Review Honor 8

The Honor 8 has long been available in China, and more recently in the US market. However, it's only just become available to European customers hungry for yet more smartphone options. For those unaware, Honor is Huawei’s "e-brand", targeting a much younger demographic – whom the company insists on referring to as “millennials”.

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The eagle-eyed out there might think the Honor 8 bares a striking resemblance to the Huawei P9, rather than building upon the Honor 7 that came before it – and you'd be right. There are plenty of similarities to the P9 that could easily have you mistaking the two.

With the Huawei P9 forming its foundation, the Honor 8 comes with both the good and the bad. Those dual-lenses – all the rage now – make a return, but so does Huawei’s heavy-handed Emotion UI Android skin.

In the end, it means the Honor 8 brings a feeling of déjà vu – but ultimately, its refinements and cheaper price make it a decent alternative to the Huawei P9.

HONOR 8 – DESIGN

Viewed from the front, the Honor 8 is almost identical in size to the Huawei P9. It's only fractionally thicker, at 7.9mm versus 7mm, and a touch heavier at 153g versus 144g. The corners are slightly more rounded, but otherwise, stack one device atop the other and you'll see that all the ports and antenna bands line up almost perfectly.

The Honor 8 on top of the Huawei P9

The rear of the phone is constructed from 15 layers of glass, which Huawei says has 3D grating and lithography. It means the prism lines refract and disperse the light in an eye-catching manner. This is difficult to capture with still images, but it's rather pretty.

It's quite a light show, then, but all that glass does leave you wondering how well the device will cope with an accelerated meeting with concrete. A cracked rear might lead to a trippy kaleidoscopic effect at least. Compared to the metal back of the P9, the glass feels more slippery in your hand and it’s a fingerprint magnet, too. Throughout testing I found myself constantly having to wipe it down – but I might be more picky than most.

Another visual difference between the rear of the Honor 8 and Huawei P9 is the level 4 fingerprint sensor, which is circular rather than the square of the P9. It’s just as quick to register and unlock, which was one of my favourite aspects of the P9. In a test of fingerprint scanning speed, both phones performed practically identically.

The scanner has been upgraded with a "Smart Key" function, too, which essentially sees the fingerprint sensor also become an extra button. You can program shortcuts to single- or double-presses and holds. I found using it to quickly fire up the Camera app particularly useful. You could also have it fire up Pokémon Go, if you’re so inclined.

The Honor 8 uses a USB Type-C port and also supports quick-charging. You can find this port alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and speaker on the bottom of the phone. A volume rocker and power button sit on the right edge.

On the left edge you’ll find a nano-SIM tray and a microSD slot that can instead be used as a second nano-SIM slot if you don’t require the storage expansion. The device comes with either 32GB or 64GB of storage as standard, and the Honor 8 can be expanded by up to 256GB through the microSD slot – double the Huawei P9’s support. Again, like the P9, the Honor 8 doesn’t support Android’s adoptable storage, which integrates the extra storage directly into the operating system.

The Honor 8 is available in Sapphire Blue, Pearl White, Midnight Black and, for now only in certain markets, Sunrise Gold finishes. My review sample was Sapphire Blue, which I think is the pick of the bunch. In a sea of similar-looking smartphones, it has a touch more character since it’s a unique shade that seems to change colour based on lighting conditions.

HONOR 8 – SCREEN

The Honor 8 sports a 5.2in display, with a Full HD resolution of 1,920 x 1,080. On paper, it isn't particularly exciting, but with a 423ppi most will find it sharp enough. Throughout testing I had no issues browsing websites, playing games or watching films on Netflix. Images appear vibrant and text appears sharp.

Tucked away in the settings is a blue filter mode called "Eye Comfort". This tweaks the colour temperature to make it less harsh at night. There are other colour temperature tweaks such as making it warmer or cooler. The maximum brightness is plenty bright enough for outdoor use and viewing angles aren’t too acute.

My only minor complaint is if you have the auto-brightness setting turned on. The Honor 8 – like the Huawei P9 before it – can occasionally be a little aggressive in adjusting the brightness, even if ambient light hasn’t changed. Yet conversely, it can be slow to adjust when first waking the phone up. On occasion, it would wake up set to very, very dim, before adjusting to a more suitable higher brightness setting.

HONOR 8 – PERFORMANCE

The Honor 8 uses one of Huawei’s own chips, in this case the octa-core Kirin 950 processor with i5 co-processor. This is paired with slightly more RAM at 4GB compared to the Huawei P9. In day-to-day use of the phone, I didn't encounter any stutter or slowdown. Apps were quick to open and pages fast to load.

With its specifications, I expected the Honor 8 to perform at the level of the Huawei P9. However, it turned out to be more of a mixed bag. For instance, the Honor 8’s AnTuTu score of 90,236 was behind the Huawei P9, which managed 93,062. Not a major difference, in fairness.

Its Geekbench 4 scores managed to just pip the Huawei P9, however. It managed 1,728 in the single-core test and 4,820 in the multi-core test. The P9 managed 1,776 and 4,618, respectively. Gaming performance isn’t going to set the world alight compared to the flagship handsets out there such as the Samsung Galaxy S7. A 3DMark Sling Shot score of 864 isn’t particularly impressive, but it did beat the 600 of the Huawei P9.

A complaint consistently levelled at Huawei is its approach to Android customisation – namely its Emotion UI (EMUI) skin. It rears its head again here, not really bringing anything to justify its inclusion on top of Android 6.0.

Worse still, compared to the Huawei P9, the Honor 8 is pre-loaded with far more bloatware out of the box, from apps such as Booking.com to Trip Advisor, and an extra browser in the form of Opera. You can uninstall all of them, but it’s an arduous process and one that you shouldn’t be subjected to.

Otherwise, it’s all very similar to the Huawei P9. EMUI does away with the standard Android app drawer, opting instead for an iOS-style homescreen. I'd rather just have the standard app drawer. You can at least bring this back by installing a custom launcher, including Google’s own Google Now Launcher.

There’s no way of getting rid of the customisations to the notifications panel, however. It’s the worst part of the EMUI experience. The panel always feels inundated with notifications and the Quick Settings toggles have been made worse than stock Android.

While the Honor 8 has more RAM than the Huawei P9, the irritating memory and battery management makes a return. This highly aggressive management stops apps from running in the background by default, so you’ll need to constantly jump in to put them in "Protected" mode. You also receive constant notifications regarding your apps using power in the background – which on paper sounds useful, but in reality just proves an interruption.

There are some decent customisations, however. The slide-down gesture on the rear fingerprint sensor can still pull down the notifications pane. It’s something I miss whenever I move to another smartphone. Beyond that, I wish Huawei would just tone down the Android customisations or just leave things well alone.

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