Honor Note 8 goes official with a 6.6-inch 2K screen and bustling spec sheet

posted by Luis D. / Aug 01, 2016, 7:10 AM

Honor Note 8 goes official with a 6.6-inch 2K screen and bustling spec sheet

Honor, a brand affiliated to Chinese mobile mastermind Huawei, today introduced a new big-screen handset – the Honor Note 8. Priced at $345 (CNY 2,299) for the 32GB base model, the device packs an impressive array of premium features.

For starters, the Note 8's 6.6-inch, 2K resolution display is certainly eyebrow-raising material. Honor touts it as ideal for multimedia, productivity, and gaming, which makes sense considering the immense screen real estate and pixel density. Sensibly, there's split-screen feature to make the most of it. Moreover, the handset uses a Super AMOLED panel that covers 105% of the NTSC color gamut with a 70,000:1 contrast ratio. The screen-to-body ratio is advertised at 80%, which is generally great, and at 0.28in (7.18mm) thickness, the smartphone has a refined presence.

The Honor Note 8 shows the brand at its most premium

Honor also took advantage of the extra footprint to stuff in a sizable 4500mAh battery with fast charging, and implemented power-saving algorithms in order to squeeze out 13.4 hours of continuous 1080p video playback and 6.5 hours (average) of gaming.

Speaking of gaming, the Kirin 955 chipset with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM ought to be able to handle intense modern games, as well as everything else you throw at it. It's a modern SoC built on a 16nm process, with eight CPU cores and a maximum speed of 2.5GHz. The Mali-T880 GPU which handles rendering operates at 900MHz max. This is a speedy chipset all-around, although the 2K display resolution will undoubtedly tax it.

The Honor Note 8 also brings a 13MP rear camera with a large F2.0 aperture, an RGBW sensor, optical image stabilization, and a bespoke image processing engine. The front cam is an 8MP unit, said to be brighter than average to facilitate video chat. In addition, the smartphone features a fingerprint sensor and dual-SIM support, along with chip-level security and the ability to take a screenshots by tapping the screen with your knuckle.

The Honor Note 8 comes off as an accomplished handset, worthy of crowning the brand's high-end line-up. Alas, it's only bound for China at the moment.

Honor Note 8 product images

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Honor Note 8 product images

source: Honor (Translated)

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11 Comments

1. ibend

Posts: 6747; Member since: Sep 30, 2014

everything is great.. until "Kirin 955"

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 7:17 AM 6

2. Chuck007

Posts: 1408; Member since: Mar 02, 2014

Never expected the sexiest looking smartphone (black model) to come from a Chinese manufacturer... dang great job Huawei!

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 7:26 AM 1

3. sarcastic_nerd unregistered

Didn't Huawei executive say last year that QHD is useless and Huawei will never go that route. http://blog.gsmarena.com/huawei-ceo-accuses-xiaomi-mi-note-pro-poor-battery-life/

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 7:35 AM 0

6. ibend

they had just realize that QHD is required for flagship nowadays, it took them long enough, lol..

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 9:56 AM 2

9. Ordinary

Posts: 2454; Member since: Apr 23, 2015

Well at 6.6 this is very much needed.

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 11:48 AM 1

4. cmvrgr

Posts: 40; Member since: Aug 16, 2013

Akyumen Holophone is far better. Runs windows desktop at the same time.

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 7:41 AM 0

5. Marslander

Posts: 159; Member since: Jan 08, 2015

Looks nice, but cameras have been an Achilles heel for Huawei, so I'll reserve judgment until I see some photo examples.

posted on Aug 01, 2016, 7:42 AM 0

7. isprobi

Posts: 797; Member since: May 30, 2011

This is the first phone I see that can replace my Sony Xperia Z5 Premium. It would be a big drop (23 to 13 MP) camera wise but Sony stabilization is not the best. If it comes to USA for a price $600 or less I will probably buy it.