OnePlus 5 has just got its toughest competitor in the form of Honor 8 Pro. Announced on June 23rd 2017, i.e. a day after the official launch of OnePlus 5, Honor 8 Pro was previously seen in China as Honor V9 and is due for an official launch in the first week of July 2017 in the Indian market.
The company hasn’t revealed anything on the pricing of the handset but we expect it to be priced around Rs. 35,000, which can create some serious troubles for OnePlus 5’s popularity in India and off shores. Why do we say that? Let’s find out with the help of Honor 8 Pro’s first impressions.
Design and Display: Premium all metal construction and a 5.7-inch 2K display Constructed out of metal and glass, Honor 8 Pro feels quite sturdy and premium. The smartphone measures 7.3mm in thickness and has 2.5D curved glass at front. The front fascia is largely occupied by a 5.7-inch 2K display, which packs double the resolution of what OnePlus 5’s 5.5-inch screen offers. The extra pixels mean extra sharpness, rich colours and more clarity while streaming videos, browsing web pages or playing games. However the big screen makes Honor 8 a bit bulky when compared to OnePlus 5, which is just a delight to use with one hand because of its compact form factor. Thanks to the rounded corners and correct placement of power button, volume rockers and the fingerprint sensor, Honor 8 still manages to fit in one-hand for an ergonomic use. It’s been two days that I am using the Honor 8 Pro and the display feels very touch responsive and bright enough to be comfortably used in outdoors. If you love streaming videos and playing graphical intensive games, Honor 8 Pro’s 5.7-inch 2K display offering 2,560×1,440 resolution will come as a delight. I really wish Honor had provided the latest Gorilla Glass 5 protection which comes as a screen protector for OnePlus 5’s 1080p display. Honor 8 settles with the dated Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
Camera: 12MP dual-camera setup is nothing short of a miracle It does sounds like a bold claim to use miracle as a word to define a camera for a smartphone, but I mean every word of it. And trust me you will also say so once you start using the camera on Honor 8 Pro. The Leica branded 12MP dual-camera setup on the smartphone comprises of one colour sensor and black and white, something we have seen previously in Huawei P9 and what you will see on the upcoming Huawei P10. The two sensors in real-life scenarios perform a wonderful job of capturing well exposed colours with ample richness. The pictures captured in daylight are amazingly sharp and even show higher contrast and saturation levels than some of the best camera smartphones in house such as Galaxy S8 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium. And when seen on the 2K screen the images look really good displaying punchy colours. But at the same time you will feel that they are a bit unnatural and amplified in terms of colours and sharpness. A good thing, camera also supports 4K video recording.
Camera Sample 1 : The bokeh mode works well and you get a good depth field of effect in shots you capture. Even the 8MP front camera is a great snapper and will please consumers who are fond of creating Instagram and Snapchat stories.
Camera Sample 2 : You can check some of these sample pictures meantime while we evaluate the camera performance in detail.
Hardware and Software:
Huawei’s in-house CPU, latest OS and ample RAM Honor 8 Pro is powered by company’s in-house HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor that is working without any performance issues on my review unit. It’s able to match the performance delivered by Snapdragon 835 SoC is something we will find out in the coming week. The CPU is coupled with ample 6GB of RAM and 128GB built-in storage, which is further expandable by another 128GB. The expandable storage is another nifty feature that OnePlus 5 fails to offer. Honor 8 Pro runs on company’s customized skin EMUI 5.1 deployed on Android 7.0 Nougat. The user interface offers a slew of customization features and nifty tweaks to improve the everyday user experience.
Battery and Connectivity:
4,000 mAH battery and all required connectivity features Honor 8 Pro is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery unit that has to support a dual-camera setup, a 2K display and a flagship CPU. How efficiently it does that is in our check list and will be told in our comprehensive review of the handset in the coming week. As far as storage is concerned, Honor 8 Pro has a hybrid SIM card slot, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, an IR blaster, GPS and Huawei Share.
Conclusion :
Honor 8 Pro is by far the best camera device from the house of Huawei. The smartphone also boasts of all flagship features that you would expect in today’s time from an affordable flagship Android handset. It is now the pricing of the handset that will decide its win or loss over the recently launched and much acclaimed OnePlus 5. Stay tuned on GIZBOT for our detailed review on both the devices to make your final decision.
[“source-gizbot”]
