The new Honor 8 is announced

Early Tuesday evening at the Academy of Sciences in the sprawling Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Honor, a distinct brand of Huawei, officially unveiled the Honor 8 smartphone.

The Honor 8 is the company’s first “flagship” for the US market, and it has a spec sheet to fit that bill nicely. “Honor 8 perfectly represents the evolution of our overall product view,” according to President of Honor, George Zhao, “It goes against established industry norms and market conventions with a higher aesthetic standard.”

That is not to say the Honor 8 is all about being a pretty face, as handsome as it is, rather Honor aimed to balance “looks with smarts, speed, and connectivity that today’s millennial consumers demand.” Specifications are important too, and we cover the basics further below. Catering to millennials, Honor took note that at, or near, the top of the list of younger smartphone users is a quality camera, and that is the leading feature of the Honor 8.

The cameras

The Honor 8 has a dual-lens camera on the back, one lens is color, the other is monochrome. Honor claims this set-up allows the capture of up to three-times more light than a single lens. The two 12-megapixel Sony IMX286 sensors work together to enable pictures with sharper detail and more vivid color. The cameras are aided by a variety of focus tools, including laser-assisted, contrast, and depth-of-field.

The camera interface offers a variety of settings, including a full manual mode for those that know what they are doing.

Build quality

In the US market, millennials have also grown to expect their products to look good too. The Honor 8 follows examples of premium build quality set by the likes of Apple, Samsung, and its related company, Huawei.

For this device, the design language uses glass on front and on back rounded to fit with a slim aluminum frame. The glass panel on the back was made with layers, applying different tolerances to create an “aurora” effect as light reflects off the back of the Honor 8. The back is also treated to resist fingerprints, a welcome feature.

Multi-purpose fingerprint sensor

If you are familiar with the fingerprints sensor found on the Huawei made Nexus 6P or Huawei Mate 8, then you can expect quick and trouble-free operation when unlocking the phone. The sensor also supports other user selectable functions. You can link the sensor to respond to answering a phone call, open the camera, or turn off an alarm. The sequences include a single-click, double-click, or long press.

Keeping security in mind, the fingerprint data is encrypted and stored locally on the Honor 8.

Specifications

The Honor 8 is powered by Huawei’s octa-core Kirin 950 CPU, with a Mali T880 GPU, and a 3,000mAh battery. Using the big.LITTLE design, with clock speed for the larger cores tuned to 2.3GHz.

There is 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM on board with either 32GB or 64GB of expandable storage. Huawei also provided proprietary power saving technology. The Honor 8 will also benefits from quick charging, achieving a 50% recharge in about a half-an-hour.

The screen is a manageable 5.2-inch, 1080x1920 full HD LTPS display. The display features eye-care technology to help ease eye strain if you spend a long time looking at your phone. Honor also says that color accuracy was a major endeavor for the display. The Honor 8 weighs in at 5.3 ounces, and is only 7.5mm thick.

Finally, not groundbreaking, but significant - the Honor 8 also has an IR port, a feature we have seen other leading manufacturers leave by the wayside for many devices this year.

Pre-orders and pricing

You can pre-order an unlocked Honor 8 beginning Wednesday, August 17th directly from Honor (see sourcelink below), or through Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, and Newegg.

There are three colors available, midnight black, pearl white, and sapphire blue. Best Buy has an exclusive on the sapphire blue color during the first couple months of availability. The 32GB Honor 8 will cost $399.99, and the 64GB will run $449.99. If you pre-order before September 3rd, you will get a $50 gift-card.



source: Honor