen
• Slick performance
• Feature-packed

Cons:

• Battery Life
• Display Quality
• Camera Quality
• Google Cardboard Support

Battery:

Even better is the mighty 4000mAh battery packed inside. Like the Mate 9 before it, the Honor 8 Pro gives roughly two full days of use between charges, even with quite heavy use. That includes plenty of messaging and web browsing, plus audio and video streaming, camera use and the occasional phone call. Even under heavy use it typically end the day with anywhere between 20-30% of battery remaining, and that’s after most of the day feverishly checking social media, web browsing and streaming music to Bluetooth headphones. the Honor 8 Pro had some form of fast charging to top up that sizeable battery.

Verdict:

very little to dislike about the Honor 8 Pro. It has a blazingly fast processor, 6GB of RAM, a beautiful Quad HD display, a mesmerising design and solid build quality. And with 64GB of internal storage, dual-SIM capabilities (or microSD card expansion) and a good pair of cameras Honor 8 Pro is nothing short of amazing at this price, and if you’re looking to buy a large, phablet-sized smartphone. Be tempted to look at the OnePlus 3T or even go for a more expensive, better phone on contract. And even though they cost more, the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus hardware is better designed. The Honor 8 Pro is hard to beat when it comes to bang for buck. Between an attractive design, a solid performing camera and a big battery, there’s a great deal to like about Honor’s flagship phone. I just wish certain aspects of the previous Honor 8 had been included and water-resistance had been added, which are the main shortcomings.