Boasting a unique Aurora Glass finish on its back, the new honor 8 smartphone is truly a work of art that has to be seen to be appreciated. But it is not just a good-looking smartphone. The honor 8 also features a dual-lens main camera, like its brother – the Huawei P9. So join us as we take a close look at the honor 8 smartphone!
The honor 8 Smartphone Specifications
First up, we would like to point out that the honor 8 is available in 5 different models, with 3-4 colours, depending on the location. But they basically consist of two versions – a standard honor 8 model, and a premium honor 8 model. Check out their specifications :
| Specifications | honor 8 (Standard) | honor 8 (Premium) |
|---|---|---|
| Model | FRD-L02 (India), FRD-L04 (US), FRD-L09 (EU & Asia) | FRD-L14 (US), FRD-L19 (EU & Asia) |
| Available Colours | Pearl White, Midnight Black | Sapphire Blue, Sunrise Gold |
| Display | 5.2" LTPS LCD display - 1080 x 1920 resolution (423 ppi) - 1500:1 contrast ratio, 96% NTSC colour gamut | 5.2" LTPS LCD display - 1080 x 1920 resolution (423 ppi) - 1500:1 contrast ratio, 96% NTSC colour gamut |
| Protection | Nippon Electric Glass (NEG) | Corning Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Operating System | Android 6.0 with Huawei Emotion UI 4.1 | Android 6.0 with Huawei Emotion UI 4.1 |
| Processing Platform | HiSilicon Kirin 950 | HiSilicon Kirin 950 |
| Processor | 4 x ARM Cortex-A72 (2.3 GHz) 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 (1.8 GHz) i5 co-processor | 4 x ARM Cortex-A72 (2.3 GHz) 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 (1.8 GHz) i5 co-processor |
| Graphics Processor | ARM Mali-T880 (650 MHz) | ARM Mali-T880 (650 MHz) |
| System Memory | 4 GB LPDDR4 memory | 4 GB LPDDR4 memory |
| Storage | 32 GB internal flash memory microSD slot* (supports up to 128 GB) * shared with SIM2 (L09) | 64 GB internal flash memory microSD slot* (supports up to 128 GB) * shared with SIM2 (L19) |
| Selfie Camera | 8 MP sensor, with f/2.4 lens - 1080p video recording | 8 MP sensor, with f/2.4 lens - 1080p video recording |
| Main Camera | Dual 12 MP cameras (monochrome + colour) - Sony IMX286 sensor - f/2.2 lens, dual LED flash and hybrid auto-focus - 1080p video recording with EIS | Dual 12 MP cameras (monochrome + colour) - Sony IMX286 sensor - f/2.2 lens, dual LED flash and hybrid auto-focus - 1080p video recording with EIS |
| GPS | GPS / AGPS / GLONASS | GPS / AGPS / GLONASS |
| SIM Support | Single nano SIM (L02, L04) Dual nano SIM, Dual Standby (L09) | Single nano SIM (L14) Dual nano SIM, Dual Standby (L19) |
| Connectivity | 4G : LTE FDD LTE Cat6 : 51 Mbps (UL), 301 Mbps (DL) 3G : WCDMA 2 G : GSM Bluetooth : 4.2 BLE OTG, VoLTE | 4G : LTE FDD LTE Cat6 : 51 Mbps (UL), 301 Mbps (DL) 3G : WCDMA 2 G : GSM Bluetooth : 4.2 BLE OTG, VoLTE |
| WiFi Capability | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz dual-band) Hotspot supports up to 8 devices | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz dual-band) Hotspot supports up to 8 devices |
| USB Port | USB 2.0 with USB Type C interface | USB 2.0 with USB Type C interface |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Yes, 3D fingerprint recognition, 0.4 second unlock with Smart Key customisation | Yes, 3D fingerprint recognition, 0.4 second unlock with Smart Key customisation |
| Infra-Red Transmitter | Yes, with Smart Control 4.0 | Yes, with Smart Control 4.0 |
| NFC Support | Yes, tag read/write, P2P transfer, mobile payment | Yes, tag read/write, P2P transfer, mobile payment |
| Audio | HiSilicon Hi6402 audio DSP with Dolby DTS and HiRes Audio support Dual-microphone noise reduction | HiSilicon Hi6402 audio DSP with Dolby DTS and HiRes Audio support Dual-microphone noise reduction |
| Battery | 2,900 mAh lithium-polymer battery 18 W fast-charging capability | 2,900 mAh lithium-polymer battery 18 W fast-charging capability |
| Dimensions | 71.0 mm wide x 145.5 mm tall x 7.45 mm thick | 71.0 mm wide x 145.5 mm tall x 7.45 mm thick |
| Weight | 153 g | 153 g |
| Launch Price | RM 1,699 (~US$ 425) | RM 1,899 (~US$ 475) |
The standard honor 8 models are priced at RM 1,699 / ~US$ 425 with 32 GB of storage, and is available in either Pearl White or Midnight Black. The premium honor 8 models are priced at RM 1,899 / ~US$ 475 with 64 GB of storage, and either Sapphire Blue or Sunrise Gold colours.
Unboxing The honor 8 Smartphone
The honor 8 comes in a white two-piece cardboard box with a textured surface. The tall and thin design presumably allows more units to be placed side-by-side on a counter. The inner box slides downwards and is secured by a single clear security sticker. Be careful once that sticker is cut, because the inner box will slide right out!
Inside the honor 8 box, you will find the following items :
- One honor 8 smartphone
- One set of honor 8 Quick Start Guide & Huawei warranty leaflet
- One SIM card tray extractor pin
- One set of six IMEI stickers
- One 18 W Huawei quick travel charger
- One USB 2.0 cable with USB Type C interface
Next Page > The honor 8 Up Close, Hybrid SIM, Fingerprint Sensor & OTG Support
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The honor 8 Smartphone Up Close
The honor 8 has a large 5.2″ LTPS display that covers almost its entire front – with a 72% screen-to-body ratio. To achieve that, honor eschewed the use of physical buttons, in favour of virtual on-screen buttons. In fact, it only has two physical buttons – a Power button and a Volume rocker switch on the right side.
Even though the honor 8 is the same size as the honor 5C, they managed to squeeze in a 2,900 mAh lithium-polymer battery while reducing its thickness to just 7.45 mm. They even fit in the 3.5mm audio port, albeit at the bottom, together with the USB port.
Hybrid SIM
The honor 8 has dual SIM, dual standby capability. However, only the FRD-L09 and FRD-L19 models come with the hybrid SIM slot that allows for a second nano SIM card. These two models are only sold in Europe and Asia. The other models only support a single nano SIM.
Of course, the hybrid SIM slot means you have to choose between using a second nano SIM card, or a microSD card. You can’t use both simultaneously.
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Fingerprint Sensor & OTG Support
The honor 8 boasts a new 3D fingerprint sensor that can actually detect the ridges of the finger. This allows for more accurate detection of your fingerprint. With an auto-learning ability, the honor 8’s fingerprint sensor can recognise your fingerprint and unlock the honor 8 in just 0.4 seconds.
On the other hand, the honor 8 (like the honor 5C) does not support USB OTG (On-The-Go) drives. If you plug any USB OTG flash drive into its USB port, it will not be detected. The honor 8 also requires you to use the Huawei HiSuite software to access its files from your computer. This also limits what you can copy out from the honor 8 smartphone.
Next Page > Cameras, Aurora Glass, Initial Setup, Memory & Storage
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Cameras
The honor 8 has an 8 MP front camera with an f/2.4 lens. It will deliver a maximum photo resolution of 3264 x 2448 in the 4:3 format. Again, a wider 16:9 format will crop that to 3264 x 1840. It will record videos in 1080p quality with electronic image stabilisation.
Its killer feature is the dual-lens camera at the back. It is actually two individual cameras, each with a Sony IMX286 sensors with f/2.2 lens. One camera captures the image in monochrome, while the other captures the same image in colour. They are then combined to deliver sharper and more detailed pictures. The camera is supported by a dual LED flash, and a laser autofocus system.
The photos have a maximum resolution of 3968 x 2976 in the 4:3 format. If you prefer a wider format, the honor 8 will do that by cropping the image to 3968 x 2240 (16:9). It is capable of recording video in full HD quality (1080p) with electronic image stabilisation.
Aurora Glass
The honor 8 has a 2.5D glass body on both sides with diamond-cut aluminium alloy edges to create an ultra-narrow bezel. Its 3D grate design and 15-layer craftsmanship on the back of the device, combines with the glass/metal back to create what honor calls Aurora Glass.
The Initial Setup
This video will show you the initial setup process when you power up the honor 8 for the first time. If you do not need to restore a backup, the whole setup process should take about 5 minutes. Note how fast it takes to register a fingerprint.
Available Memory & Storage
The honor 8 comes with 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory. The Android 6.0 operating system and honor-preloaded apps take up about 1.3 GB of memory, leaving you with 2.4 GB (60%) of free memory. Very good!
This is a premium honor 8 model (FRD-L19), which comes with 64 GB of internal flash memory. This is expandable via a microSD card (up to 128 GB). Fresh out of the box, the honor 8 has 53.2 GB of available space (excluding the system files), of which 51.38 GB is free to use.
In the standard honor 8 models which come with 32 GB of internal flash memory, we can estimate that they will have about 19 GB of free space.
Next Page > honor 8 Camera & Video Recording Performance
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Camera Performance – Photos
The honor 8‘s dual-lens camera has not one, but two, 12 MP Sony IMX286 sensor with reasonably fast f/2.4 lens. The photos have a maximum resolution of 3968 x 2976 in the 4:3 format. Check out these photo samples.
The honor 8 delivered excellent resolution in these photos. If you blow them up to 100%, you can see the amount of detail that is not possible in other smartphone cameras. The edge resolution (between elements of different colour), in particular, was very impressive. The amount of noise is also very low, even in dark areas.
While the honor 8 does not have the most user-friendly camera app in the industry, the photos produced by its dual-lens camera is very, very impressive. Even without turning on HDR, the colour are very vivid and visually pop out.
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Camera Performance – Video Recording
The honor 8 can record full HD (1080p) ideos with electronic stabilisation. This is an improvement over the honor 5X, whose main camera does not support electronic stabilisation. Here is a sample video we recorded of a piano performance by Mr. Yang I-Deun.
You should also notice that it records better audio than most smartphones. The piano music sounds richer, even through the background noise. And in the street market footage, the ambient sounds sound clearer and more authentic.
Next Page > Work Performance, Battery Life & Recharging Performance
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Work Performance – PCMark
We tested the honor 8‘s performance using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
| honor 8 | ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra | HTC 10 | Samsung Galaxy S7 edge | |
| Work Performance Score (Average) |
6350 | 6313 | 6105 | 4892 |
| Web Browsing | 8073 | 6257 | 5782 | 6908 |
| Video Playback | 4396 | 4287 | 3321 | 3218 |
| Writing | 6231 | 7166 | 7463 | 4629 |
| Photo Editing | 7352 | 8262 | 9694 | 5563 |
The honor 8 is powered by the top-of-the-line Kirin 950 SoC. These PCMark results show that the Kirin 950 proved to be more than a match for the Snapdragon 820 that powers the HTC 10, and the Snapdragon 652 that powers the ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra. In fact, it was 30% faster in this benchmark than Samsung Galaxy S7 edge‘s Exynos 8890!
Battery Performance – PCMark
We then tested the honor 8‘s battery performance using PCMark. It basically ran the PCMark work tests until its battery capacity dropped to 20%.
The honor 8 lasted just over 10 hours on the PCMark stress test. This is 1.5 hours less than the honor 5C, but is excellent considering it uses a more powerful processor and graphics processor, and comes with twice the memory. The HTC 10, for example, lasted just over 5.5 hours on the same test!
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Battery Recharging Performance
The honor 8 has a large 2,900 mAh lithium-polymer battery, with Fast Charging capability. honor claims that it will recharge from 0% to 47% in just 30 minutes. Let’s see if that’s true…
Our tests showed that the honor 8 will recharge from 17% to 100% in just 146 minutes (3 hours 26 minutes). This is decent, but not exceptional quick charging performance. It fully recharges the battery about 20% faster than the honor 5C, which does not support quick charging and uses only a 5 W charger.
That said, we can see that the honor 8 recharges fastest in the first 90%, before it tapers off to a slower recharging pace for the last 10 percent. Recharging 47% (from 17% to 64%) took 36 minutes in our test.
Next Page > Overall & Gaming Performance, Our Verdict & Award
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Overall Performance – AnTuTu Benchmark
AnTuTu is a nice benchmark for testing various performance aspects of Android devices.
| honor 8 | ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra | HTC 10 | Samsung Galaxy S7 edge | |
| TOTAL SCORE | 90737 | 76096 | 113813 | 131246 |
| 3D SCORE | 17706 | 18816 | 50700 | 40824 |
| – 3D (Marooned) | 9829 | 10861 | 34778 | 23336 |
| – 3D (Garden) | 7877 | 7952 | 15922 | 17488 |
| UX SCORE | 34550 | 26794 | 30890 | 42765 |
| – UX Data Secure | 7338 | 5077 | 6319 | 8169 |
| – UX Data Process | 5513 | 4198 | 3379 | 5966 |
| – UX Strategy Games | 9745 | 7503 | 5433 | 10745 |
| – UX Image Process | 5017 | 6879 | 9521 | 13878 |
| – UX I/O Performance | 6937 | 3137 | 6238 | 4007 |
| CPU SCORE | 32255 | 23689 | 21915 | 37882 |
| – CPU Mathematics | 10483 | 6950 | 8494 | 11831 |
| – CPU Common Use | 8543 | 6311 | 5931 | 10875 |
| – CPU Multi-Core | 13229 | 10428 | 7490 | 15176 |
| RAM | 6226 | 6797 | 10308 | 9775 |
The honor 8 did well in AnTuTu, coming in only 20% and 31% slower than the HTC 10 and the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge respectively.
It was actually 12% and 47% faster than the HTC 10 in the UX and CPU tests, but its 65% slower 3D performance pulled down its overall results.
Gaming Performance – 3DMark
We tested the honor 8‘s gaming performance using 3DMark, using the Ice Storm Unlimited test.
| honor 8 | ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra | HTC 10 | Samsung Galaxy S7 edge | |
| Gaming Score | 18659 | 17719 | 23171 | 28650 |
| Graphics | 19993 | 21124 | 27512 | 33685 |
| Physics | 15127 | 11328 | 14925 | 18810 |
| Graphics Test 1 | 122.5 fps | 115.2 fps | 136.6 fps | 162.9 fps |
| Graphics Test 2 | 67.4 fps | 76.3 fps | 106.4 fps | 133.1 fps |
| Physics Test | 48.0 fps | 36.0 fps | 47.4 fps | 59.7 fps |
The honor 8 is roughly equal to the ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra in gaming performance. This means the ARM Mali-T880 GPU in the Kirin 950 is about as fast as the Qualcomm Adreno 510 GPU.
Our Verdict
The honor 8 is more than just a more powerful version of the honor 5C smartphone. Yes, they are both 5.2″ smartphones powered by Kirin processors from HiSilicon, a Huawei company. But the honor 8 is really a whole different beast targeting a different market.
The honor 8 is very fast, and comes with 4 GB of RAM and up to 64 GB of internal flash storage. On top of that, its dual-lens camera produces excellent photographs and videos. It even comes with a new 3D fingerprint sensor that activates the phone in just 0.4 seconds.
The honor 8 also looks the part of a premium smartphone, thanks to its Aurora Glass finish. This is honor’s top-of-the-line smartphone for those who want nothing but the best without paying through the nose.
Now, all that extra capability comes at a price, and it comes to no surprise that the honor 8 costs twice as much as the honor 5C. Even so, it costs less than half of what their competitors charge for equivalent smartphones.
[adrotate banner=”4″]So are we impressed with the honor 8? Hell, yeah!
If we have any gripes, it is the lack of USB OTG support and the requirement to use the Huawei HiSuite to manage files using a computer. This unnecessarily makes it a pain to access the files in the honor 8 smartphone.
honor continues to impress us with their ability to focus on creating no-nonsense Android smartphones with practical features. Even the dual-lens camera proved to be a practical way to improve the quality of photos and videos taken using a smartphone.
We like the honor 8 enough to give it out coveted Editor’s Choice Award. Congratulations, honor!
Back To Start > honor 8 Specifications & Unboxing
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