Honor 8 Pro Review: The affordable flagship phone

The Huawei phone might not surpass the popularity of the OnePlus 5, but it is a well-rounded phone that offers great performance, says Kakoli Chakraborty. 

Everyone can't afford an iPhone 7 Plus or a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. For such people, brands like OnePlus and Huawei are saviours. Offering a similar build quality and performance at a cheaper price, these phones have taken the smartphone market by storm.

So, it comes as no surprise that Huawei decided to improve the Honor 8.

The Honor 8 Pro, with an all-metal body, is definitely a good-looking phone.

It comes with a 5.7-inch QHD display with a 2.5D curved glass.

Its metallic back has a fingerprint sensor and a dual primary camera.

It is, however, susceptible to fingerprint smudges.

The display is perfect even in bright sunlight and the colours are sharp. Watching videos on the phone is a delight and, though, the audio output is good enough, I'd still recommend using a good set of headphones.

Under the hood, the phone houses an octa-core Kirin 960 processor with 6 GB of RAM.

 Also read: Huawei's Honor

• Why the Honor 8 is worthy
• How good is the Honor 6X

The phone stays true to its word and delivers excellent performance.

I played Injustice 2 and WWE Immortals, and didn't notice any lag. The phone did heat up a bit after a prolonged gaming session, but certainly didn't overheat.

Multitasking is a breeze on the phone with absolutely no stutter. Even the camera app opens without any delay, unlike in many other smartphones.

The phone boasts of a 12-megapixel dual primary camera and an 8-megapixel secondary camera. The primary camera produces good photos with accurate colour reproduction and makes very little noise. But like many other smartphones, the picture quality dips in low-light, while the shutter noise increases.

The phone runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with the EMUI 5.1 on top. The custom UI is smooth and doesn't hamper your day-to-day activities.

The phone has a 4,000 mAh battery, which is more than enough to last a day on moderate usage. However, if you're planning to use the phone for a movie session, make sure to keep the charger handy as the battery drains pretty fast during prolonged sessions.

In a nutshell, the Honor 8 Pro is a well-rounded phone.

It offers great performance with a decent battery life and a good camera.

While it won't be able to surpass the popularity of the likes of the OnePlus 5, at ₹29,999, the phone is great value for money.