14 DAY TRIAL // Honor, Huawei's sub-brand, is back this year with another flagship, the Honor 8. The smartphone mixes mid- and high-end specs, along with premium design. Aimed at young consumers, the Honor 8 is not perfect, but makes few compromises.
It's a great device for those who want the feel of a flagship smartphone, but can't afford to pay a fortune. The Honor 8 is available for purchase for $400 outright, but the retail price varies by carrier and country.
The Honor 8 is a slightly downgraded version of the P9, Huawei's first flagship launched this year. Instead of the Kirin 955 chipset, the Honor 8 comes with a Kirin 950 processor inside, as well as 4GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of storage (expandable up to 256GB via microSD).
Although they both come with the same display, a 5.2-inch unit with full HD (1080p) resolution, the P9 uses a different IPS-NEO technology. In comparison, the Honor 8's display makes use of LTPS technology, which is the most common for high-end smartphones.
Design-wise, the Honor 8 looks and feels more pleasant than the P9, probably thanks to the 2.5D glass coating both on the front and back of the phone.
On top of that, the back side of the Honor 8 has been polished twice to offer extra protection against scratches.
The Honor 8 comes with the same dual-camera setup as the Huawei P9, but the lenses inside aren't Leica. However, the phone still includes an RGB camera sensor, alongside a monochrome sensor that can capture 300% more light thus reducing the noise level.
The newest flagship of the Honor brand ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow right out of the box, as well as Emotion UI 4.1 on top. We believe the phone will eventually receive a Nougat update, but this will probably happen next year.
