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MagyarHonor 8 Pro Smartphone Review
For the original German review, see here.
In the beginning of April, the newest Honor model was officially introduced to the German market in Berlin. Once designed by Huawei as an entry and mid-range brand, with the Honor 8 Pro the Chinese smartphone company enters new territory offering it as an alternative in the high-end segment. For 549 Euros (~$604), potential buyers will get a 5.7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels. The Honor flagship smartphone is powered by Huawei's own octa-core SoC, the Kirin 960. Similar to the Huawei P10 Plus, the Honor 8 Pro offers a dual-camera on the back, which integrates two full-fledged 12 Megapixel lenses. However, compared to the P10 (Plus), the camera on the back does not have a Leica branding and no Summilux optics either.
Since April 21, the Honor 8 Pro is offered by the exclusive partner O2 and the vmall.eu online shop in the colors Navy Blue (blue), Midnight Black (black) and Platinum Gold and is also available in selected O2 shops. The potential competitors of the high-end smartphone which are also the competing devices in this test are the HTC U Play, OnePlus 3T, Lenovo Moto Z, HTC 10, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, as well as the current reference in the high-end segment, the Samsung Galaxy S8 (Plus). Due to the close similarity, we also compare the Honor 8 Pro with the in-house competitors, the Huawei P10 Plus, as well as the Huawei P9 Plus.
While this phone is widely reviewed in the US, there is currently no word on price or availability yet.
Case
The front is completely made of scratch-proof 2.5-D Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which merges slightly rounded into the metal frame – the current Gorilla Glass versions remain reserved for the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus smartphones. On the sides, the IPS display is framed by a scarcely 2 mm (~0.07 in) thin frame. The edges on the top and bottom of the case turned out quite large, however, so that the size ratio between the display and whole front of the device is only 73.6%. Compared to the LG G6 or Samsung Galaxy S8 (Plus), the front of the Honor 8 Pro is not really styled efficiently.
The rounded edges on the side of the metal frame allow the high-end smartphone to lie comfortably in the hand - Honor calls this the "U-Frame Design." With a height of merely 7 mm (~0.28 in), the 8 Pro model has a comfortable feel to it, despite the relatively large dimensions.
Due to their different surface structure, the physical keys can each be distinguished easily. The volume controls and the on/off switch are built very well. There is no play and they have a well-defined pressure point. The stability is also very good and even solid pressure hardly makes any difference to the device.
The dual-camera module placed on the back sits flush with the case. However, the glass cover and the antenna stripes are not machined perfectly in our test unit, so that the transition between these elements and the case can be felt.
Features
The internal UFS-2.1 storage of the Honor 8 Pro has a capacity of 64 GB, with 52.7 GB available to the user as it is delivered. In addition, a microSD card can be incorporated into the internal storage, if the dual-SIM functionality is not needed. The integrated microSD slot conforms to the current SDHC and SDXC standards and can accept cards up to 128 GB.
Even though the high-end smartphone has a modern USB Type-C port at the bottom, the Honor 8 Pro only supports the USB 2.0 standard. Peripherals such as an external keyboard or USB sticks can be connected via an OTG adapter. Wi-Fi Direct and Miracast are available for wireless transfer of the display contents.
Further features include an integrated infrared interface, a 3.5 mm audio port, a fingerprint sensor, a step counter, and an LED for notifications.
Software
Huawei provides its currently most powerful smartphone with Android 7.0 Nougat, which is at the security patch level from March 2017 at the time of the test. Compared to Google's vanilla Android, the EMUI 5.1 user interface of the manufacturer shows visual adjustments that do not appear as playful and colorful as earlier iterations of the UI before it.
Besides additional software features such as a quick-access for easier one-handed operation or a movement control, the Honor 8 Pro has many third-party apps (bloatware) preinstalled. However, most of them can be uninstalled.
Communication and GPS
Purely according to the specs, there are no big differences in the communication modules compared to the Huawei P10. For the WLAN at home, there is a module that supports the current IEEE-802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards and thus also masters the 2.4 GHz as well as the 5.0 GHz bands. Furthermore, the Honor smartphone has Bluetooth version 4.2 and an NFC chip for near-field communication between mobile devices. However, in our test there are clear differences between both devices in the Wi-Fi transfer speeds between the smartphone and our reference Linksys EA 8500 router. The data rates of the Honor 8 Pro are significantly higher than those of the Huawei P10 and remained relatively constant and without noteworthy fluctuations during the test. The range and signal stability are on a very good level; the damping right next to the router (Telekom Speedport, W921V) is -32 dBm.
Thanks to LTE Cat. 6, the dual-SIM smartphone accesses the mobile Internet with up to 300 Mbit/s in the downloads. All the LTE bands relevant in Germany as well as GSM quad-band and UMTS quad-band are supported. In contrast to the similar V9 model, the Honor 8 Pro also supports the LTE band 20 which is important in rural areas. The dual-SIM smartphone offers space for two nano-SIM cards, if no SD-card is used. In dual-SIM mode, one of the two cards is limited to UMTS frequencies, however.
| Networking | |
| iperf3 transmit AX12 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| iperf3 receive AX12 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
The Honor 8 Pro can be located by the integrated GPS receiver. Outside, the position can be located down to 12 meters (40 ft.) without any notable delay. Inside enclosed rooms, we could not get a satellite signal that was strong enough to locate the position. In our practice test where we record the travel distances via GPS module of the high-end smartphone in parallel to using the professional Garmin Edge 500 bicycle navigator, the Honor device deviates by 180 meters (~0.11 miles) from the professional GPS reference device on the 12-Kilometer (~7.5 miles) route - a rather small deviation when we compare it to what we measured on the Huawei P10: that high-end smartphone reaches deviations of 380 meters (~0.23 miles). If we look at the GPS data more closely, we see smaller inaccuracies mainly in the turns and curves. Still, the high-end smartphone should be suited for navigation as well as geo-tagging.
Telephone and Call Quality
Considering its price class, the call quality of the Honor 8 Pro is rather average. While there were no interfering interruptions or reception problems in the test, the voices are slightly distorted and not reproduced clearly. However, we perceived the quality of the built-in microphone as satisfactory and it was characterized as clear by our conversation partner.
Cameras
The 12-MP main cameras of the Honor 8 Pro record in the 4:3 format with 3968x2976 pixels and are supported in bad lighting conditions by a dual LED flash. While the monochrome sensor takes pictures in black and white, the RGB camera records color information. The benefit of the dual-camera system is the ability to record variable field depth, so that the image motif is determined in three dimensions. This allows applying the so-called Bokeh effect to the images. The camera modules have an aperture of f/2.2, but the depth information of both cameras can be used to generate an aperture from f/0.95 to f/16. Image stabilization is merely offered through software and an optical image stabilizer (OIS) is not built-in.
The photo quality of the Honor 8 Pro ranges from good to very good. If we compare the photos taken with this high-end smartphone with those of high-end devices from last year, the Honor 8 Pro does not quite achieve the photo quality of a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. The dynamic range is slightly smaller, which causes images taken in widely varying light conditions to darken visibly. Moreover, the image detail is lacking and the color reproduction did not completely convince us. Our greatest complaint is the low-light performance, in particular in auto-mode. In low light, the images clearly begin to become grainy and the blurriness of the images increases. Here a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge performs better.
The 8-MP front camera also has a good quality and is more than sufficient for selfies. Unfortunately, for optimal image sharpness, auto-focus is lacking. The front camera of the Honor 8 Pro records videos in FHD resolution (1920x1080 pixels) with up to 30 frames per second. The 12-MP RGB camera records videos with 3840x2160 pixels and 30 fps. Videos cannot be recorded with the monochrome sensor. The quality of the video recordings is pleasing, but for recordings without jittering, the OIS is missing at one place or the other.
Under controlled lighting conditions, the color tones have a good likeness to the actual reference colors. However, the photos of the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport (without post-processing such as a manual white-balance) taken with the 12-MP camera show a white-balance that is clearly too warm. To evaluate the sharpness of the photos, we take a picture of our test chart under controlled artificial light. The sharpness is good, although towards the edges the photos become visibly blurred.
Accessories and Warranty
A modular 18-watt charger (9 V, 2 A) and a USB cable are included, and you an make a VR headset out of the packaging materials - a good idea in theory, but in practical use, the construction of the headset has not proven to be very ergonomical.
The manufacturer provides a 24-month warranty for the smartphone from the time of purchase. The battery and charger have a limited warranty of only 6 months. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.
Input Devices and Handling
The display of the Honor 8 Pro recognizes up to nine touch-points simultaneously. The capacitive multi-touchscreen reacts fast and reliably up to the edge areas. Moreover, the Corning Gorilla glass surface offers very good gliding characteristics.
The active fingerprint scanner positioned on the back is very fast and accurate, as we are used to at this point from Huawei smartphones. Besides unlocking the device via biometric identification of the fingerprint, the sensor can be activated for other functions, such as pulling down the notification bar. Control via knuckle touch is also available.
The Chinese manufacturer preinstalled the stock Android keyboard layout, which supports swipe and voice input, and also the SwiftKey virtual keyboard.
Display
The LC display of the Honor 8 Pro measures 14.5 cm (5.7 inch) in the diagonal and offers a QuadHD resolution, which corresponds to 2560x1440 pixels. The high resolution of the IPS panels leads to a pixel density of around 515 ppi, which provides a very sharp display of the contents. In normal use and regular viewing distances there are no visible pixel structures.
Displaying a pure white area, the liquid crystal display achieves a brightness of 541 cd/m² in the center and with that shines similarly bright or in parts clearly brighter than the competitors. With the activated adaptive environment-light sensor to control the display brightness, the display of the Honor 8 Pro achieves a similar value of 531 cd/m². In addition, we evaluate the brightness in our test with evenly distributed bright and dark areas (APL-50). Here, we determine a brightness of 505 cd/m².
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 91 %
Center on Battery: 541 cd/m²
Contrast: 1803:1 (Black: 0.3 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 3.2 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5
ΔE Greyscale 4 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
Gamma: 2.27
| Honor 8 Pro IPS, 2560x1440, 5.70 | Huawei P10 LTPS, 1920x1080, 5.10 | Huawei P9 Plus AMOLED, 1920x1080, 5.50 | HTC U Play Super LCD, 1920x1080, 5.20 | HTC 10 Super LCD 5, 2560x1440, 5.20 | Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Super AMOLED, 2560x1440, 5.50 | Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Super AMOLED, 2960x1440, 6.20 | OnePlus 3T Optic-AMOLED, 1920x1080, 5.50 | Lenovo Moto Z AMOLED, 2560x1440, 5.50 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | -19% | -34% | -20% | -6% | 30% | 29% | -59% | 13% | |
| Brightness middle | 541 | 547 1% | 361 -33% | 424 -22% | 445 -18% | 554 2% | 560 4% | 421 -22% | 485 -10% |
| Brightness | 514 | 556 8% | 366 -29% | 432 -16% | 434 -16% | 552 7% | 562 9% | 430 -16% | 490 -5% |
| Brightness Distribution | 91 | 86 -5% | 87 -4% | 90 -1% | 93 2% | 96 5% | 93 2% | 84 -8% | 92 1% |
| Black Level * | 0.3 | 0.43 -43% | 0.25 17% | 0.36 -20% | |||||
| Contrast | 1803 | 1272 -29% | 1696 -6% | 1236 -31% | |||||
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 3.2 | 4.8 -50% | 5.1 -59% | 5.7 -78% | 2.8 12% | 1.59 50% | 1.7 47% | 7.1 -122% | 2.1 34% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 7.2 | 8.8 -22% | 10 -39% | 10.8 -50% | 5.8 19% | 2.56 64% | 3.4 53% | 15.3 -113% | 5.5 24% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 4 | 4.5 -13% | 5.5 -38% | 4.1 -3% | 3.7 7% | 2.01 50% | 1.6 60% | 6.8 -70% | 2.6 35% |
| Gamma | 2.27 97% | 2.39 92% | 2.24 98% | 2.32 95% | 2.31 95% | 2.01 109% | 2.13 103% | 2.23 99% | 2.23 99% |
| CCT | 7120 91% | 7194 90% | 7388 88% | 7359 88% | 7164 91% | 6321 103% | 6435 101% | 7866 83% | 6843 95% |
| Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998) | 82.12 | 81.57 | 88.14 | ||||||
| Color Space (Percent of sRGB) | 99.98 | 99.87 | 100 |
* ... smaller is better
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM not detected |  | ||
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 17924 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured. | |||
The black value of 0.3 cd/m² as well as the display contrast ratio of 1803:1 are within a range typical for high-end smartphones. The device does not achieve a better contrast even in the APL-50 test, where we measure a ratio of 1629:1 with a black value of 0.31 cd/m². Due to their technology, the OLED competitors have a clear advantage here, since the organic displays can display an "absolute" black, thus approaching an infinite contrast ratio in theory.
At 3.2 (colors) and 4 (grayscale), the analysis of the photo spectrometer and the CalMAN software shows relatively low average Delta-E deviations to the sRGB color space (display mode: warm). For comparison: the ideal values remain below 3. At 7120 K, the color temperature is only slightly higher than the ideal value of 6500 K. The sRGB as well as the AdobeRGB colorspace are almost completely covered by the IPS panel. We hardly find any colored tint. Overall, the liquid crystal display convinces completely and only the Galaxy-S competition from Samsung offers a better contrast and color accuracy.
In the standard display mode, the average Delta-E deviations in the grayscale and mixed colors are slightly worse, and the color reproduction is more saturated.
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 24 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 10 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 14 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows good response rates in our tests, but may be too slow for competitive gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 48 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (21.5 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 52.8 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 30.8 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 22 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.2 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 88 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (33.7 ms). | ||
Due to its technology, the stability of the viewing angles of the built-in liquid crystal display is very good. There are no color inversions in the Honor 8 Pro, and the brightness declines very little when viewing from the sides. Thanks to the high brightness of the high-contrast IPS display, using it outside is not a problem.
Performance
Inside the Honor 8 Pro runs the Kirin 960 octa-core processor developed in-house and introduced by Huawei in 2016. The SoC (System-on-Chip) equipped with eight processor cores is designed with ARM's big.LITTLE technology, where four high-performance Cortex A73 cores with a clock speed of 2.4 GHz and four energy-saving low-power Cortex-A53 cores with a 1.8 GHz clock are used. In contrast to the modern 10-nm processors such as the Samsung Exynos 8895 or the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, the Kirin 960 is manufactured by TSMC only in a 16-nanometer process.
As the benchmark results show, the octa-core CPU in combination with 6 GB RAM assures a very appealing performance, which is comparable to that of last year's high-end devices from other manufacturers. The system performance is also outstanding. In everyday use, the system runs very fluidly and almost without any delays.
The Mali-G71 (MP8) graphics unit integrated in the Kirin 960 uses the Vulkan API graphics support. This allows the graphics engine to take over some of the calculations, which would burden the CPU in the OpenGL technology up to now. The results of the graphics-based benchmarks are on the level of a Mali-T880 (MP12) and below the Qualcomm Adreno 530 GPU. In comparison to the Huawei P10, the results in the 3D-Mark benchmark are notably worse, which might be due to poor heat dissipation leading to throttling.
| AnTuTu v6 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| Geekbench 4.0 | |
| 64 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| 64 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| Geekbench 4.4 | |
| 64 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| 64 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
| T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| 1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| GFXBench 3.0 | |
| on screen Manhattan Onscreen OGL (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| 1920x1080 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| GFXBench 3.1 | |
| on screen Manhattan ES 3.1 Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| 1920x1080 Manhattan ES 3.1 Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| GFXBench | |
| 1920x1080 Car Chase Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| on screen Car Chase Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| PCMark for Android - Work performance score (sort by value) | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| HTC U Play | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
In the web-based benchmarks, the Honor 8 Pro positions itself in the middle of the field of comparison devices, slightly above the Huawei P10. Subjectively, the results are okay, and the browser performance of the Honor smartphone is more than sufficient for most usage scenarios. In terms of the time it takes to load complex page contents, however, it is not on the top level.
| Octane V2 - Total Score | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total | |
| HTC U Play | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| JetStream 1.1 - Total Score | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| HTC 10 | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| HTC U Play | |
| WebXPRT 2015 - Overall | |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge | |
| Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus | |
| Honor 8 Pro | |
| Huawei P10 | |
| OnePlus 3T | |
| Huawei P9 Plus | |
| Lenovo Moto Z | |
| HTC 10 | |
* ... smaller is better
Besides the strong SoC, the fast opening and closing of applications is also assured by the modern UFS-2.1 flash storage in the Honor 8 Pro, which is one of the fastest smartphone storage modules. Accordingly, the access rates are very good. In contrast, the integrated microSD card slot is relatively slow for the price-class. We measured its speed with our Toshiba Exceria Pro M401 (max. read: 95 MB/s, write: 80 MB/s) reference storage card. For a high-end device, at 54 MB/s (read) and 32 MB/s (write), the performance of the slot is average at most.
| Honor 8 Pro Mali-G71 MP8, Kirin 960, 64 GB UFS 2.1 Flash | Huawei P10 Mali-G71 MP8, Kirin 960, 64 GB UFS 2.1 Flash | Huawei P9 Plus Mali-T880 MP4, Kirin 955, 64 GB eMMC Flash | HTC U Play Mali-T860 MP2, Helio P10 MT6755, 32 GB eMMC Flash | HTC 10 Adreno 530, 820 MSM8996, 32 GB eMMC Flash | Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Mali-T880 MP12, Exynos 8890, 32 GB UFS 2.0 Flash | Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Mali-G71 MP20, Exynos 8895, 64 GB UFS 2.1 Flash | OnePlus 3T Adreno 530, SD 821, 64 GB UFS 2.0 Flash | Lenovo Moto Z Adreno 530, 820 MSM8996, 32 GB eMMC Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AndroBench 3-5 | 0% | -39% | -51% | -19% | -16% | 1% | -33% | -7% | |
| Sequential Write 256KB SDCard | 32.16 | 32.19 0% | 24.95 -22% | 23.6 -27% | 65.4 103% | 50.4 57% | 57.2 78% | 45.64 42% | |
| Sequential Read 256KB SDCard | 54.2 | 54.2 0% | 62.5 15% | 36.8 -32% | 83.3 54% | 76.4 41% | 71.1 31% | 78.5 45% | |
| Random Write 4KB | 151.6 | 152.3 0% | 51.2 -66% | 52.7 -65% | 15.89 -90% | 15.79 -90% | 15.27 -90% | 74.4 -51% | 74.9 -51% |
| Random Read 4KB | 166.4 | 168.4 1% | 39.33 -76% | 32 -81% | 29.92 -82% | 86.7 -48% | 127.2 -24% | 123.6 -26% | 117.2 -30% |
| Sequential Write 256KB | 187.1 | 189.8 1% | 140.4 -25% | 135.5 -28% | 115.6 -38% | 145.1 -22% | 194.2 4% | 165.3 -12% | 168.3 -10% |
| Sequential Read 256KB | 738 | 738 0% | 284.3 -61% | 197.3 -73% | 275.1 -63% | 487.3 -34% | 788 7% | 436.4 -41% | 439.7 -40% |
Gaming
The ARM Mali-G71 (MP8) has eight clusters that clock at up to 900 MHz. The powerful graphics card allows playing even the more complex 3D games from the Android Play Store jitter-free. Current game titles such as the "Asphalt 8: Airborn" racing game and the "Dead Trigger 2" ego-shooter are rendered in high graphics at a relatively constant 29 fps and 30 fps respectively.
The control via touchscreen as well as the position sensor react very quickly and accurately in the test.
| Dead Trigger 2 | |||
| Settings | Value | ||
| high | 30 fps | ||
| Asphalt 8: Airborne | |||
| Settings | Value | ||
| high | 29 fps | ||
| very low | 29 fps | ||
Emissions
Temperature
The aluminum casing in the back of the Honor 8 Pro warms up relatively evenly. While we measure average temperatures below 30 °C (86 °F) during idle mode, the back shows a maximum surface temperature of 36.7 °C (98 °F) under load. On the front of the device, the heat development is more pronounced overall. In everyday operation, the waste heat does not create any problems, although it can be clearly felt in computing-intensive applications.
The battery test of the GFXBench app shows that with increasing load, the battery level as well as the number of frames break down after a short time. After around 25 successive runs of the Manhattan 3.1 test, the performance of the Kirin 960 SoC is almost halved.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 44.8 °C / 113 F, compared to the average of 35 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 56 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 41.2 °C / 106 F, compared to the average of 33.8 °C / 93 F
(±) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 33.3 °C / 92 F, compared to the device average of 32.7 °C / 91 F.
Speaker
The mono speaker at the bottom of the case behind some milled holes achieves a maximum volume of up to 82 dB(A) in the test. Subjectively, the sound quality is on a similar level as the Samsung Galaxy models of the 7th and 8th generation. As expected, the sound is characterized by mid and high frequency tones. The Pink-Noise diagram also shows that the bass is not audible and the mids and highs are linearly reproduced instead.
The sound reproduction through the 3.5-mm audio jack is clear and provides a clean signal.
Honor 8 Pro audio analysis
(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (82.4 dB)
Bass 100 - 315 Hz
(-) | nearly no bass - on average 25.4% lower than median
(-) | bass is not linear (15.3% delta to prev. frequency)
Mids 400 - 2000 Hz
(+) | balanced mids - only 3.4% away from median
(+) | mids are linear (6% delta to prev. frequency)
Highs 2 - 16 kHz
(±) | higher highs - on average 5.4% higher than median
(±) | linearity of highs is average (7% delta to prev. frequency)
Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz
(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (23.6% difference to median)
Compared to same class
» 47% of all tested devices in this class were better, 9% similar, 44% worse
» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 38%, worst was 134%
Compared to all devices tested
» 66% of all tested devices were better, 7% similar, 27% worse
» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 25%, worst was 134%
Huawei P10 audio analysis
(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (82.7 dB)
Bass 100 - 315 Hz
(-) | nearly no bass - on average 20.9% lower than median
(±) | linearity of bass is average (12.6% delta to prev. frequency)
Mids 400 - 2000 Hz
(+) | balanced mids - only 4.2% away from median
(+) | mids are linear (6% delta to prev. frequency)
Highs 2 - 16 kHz
(±) | higher highs - on average 5.5% higher than median
(+) | highs are linear (4.9% delta to prev. frequency)
Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz
(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (23.6% difference to median)
Compared to same class
» 47% of all tested devices in this class were better, 9% similar, 44% worse
» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 38%, worst was 134%
Compared to all devices tested
» 66% of all tested devices were better, 7% similar, 27% worse
» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 25%, worst was 134%
OnePlus 3T audio analysis
(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (84.3 dB)
Bass 100 - 315 Hz
(-) | nearly no bass - on average 24.6% lower than median
(±) | linearity of bass is average (7.2% delta to prev. frequency)
Mids 400 - 2000 Hz
(+) | balanced mids - only 4.6% away from median
(+) | mids are linear (4.6% delta to prev. frequency)
Highs 2 - 16 kHz
(±) | higher highs - on average 7.1% higher than median
(+) | highs are linear (2.8% delta to prev. frequency)
Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz
(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (20.9% difference to median)
Compared to same class
» 32% of all tested devices in this class were better, 8% similar, 60% worse
» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 38%, worst was 134%
Compared to all devices tested
» 51% of all tested devices were better, 8% similar, 41% worse
» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 25%, worst was 134%
Frequency diagram in comparison (check boxes above can be checked and unchecked!)
Battery Life
Power Consumption
In terms of power consumption, the Honor 8 Pro is relatively inefficient. The power usage is considerably higher in parts than that of the competing devices. In particular, a comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S8 shows the wasted potential.
| Off / Standby |   0.02 / 0.24 Watt |
| Idle |  0.98 / 2.27 / 2.36 Watt |
| Load |
6.58 / 10.12 Watt |
    
| |
| Honor 8 Pro 4000 mAh | Huawei P10 3200 mAh | Huawei P9 Plus 3400 mAh | HTC U Play 2500 mAh | HTC 10 3000 mAh | Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge 3600 mAh | Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus 3500 mAh | OnePlus 3T 3400 mAh | Lenovo Moto Z 2600 mAh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power Consumption | 8% | 35% | 23% | 15% | 33% | 42% | 15% | 40% | |
| Idle Minimum * | 0.98 | 0.83 15% | 0.87 11% | 0.92 6% | 0.68 31% | 0.63 36% | 0.68 31% | 0.61 38% | 0.66 33% |
| Idle Average * | 2.27 | 2.1 7% | 1.2 47% | 1.84 19% | 1.49 34% | 1.1 52% | 1.13 50% | 1.77 22% | 1.01 56% |
| Idle Maximum * | 2.36 | 2.18 8% | 1.27 46% | 2 15% | 1.91 19% | 1.56 34% | 1.16 51% | 1.81 23% | 1.09 54% |
| Load Average * | 6.58 | 6.57 -0% | 4.69 29% | 4.3 35% | 7.4 -12% | 5.95 10% | 4.69 29% | 6.67 -1% | 3.97 40% |
| Load Maximum * | 10.12 | 9.32 8% | 5.63 44% | 6.2 39% | 9.71 4% | 6.7 34% | 5.24 48% | 10.98 -8% | 8.34 18% |
* ... smaller is better
Battery Runtimes
According to the manufacturer, the 4000 mAh battery built into the Honor 8 Pro in combination with the newest Smartpower 5.0 technology is supposed to achieve runtimes of two days in "normal" usage. In our WLAN test with the display brightness adjusted to 150 cd/m², the smartphone achieved a good result with 9 hours and 33 minutes. Here, the inefficient power consumption prevents a better result. Purely according to the nominal performance of the Lithium-Polymer battery, the Honor device should last considerably longer. Thanks to the quick-charge technology, the Honor 8 Pro can be recharged back to 100% in a good 2 hours with the included 18-watt power supply (9 V, 2 A).
| Honor 8 Pro 4000 mAh | Huawei Mate 9 4000 mAh | Huawei P10 3200 mAh | Huawei P9 Plus 3400 mAh | HTC U Play 2500 mAh | HTC 10 3000 mAh | Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus 3500 mAh | OnePlus 3T 3400 mAh | Lenovo Moto Z 2600 mAh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery Runtime | 26% | 16% | 14% | -6% | -7% | 26% | 16% | 14% | |
| Reader / Idle | 1378 | 1538 12% | 1540 12% | 1446 5% | 1302 -6% | 1273 -8% | 1565 14% | 1423 3% | 1371 -1% |
| H.264 | 675 | 947 40% | 582 -14% | 776 15% | 514 -24% | 648 -4% | 742 10% | 810 20% | 724 7% |
| WiFi v1.3 | 573 | 758 32% | 966 69% | 530 -8% | 473 -17% | 413 -28% | 736 28% | 494 -14% | 407 -29% |
| Load | 181 | 219 21% | 176 -3% | 263 45% | 223 23% | 203 12% | 275 52% | 282 56% | 320 77% |
Pros
Cons
Verdict
The Honor 8 Pro is a well-built, high-end smartphone with excellent system performance and very successful visually. Compared to the current and some of last-year's crop of high-end devices, we have to make do with less in many places, despite its amply sized 6 GB working memory.
In the Honor 8 Pro, we do not (yet) see the excellent price-performance ratio Honor devices are known for. Last year's high-end smartphones (such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge) sometimes offer a better package overall for less money, considering that those devices are already past their biggest drop in price.
Features such as Bluetooth 4.2 instead of 5.0, the comparatively "weak" graphics unit, a front camera without auto-focus, and the USB-2.0 standard differentiate the Honor 8 Pro from the current flagship smartphones of other manufacturers. In addition, neither can the battery be charged wirelessly, nor is the device certified according to the IP standard and thereby protected against dust and water. The casing edges are slightly large and the ratio of the display size to the whole front is relatively inefficient, at least for a device of the year 2017.
All in all, the Honor 8 Pro is a very successful smartphone and a recommendable alternative to the Huawei P10 devices. However, in our opinion, it is not an attack on the best flagship smartphones of 2017.
Regardless of that, Huawei's policies of removing hardware components leave a bad taste – whether all the Honor-8-Pro buyers will feel the joy of the modern UFS-2.1 storage is at least questionable.
Honor 8 Pro
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05/04/2017 v6(old)
Marcus Herbrich
Pricecompare
