Gadgetory

let's play a game of what if what if a manufacturer took their flagship phone hardware added an extra gigabyte of RAM an IR blaster to use the phone as universal remote improved the fingerprint sensor and shaved around $100 off the price might that be something which would appeal to you as a consumer if you caught our review of the Huawei p9 moving to the honor eight would resemble the scenario we just described so let's dig into this new mid-range er and see how it stacks up against other options in this increasingly competitive price tier first getting the specs out of the way the honor 8 has a 5.2 inch 1080p LCD powered by a high silicon kuren 950 octa-core chipset and 4 gigabytes of RAM the base model starts with 32 gigabytes of storage with the ability to add more via microSD and above the screen we have a respectable 8 megapixel selfie camera dual 12 megapixel camera sensors are flush with the rear casing above a terrific fingerprint sensor doubling as a programmable shortcut button and the bottom edge holds the speaker headphone jack and USB C port now this is a perfectly reasonable 1080p display we would always prefer stepping up to quad HD but this resolution will get the job done for most folks respectable brightness helps when using the phone outside though it obviously falls short of the high contrast mode on a Galaxy s7 though it is easier to read than an LG g5 one nice perk over the sibling Huawei p9 this screen gets just a little bit dimmer which should make late night reading in bed a little less ie piercing another change over the metal clad Huawei this honor features a redesigned fingerprint scanner we've always enjoyed the speed of these sensors and this placement is absolutely perfect for folks who have issues reaching front-mounted fingerprint sensors but this particular circle adds a programmable button that the user can assign various apps or functions single click double click or long press are up for grabs a handy ergonomic touch to quickly get two commonly used services and in a surprising turn from the Huawei flagship the honor 8 also adds an IR blaster to use this phone as a universal remote most manufacturers this year have abandoned this hardware feature so for those of us who are fans it's exciting to see a pop up on a mid-range your phone this app has a great collection of codes for most brands of TV cable box and has presets for air conditioners cameras and projectors if your device is not on that list the IR blaster can receive input from other remotes to learn your hardware now moving over to style this design is instantly familiar as this layout is nearly identical to the p9 the big change here is moving from a metal back with antenna bands in a glass cutout for the cameras the entire rear is now one nearly continuous piece of glass the camera sensors and laser focus module are not only flush they're under the same sheet of glass as the whole rest of the phone the fingerprint sensor and dual flash are very subtle breaks in that rear panel and as mentioned during our lunch event video this isn't simply a glass back 15 layers of glass and reflectors slice up light in diagonal playful lines it's a beautiful look in the hand and this blue model is one of the few phones which has actually turned heads while I've been using it in public it's fantastically simple and sleek of course this also makes the phone a crazy fingerprint magnet like I think it might be absorbing fingerprints while it just sits here on the table honors supplied a clear case but that also accrues smudges and it's an easily scratched plastic on the hole though we like the look of it and this is a fun take on a glass back device now we've covered this software skin in numerous other Huawei and honour reviews emui is the custom interface which removed the app drawer and turns the phone into something more closely resembling an iPhone settings look similar to iOS and the split notification shade certainly recalls the iPhone this isn't my favorite skin not by a long shot home screens look cluttered when there's a mix of icons and widgets and swiping through the notification shade well sometimes laterally move to your quick settings or swipe away a notification Nova Launcher was a quick addition to bring this phone more in line with what I'm used to thankfully there's almost no bloat here outside of honor included services powering this software the Kiran chipset is a snappy octa-core processor when navigating the UI using social media and messaging apps the honor eight easily chewed through the basics move to gaming we also saw relatively fluid frame rates on demanding games like implosion Marvel future fight on high settings didn't descend into the same slideshow we've seen on welcome 820 power devices but we could discern noticeable dips in the framerate personally being somewhat unfamiliar with the current chipset and having had great anecdotal experiences with the p9 I ran some benchmarks just to see where this processor lands against other phones we've reviewed as a general trend comparing against the Qualcomm 820 powered galaxy s7 every benchmark which tested graphics or RAM performance turned in favor of the galaxy but nearly every CPU bound benchmark was won by the honor a nice discovery to see synthetic numbers which largely matched our daily experience gamers might be a bit disappointed here but on the whole this phone handles its business very well networking performance was also top-notch around town on AT&T signal the honor posted almost identical reception numbers to the glass back to galaxy s7 by switching to Wi-Fi the honor fell a little behind Samsung smaller flagship call quality was respectable no one complained about the audio being sent out but I could do with just a bit more volume from the earpiece the one area I ran into a bit of frustration was using Bluetooth I tend to hit Bluetooth really hard driving around Los Angeles I often have a phone connected to a SmartWatch my car's in - stereo unit the car's computer on a separate Bluetooth connection and a pair of headphones to switch over once I turn the car off the honor eight was more prone than other phones we've recently reviewed in dropping connections frequently throughout the day my pebble would alert me to a disconnect it was a coin flip whether the car computer connection would initiate automatically and the honor does not like to transfer audio if I'm using headphones the car in - would not switch over turning the car off I'd have to manually swap back to the headphones there didn't seem to be any priority for Bluetooth management here now moving to one of the highlights of this phone the honor eight features a terrific camera system these dual sensors work in tandem to produce some of the best still photos we've ever seen from a phone it's nearly identical to the p9 which we also enjoyed we have a separate short review of this camera which you can watch and we'd also recommend checking out the Huawei p9 real camera review on this channel if you really want to dig deep into what this phone has to offer for this section of the review though we'd like to respond to some of the concerns people have had as to whether this dual system is really doing anything we've seen some poorly conducted tests often handheld or focusing on video which conclude that the second sensor doesn't contribute anything to the photography process now you can absolutely take a photo while blocking the monochrome sensor but putting the phone on a tripod to eliminate issues with exposure or differences in metering we do see subtle but important differences in photo output essentially the monochrome sensor is being used to paint in light and detail which might be missing from the color sensor shot we might chastise Huawei as it does not appear that the system delivers a true blend of two complete images but this still results in some fantastic output while we might have taken some liberties in advertising but we're certainly not disappointed by the actual practical results this dual sensor setup is also instrumental for the depth of field blur effect block one camera sensor and there is no depth info for the camera to use so there's that too moving to audio speaker performance is adequate if unremarkable against similar bottom firing speaker phones like the oneplus 3 the playback here is a little on the dull side and it's not quite as loud as what oneplus has achieved the honor handily loses two front firing solutions from ZTE and Alcatel headphone playback is also somewhat mid-pack it easily best phones like the LG g5 but falls behind one plus and ZTE again for Distortion frequency response and dynamic range also while the phone can playback high resolution audio it seems to down sample playback to 16-bit the headphone amp is also on the lean side again edging out the LG g5 but losing ever so slightly to the galaxy s7 the DTS mode on the honor will play around with your EQ settings to juice up your music but it doesn't do anything to boost output and it's a setting that purists will likely disable lastly looking at battery life the honor had no issues lasting a full day and into the evening with mixed usage lots of messaging social media a couple of calls and streaming audio while driving but this is not a screen on most of my daily usage involves short periods of screen activity but lots of screen off usage this is demonstrated in our media test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the honor eight drained 8% of its battery this display is not one of the more power efficient screens we've come across the phone achieves some decent real-world runtime though by way of super aggressive app management you will regularly be alerted to power intensive background apps and while helpful I mean it does work in reducing battery drain but the aggressive app management and nannying notifications are more than a bit annoying recharge times are respectable 30 minutes on the included charger resulted in a 37% top off not mind-blowing but helpful during the day if you need a little extra juice so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the honor 8 this might just be my favorite surprise of 2016 after using the entry-level honor 5x I really wasn't expecting honor to deliver a quality 9 at this mid-range er price that we see some improvements to the p9 in terms of RAM and features is just icing on the cake the phone certainly has its share of compromises but it definitely brings a unique experience and a great camera to the table the $400 smart phone tier is fantastically competitive and this phone is a charming entry which can handle e compete against one pluses axons Alcatel and iPhone SES we've got some wonderful options to consider and now it's just up to the consumer to decide on what features they care about most as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full Honor 8 coverage and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review Oh