Honor 8 Pro:Big and powerful Phone
Last year's Honor 8 brought with it impressive specs, a premium design and great cameras. What let the device down though was bloated software and the relatively high price (for what it offered). The Honor 8 Pro is the successor to the Honor 8 and is quite a comprehensive update - much more than what its Pro moniker indicates. In fact, Huawei could easily have named this device the Honor 9 and got away with it.
The Honor 8 Pro has an all-new design which has much more in common with the Huawei P10 than its predecessor, updated internals, a much better display and streamlined software. On paper - the smartphone looks like a complete all rounder - Huawei has stuffed as many features as they could in the 5.7-inch monolithic slab.
Subtle and classy are the two words that best describe the design of the Honor 8 Pro. Yes, the smartphone does slightly resemble a certain smartphone from a company named after a fruit (read Apple). However, when it comes to design originality, there is a certain other phone which fares much worse (cough, OnePlus 5, cough) than the Honor 8 Pro.
The design is very subtle and premium and the matte metal back makes it look more classy than the Honor 8. The sides are curved and the smartphone has a screen to body ratio of 79 per cent. Frankly, I was a bit taken aback by how restrained the Honor 8 Pro's design is -- companies these days have a tendency to garnish their smartphones with tacky and gaudy finishes in a bid to stand out from the crowd. Kudos to Huawei for not going down that rabbit hole.
From the front, the Honor 8 Pro looks like a bigger version of the previous Honor 8. I had the Navy Blue versions of the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro models in for review, and the finish on both is identical. Black and Gold options are available, too, but I rather like the blue. It makes a statement, and is in keeping with the Honor brand’s more fun character.
The design of the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro only really begins to deviate when you flip the phones over. The Honor 8’s noteworthy design feature was its 15-layer glass rear. This had 3D grating and lithography, meaning it caught the light and shimmered in a rather dazzling way. It was a fun visual flourish that served no real purpose other than to look fancy.
The Honor 8 Pro is a little more mundane, though, with its matte finish. Although there’s nothing wrong with it – in fact, some may well prefer it – I just find it a little boring. At least it’s less prone to fingerprints than its smaller sibling.
For a smartphone with a large 5.7-inch display, the thin borders and rounded edges aid the grip. No, one-handed usage is not ideal, as one would expect in a phone of this size, but the ergonomics are quite good and the weight distribution is on point. It doesn’t feel as heavy as the specifications sheet suggests (184 grams), but it’s heavy nevertheless.
At the back, the dual-camera sits flush with the surface and the fingerprint scanner too looks neat. The antenna lines on the Honor 8 Pro actually accentuate the design.
The Honor 8 Pro sports a 5.7-inch IPS display with 1440 x 2560 resolution. The Quad HD resolution and a pixel density of 515 ppi make for a terrific display. The display is sharp and the colors are vivid. The contrast ratio is top-notch as well, and while the display is a tad reflective, sunlight legibility is pretty good.
The display on the Honor 8 Pro offers a maximum brightness of 560 nits, which is brilliant. The black levels are deep and while there’s a blue tint on white, it’s not too noticeable to the naked eye.
The Honor 8 Pro has a 2.5D curved glass which offers a nice swiping experience across the large display. There’s Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection as well which will keep scratches at bay and prevent shatters to a certain extent.
The Quad HD IPS LCD panel on the Honor 8 Pro is one of the highlights of the device, but the obvious flip side to a higher resolution display is the bigger strain on the GPU and a hit on the battery life.
The screen is incredibly bright, meaning outdoor use – even under bright sunlight – isn’t an issue. The one complaint I do have, something I’ve experienced with both Huawei and Honor’s handsets in the past, is that auto-brightness can be rather slow to kick in. So, when unlocking the phone, there can be a momentary pause where the display is too dim before it finally reaches a brightness of usable levels. It isn’t the end of the world, but it is jarring. You can just use a fixed brightness to overcome the issue, however.
The Honor 8 Pro is a snappy performer that can handle aggressive multi-tasking as well as gaming without breaking a sweat. The generous RAM helps in fluid performance and there are literally no lags or stutters, as it sails through nicely as a daily driver. The device also does a good job at staying relatively cool even when stretched.
Impressively, the Honor 8 Pro has the same Kirin 960 chipset as the Huawei P10 Plus and Huawei Mate 9, which means it’s no slouch.There’s no sign of any slowdown or stutter when navigating around Android 7.0. Apps open without hesitation and animations are as slick and smooth as you’d want. Paired with that quick fingerprint scanner and you’re at the home screen within milliseconds.
With the Honor 8 Pro’s internal specifications, Honor has a phone that can proudly stand among the heavy-hitters. Even in our synthetic benchmarks, the Honor 8 Pro proved to be a top performer, with 6121 score in the multi-core Geekbench 4 test. That eclipses the Pixel XL (4152) and the iPhone 7 Plus (5793), but is a fraction shy of the Huawei P10 Plus (6237). Needless to say, the Kirin 960 processor is very capable.
The rear camera on the Honor 8 Pro features a dual camera setup. There’s no Leica branding this time around, but Huawei was one of the first in the dual-camera game and has put out several devices with this feature already.
The dual camera setup boasts of one RGB sensor and another monochrome sensor – both 12-megapixel ones with f/2.2 aperture. And there’s a dual-tone LED flash. Both sensors work in unison to produce detailed photos with higher dynamic range. The RGB sensor processes all the color information while the monochrome sensor extracts the details from the shadows as well as highlights.
While the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro have identical camera setups, the shutter performance on the latter and the image processing is much better owing to the faster processor and all that extra RAM.
The Honor 8 Pro takes some great shots. The colors are beautiful without looking over-saturated. In daylight, the photos captured have a very good dynamic range with true-to-life color reproduction. The focusing too is pretty quick, except sometimes in close-up shots.
One of the primary advantages of the second sensor is improved low-light performance. The Honor 8 Pro relies on the monochrome sensor for capturing more light. Even at night time, the Honor 8 Pro manages to take some great shots without much noise and high level of resolved details.
And of course, the two sensors work well to create an optical background defocus effect, popularly known as bokeh. The camera on the Honor 8 Pro manages to capture the depth of field quite realistically. It’s top-notch and one of the best in the business.
Images shot with the smartphone's rear dual camera setup are crisp, vivid, well exposed and capable of giving more expensive smartphones a run for their money. Images shot in moderate to well lit conditions have a lot of detail and have impressive dynamic range. The noise levels are adequate and colors are natural.
The lightning fast fingerprint scanner on the Honor 8 Pro is faster than ever. Those few split seconds matter when it comes to unlocking your phone and the Honor 8 pro gets rid of any delay at all. The fingerprint scanner can also be used for gesture controls. Swipe on the scanner to use different navigation features built into EMUI.
The Honor 8 Pro comes in a box that can be turned into a Google Cardboard-style VR headset. There are two VR apps pre-installed on the Honor 8 Pro – Jaunt VR and Cardboard.
The VR headset is easy to assemble but it’s just a gimmicky one, and not something you can use to indulge in VR extensively. The lenses are pretty good, but it’s hard to hold it comfortably and find the right viewing angle. But of course, it is good way for you to try VR apps and games, and if it works for you, maybe buy a third-party VR headset.
VR is, for whatever reason, a selling point for the Honor 8 Pro. 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 Honor 8 Pro has some impressive specifications. To start with, the 5.7-inch display has a Quad HD resolution, which translates to a dense 515 pixels per inch. The front panel is made of Corning Gorilla Glass for protection, with 2.5D curved edges. The display has punchy contrast and is quite vivid. Some users might not like the aggressive colour reproduction, and sadly, there is no way to tone it down. You can only tweak the colour temperature to suit your liking. You also get a night mode that claims to reduce strain on the eyes in low light. We liked watching videos on this display. The single speaker was loud enough, but we did feel that front-firing stereo speakers would have done better justice.
Huawei has used its own Kirin 960 SoC to power the Honor 8 Pro. It is an octa-core processor with four Cortex A73 cores running at 2.3GHz plus four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. This seems slightly dated when compared to the Snapdragon 835 which powers the OnePlus 5. The Honor 8 Pro gets 6GB of RAM along with 128GB of storage which is expandable using a microSD card in the hybrid SIM slot. We found that the firmware occupies close to 16GB of space on the phone, but we still had over 100GB free to use.
The phone also has Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi ac, and NFC. The Honor 8 Pro is a dual-SIM device with two Nano-SIM slots. There is support for 4G, VoLTE, and carrier aggregation.
The Honor 8 Pro comes with a 4,000mAh battery with fast charge support that delivers pretty impressive battery life. we used the smartphone as my daily driver, not once did the smartphone run out on me before I plugged it in at night. In fact, the smartphone regularly had around 40 per cent of charge left by the end of the day - that too after pretty intensive use.
Despite its massive capacity, the 8 Pro’s battery life is pretty average. OK, yes, you’ll comfortably get a full day’s use out of the phone while hammering the features, but not much more.
You’re not going to be able to eke a couple of days heavy use out of the thing without your battery circling the drain before you get home. We regularly had 20% left come evening after having spent the day hammering social media, emails, web browsing and some commute-busting gaming.
Honor’s claims of two day’s regular use on a single charge are a little bit embellished, so unless you’re happy to take things lighter on the usage front, nightly charges are still going to be a must. That or keeping a spare charger to hand at work.
Conclusion
The Honor 8 Pro is an accomplished all-rounder -- it has a great high-resolution display, mighty impressive cameras, top of the line internals, snappy performance, classy looks and impressive battery life.Honor has built the Honor 8 Pro with the best technology it has to offer, which is at par with some of the best in the industry.
It does seem as though the Honor 8 Pro is a good all-rounder. It might not be the leader of the pack but it isn’t far behind, and definitely looks like a much better deal than the slightly less expensive Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro and Moto Z2.
If high-end specs without the high-end price tag are your thing, the Honor 8 Pro is a phone worthy of your consideration. Emotion UI is still a bugbear of ours, but it has progressed since past devices.
The true flagship killer
Honor is a sub-brand of Chinese company Huawei normally known for cheaper mid-range phones, but the Honor 8 Pro is the brand’s priciest phone yet. It’s also Honor’s most accomplished thanks to an attractive, slim design, fast performance and a generously sized battery.
The Honor 8 Pro has an all-new design which has much more in common with the Huawei P10 than its predecessor, updated internals, a much better display and streamlined software. On paper - the smartphone looks like a complete all rounder - Huawei has stuffed as many features as they could in the 5.7-inch monolithic slab.
Yes, its screen is all sorts of beautiful and there’s a decent dual-lens camera on the rear, but despite steps in the right direction, some of the company’s trademark shortcomings still shine through.
Honor 8 Pro:Design
The design is very subtle and premium and the matte metal back makes it look more classy than the Honor 8. The sides are curved and the smartphone has a screen to body ratio of 79 per cent. Frankly, I was a bit taken aback by how restrained the Honor 8 Pro's design is -- companies these days have a tendency to garnish their smartphones with tacky and gaudy finishes in a bid to stand out from the crowd. Kudos to Huawei for not going down that rabbit hole.
From the front, the Honor 8 Pro looks like a bigger version of the previous Honor 8. I had the Navy Blue versions of the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro models in for review, and the finish on both is identical. Black and Gold options are available, too, but I rather like the blue. It makes a statement, and is in keeping with the Honor brand’s more fun character.
The design of the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro only really begins to deviate when you flip the phones over. The Honor 8’s noteworthy design feature was its 15-layer glass rear. This had 3D grating and lithography, meaning it caught the light and shimmered in a rather dazzling way. It was a fun visual flourish that served no real purpose other than to look fancy.
The Honor 8 Pro is a little more mundane, though, with its matte finish. Although there’s nothing wrong with it – in fact, some may well prefer it – I just find it a little boring. At least it’s less prone to fingerprints than its smaller sibling.
For a smartphone with a large 5.7-inch display, the thin borders and rounded edges aid the grip. No, one-handed usage is not ideal, as one would expect in a phone of this size, but the ergonomics are quite good and the weight distribution is on point. It doesn’t feel as heavy as the specifications sheet suggests (184 grams), but it’s heavy nevertheless.
At the back, the dual-camera sits flush with the surface and the fingerprint scanner too looks neat. The antenna lines on the Honor 8 Pro actually accentuate the design.
Honor 8 Pro:Display
The display on the Honor 8 Pro offers a maximum brightness of 560 nits, which is brilliant. The black levels are deep and while there’s a blue tint on white, it’s not too noticeable to the naked eye.
The Honor 8 Pro has a 2.5D curved glass which offers a nice swiping experience across the large display. There’s Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection as well which will keep scratches at bay and prevent shatters to a certain extent.
The Quad HD IPS LCD panel on the Honor 8 Pro is one of the highlights of the device, but the obvious flip side to a higher resolution display is the bigger strain on the GPU and a hit on the battery life.
The screen is incredibly bright, meaning outdoor use – even under bright sunlight – isn’t an issue. The one complaint I do have, something I’ve experienced with both Huawei and Honor’s handsets in the past, is that auto-brightness can be rather slow to kick in. So, when unlocking the phone, there can be a momentary pause where the display is too dim before it finally reaches a brightness of usable levels. It isn’t the end of the world, but it is jarring. You can just use a fixed brightness to overcome the issue, however.
Honor 8 Pro:Performance
The Honor 8 Pro packs in 6 GB of RAM. Developed by HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chipmaker, the Kirin 960 chipset is one of the most powerful smartphone chips out there and does well to take on the Exynos and Snapdragon ones in benchmark tests.The Honor 8 Pro is a snappy performer that can handle aggressive multi-tasking as well as gaming without breaking a sweat. The generous RAM helps in fluid performance and there are literally no lags or stutters, as it sails through nicely as a daily driver. The device also does a good job at staying relatively cool even when stretched.
Impressively, the Honor 8 Pro has the same Kirin 960 chipset as the Huawei P10 Plus and Huawei Mate 9, which means it’s no slouch.There’s no sign of any slowdown or stutter when navigating around Android 7.0. Apps open without hesitation and animations are as slick and smooth as you’d want. Paired with that quick fingerprint scanner and you’re at the home screen within milliseconds.
With the Honor 8 Pro’s internal specifications, Honor has a phone that can proudly stand among the heavy-hitters. Even in our synthetic benchmarks, the Honor 8 Pro proved to be a top performer, with 6121 score in the multi-core Geekbench 4 test. That eclipses the Pixel XL (4152) and the iPhone 7 Plus (5793), but is a fraction shy of the Huawei P10 Plus (6237). Needless to say, the Kirin 960 processor is very capable.
Honor 8 Pro:Camera
The rear camera on the Honor 8 Pro features a dual camera setup. There’s no Leica branding this time around, but Huawei was one of the first in the dual-camera game and has put out several devices with this feature already.
The dual camera setup boasts of one RGB sensor and another monochrome sensor – both 12-megapixel ones with f/2.2 aperture. And there’s a dual-tone LED flash. Both sensors work in unison to produce detailed photos with higher dynamic range. The RGB sensor processes all the color information while the monochrome sensor extracts the details from the shadows as well as highlights.
The Honor 8 Pro takes some great shots. The colors are beautiful without looking over-saturated. In daylight, the photos captured have a very good dynamic range with true-to-life color reproduction. The focusing too is pretty quick, except sometimes in close-up shots.
One of the primary advantages of the second sensor is improved low-light performance. The Honor 8 Pro relies on the monochrome sensor for capturing more light. Even at night time, the Honor 8 Pro manages to take some great shots without much noise and high level of resolved details.
And of course, the two sensors work well to create an optical background defocus effect, popularly known as bokeh. The camera on the Honor 8 Pro manages to capture the depth of field quite realistically. It’s top-notch and one of the best in the business.
Images shot with the smartphone's rear dual camera setup are crisp, vivid, well exposed and capable of giving more expensive smartphones a run for their money. Images shot in moderate to well lit conditions have a lot of detail and have impressive dynamic range. The noise levels are adequate and colors are natural.
Honor 8 Pro:Fingerprint Scanner
Honor 8 Pro:VR(Virtual Reality) Experience
The VR headset is easy to assemble but it’s just a gimmicky one, and not something you can use to indulge in VR extensively. The lenses are pretty good, but it’s hard to hold it comfortably and find the right viewing angle. But of course, it is good way for you to try VR apps and games, and if it works for you, maybe buy a third-party VR headset.
Honor 8 Pro:Specification
Huawei has used its own Kirin 960 SoC to power the Honor 8 Pro. It is an octa-core processor with four Cortex A73 cores running at 2.3GHz plus four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. This seems slightly dated when compared to the Snapdragon 835 which powers the OnePlus 5. The Honor 8 Pro gets 6GB of RAM along with 128GB of storage which is expandable using a microSD card in the hybrid SIM slot. We found that the firmware occupies close to 16GB of space on the phone, but we still had over 100GB free to use.
The phone also has Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi ac, and NFC. The Honor 8 Pro is a dual-SIM device with two Nano-SIM slots. There is support for 4G, VoLTE, and carrier aggregation.
Honor 8 Pro:Battery
Despite its massive capacity, the 8 Pro’s battery life is pretty average. OK, yes, you’ll comfortably get a full day’s use out of the phone while hammering the features, but not much more.
You’re not going to be able to eke a couple of days heavy use out of the thing without your battery circling the drain before you get home. We regularly had 20% left come evening after having spent the day hammering social media, emails, web browsing and some commute-busting gaming.
Honor’s claims of two day’s regular use on a single charge are a little bit embellished, so unless you’re happy to take things lighter on the usage front, nightly charges are still going to be a must. That or keeping a spare charger to hand at work.
Conclusion
It does seem as though the Honor 8 Pro is a good all-rounder. It might not be the leader of the pack but it isn’t far behind, and definitely looks like a much better deal than the slightly less expensive Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro and Moto Z2.
If high-end specs without the high-end price tag are your thing, the Honor 8 Pro is a phone worthy of your consideration. Emotion UI is still a bugbear of ours, but it has progressed since past devices.
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