[nextpage title=”Introduction, Overview and Key Features”]
Introduction, Overview and Key Features
Huawei’s dedication with its Honor brand seems really good which should be a sure job for the Chinese manufacturer to match with its rising praises across the globe. Like the inconsistency with naming conventions for its smartphones under Honor brand name, the random – illogical pricing has been the major problem with it. We’ll try to cover all the factors in this – Honor 8 Lite Review.
Huawei announced the Honor 8 Lite before MWC last month and around a month later, Huawei Pakistan launched the phone in Pakistan. We have the phone since then and it has gone through considerable time span. Just like always, the Dual-SIM Honor 8 Lite was used as a primary device with for as long as a month.
Launched at the price of PKR 24,899/- Honor 8 Lite maintains its price today, however it’s available online at discounted prices as well. If you prefer to go for, you can find below a table with different online retailers and their prices accordingly.
| STORE | PRICE | |
|---|---|---|
| DARAZ.PK | PKR 23,900 | view |
| HOMESHOPPING.PK | PKR 23,500/- | view |
Before going into any detail, have a look at the key features below.
Huawei Honor 8 Lite – Key Features
- OS/Software: Android 7.0 Marshmallow, EMUI 5
- Processor/CPU: Kirin 655 – Octa core, 4x 2.1 GHz + 4x 1.7 GHz
- GPU: ARM Mali T830-MP2
- Memory: 3GB RAM, 16GB Storage + microSD up to 128 GB
- Display: 5.2″ IPS Display, 1080p, ~424ppi
- Weight: 147 grams
- Camera Rear: Dual 12MP
- Camera Front: 8MP
- Battery: 3000mAh, non-removable, Rapid Charging
- Connectivity: 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz+, Bluetooth 4.1, MicroUSB
- Other Features: Fingerprint Scanner
- Colors: Black, White, Gold, Blue
| NOTABLE FEATURES | DISADVANTAGES |
|---|---|
| Dual 2.5D curved glass 4G/LTE, Nice Battery Timing, Good Camera, Fingerprint Scanner, EMUI 5 + Android 7 |
No Gorilla Glass No Fast Charging, No USB Type-C No 4K video recording, |
Honor 8 Lite – Box Content
Honor 8 Lite comes in a simple pop-out packaging with a white box. Inner box contains those standard compartments for accessories like charger, USB cable and stereo headset. The retail box also ships with a silicon back case and a simple transparent protective film.
[nextpage title=”Build, Design and Display”]
Build, Design and Display
If you have seen Honor 8 of the Chinese phone maker, you would not be surprised by the looks of this Honor 8 Lite. Both the phones match exactly at the outfit, their physical sizes, their displays and the build style and quality.
Well, Honor 8 has got a lot more with a high-end package – the dual-camera (not Leica branded though), premium processor, better RAM and storage and it costs around double the price of what we have here with us.
First thing first, visually the Honor 8 Lite lacks the dual-camera configuration and it comes with single primary camera on the back. Everything else is just similar to what we have seen on Honor 8. The 2.5D curved glass on both the sides. Don’t know why, but the rear glass seems to be smoother than the front glass. It’s enough smooth to slip down from even a millimeter slope of the surface you put it on.
Honor 8 was just a like that as we have cover in a previous review – you might need to take extra care about that. The front glass on this Honor 8 Lite doesn’t seem to be enough smooth to impress at all. I am not sure but for some reason both glasses front and rear are not identical. I’d have preferred smoother glass on the front instead.
The truth is that handling of the device is also similar to how we we felt with the Honor 8. You will be pleased to use it all day long. Just like the premium model – the single glass, on the back of Honor 8 Lite, covers the camera lens however the LED flash is apart from the glass with the silver wall around it.
Aligned exactly to the glass, the isolating wall prevents light-bleed into lens when taking photographs with flash-on. That’s a very common approach of using flash with the lens.
If you remember the clickable fingerprint scanner of Honor 8 – the Smart Key, you will miss it on this phone. Of course it’s not the only thing you will miss after all it’s a half valued similar looking phone.
Both the front and the rear glass panels with the 2.5D curves on their ends join at the middle rounded aluminium frame with chamfered edges. Although the glass doesn’t blend directly into the chassis – there is a thin plastic frame in-between before the glass and faux metal actually join in.
The plastic body, however leaves the antenna stripes adoption to mold into the metal. Weighing at 147 grams, the Honor 8 Lite is only few grams lighter than the glass-metal piece of Honor 8.
Even thought the screen size is identical to Honor 8’s screen, the profile of the Lite model is a little large. Hence the screen-to-body ratio is only ~69% unlike the ~73% of the costly Honor 8.
Ports and Components
Like most smartphones, Honor 8 Lite has power button and the volume rocker on the right side of the phone whereas on the left, there is a hybrid SIM slot.
The hybrid SIM slot serves to install either two SIM cards simultaneously or a micro SD card along with a single SIM.
Bottom of the phone hosts a mono speaker and a micro USB port – sadly it’s not a Type-C reversible. A primary mic (or mouth piece) is placed in side the speaker grill while a secondary mic for noise reduction and stereo audio recording is provided on the top side of the phone.
On the top, in addition to the secondary mic, a 3.5mm audio jack is there and that’s it about the keys and components. These are the ones you would find on any smartphone today.
Display
The 5.2 inch display on Honor 8 Lite is enough sharp with 1080p resolution. The pixel density of approximately 424ppi is more than enough for all kind of content on the screen to view with human eye.
Reading text, watching videos/movies or playing games – all was impressively good on Honor 8 Lite. It’s vibrant and clear.
The display is “combined with dynamic backlight adjustment and color enhancement technology.” With the help of software customization, Honor 8 lite includes “eye-care” mode “which is developed with technical support from the Chinese Ophthalmic Engineering and Technical Research Center” is supposed to reduce blue-light radiation and provide customized-warm feel to the eyes.
Even when set at least warm level, the eye comfort feature still gives yellowish feel on the screen which is much better in dark environments. For the exact purpose, you can set the time when you want this feature automatically turned on.
Huawei has not disclosed technical detail about the display, but it’s an IPS display whether or not the IPS-NEO like on Honor 8. Even though, the glass reflections are not impressively controlled, it’s an all situation contender. Outdoor performance is too good for the price factor. There is also a software controlled feature to increase readability under sunlight.
Sunlight readability option is supposed to work when you try this outdoors. In a room or in controlled lighting condition, you won’t feel a change. Overall, I am impressed with the display performance whether it’s inside in dark or outside under direct sunlight.
What I didn’t like are the fingerprints that will easily snap to the screen within in minutes. Even bad is that you can’t clean it unless you use a wet piece of cloth. That makes it terrible with not so smooth experience on the screen. Remind you that the rear glass is smoother but it is not anti-glare as well but this white unit of Honor 8 Lite makes them less or in fact no-visible.
[nextpage title=”OS / Software – EMUI 5″]
OS / Software – EMUI 5, An App Drawer Introducer
Honor 8 Lite comes out-of-the-box running Android 7 Nougat – with its heavily done EMUI 5 interface layer on top. Android 7 is not something new that you would learn about but EMUI 5 is.
While a quick visual feel in EMUI 5 is mostly similar from previous iterations but it has good changes here and there into key elements of usability. It also brings an several change under the hood with features and the ways users interact with the system. The software will hardly leave anyone intact with reservations they had with Huawei’s Emotion UI. Those thoughts will change – as the Chinese phone maker has adapted exactly what the consumers wanted.
You will see a big change in navigation flow in EMUI 5 with the elements like small pop-out menus when you tap over “more” button in the app navigation. Previously, Emotion UI used to offer full-screen overlay even with a single item in a “menu” on a grayed-out background.
The biggest change sure is the app drawer that Huawei has featured as an option for your smartphone’s home screen style. The default style is the same as you know EMUI for – it puts all apps on the home screen, but you can opt-in to use the app-drawer to list all apps and have only a few on the home screen.
This feature alone should silence many of the Android users who always wanted to have an app drawer in their phones. Sure this allows less cluttered home screen but exactly according to how users want it to be for them individuals.
Besides the app drawer, home screens do not bring anything new but the standard home screen is also more finished. I personally had no objections with that interface as well – as this purely a personal choice. Folder view interface is common in both home screen styles.
Lock screen also has a decent change with the slim and small shortcut icons when swipe from the bottom edge, instead of those bold and large square icons. Live cover can be paused on the lock screen or remove from the slide.
Customizing home screen – whether it’s default home screen with all apps or with separate app drawer, is all the way identical and same as previous iterations. Long tapping on a free area on home screen activates customization – same can be done with a pinch-in gesture anywhere on the home screen. You can choose between 4×4 or 4×5 home layout grid of icons.
There is the same app search box from previous versions when you swipe down on the screen. Background apps now are more AOSP-like in a carousal sliding vertically. Previously, flat app view used to appear on screen horizontally.
Another big change is non other than the notification panel. There are no more two tabs to switch for notifications or shortcut switches. It’s now one panel for everything – similar to most variations from different vendors – but to be true, this variation seems appealing with smaller flat toggles.
Notifications appear below the switches which do look awkward in white boxes with rounded corners. Notifications are still expandable with swipe gesture. Oh, there is also brightness slider between toggles and the notifications.
Whereas swiping down on home screen brings a search box, swiping anytime from the top edge brings notification panel down. Notifications, in turn, can be expanded with the down-arrow along each notification box. A second swipe gesture on upper half expands the toggles. Like previously, you can still choose which toggles you want to have in top panel.
App Twin
Another feature EMUI 5 supports is the App Twin, that lets you use two accounts with one app – such as Facebook. When turned on for an app, the feature places another app icon on the home screen that allows you to sign in with another account. The app runs in a separate process and store data separately so you can use both the app sessions simultaneously. The feature is limited to select apps – e.g. WhatsApp is not capable to run in two sessions.
Unfortunately, this feature is only present in high-end devices which run EMUI 5. This Honor 8 Lite doesn’t have app twin. Likewise, probably, other mid-range devices might not have the feature.
Other features like split screen, floating dock, on-screen navigation relocation, One handed UI with Mini screen view or Shifting keyboard. Some other features including Eye Comfort are similar from previous iterations.
[nextpage title=”12 Megapixel Camera”]
Honor 8 Lite – Camera Review
First thing first, in a lot of Huwei’s intention into dual-camera configuration, Honor 8 Lite is out of that question. It equips with a standard single camera module on the back and another on the front – 12 megapixels and 8 megapixels respectively.
12 Megapixels Rear Camera
The primary 12MP rear camera is just standard autofocus camera that even Huawei has nothing to tell about that. In technical terms, the camera sensor has 1.252μm size of pixels inside and f/2.2 aperture lens on the outside. The camera has phase detection autofocus (PDAF) for faster focusing speed – which in official numbers is just 0.3 seconds.
“Shooting modes include: slow-shutter mode, watermark mode, audio photos, image correction, food mode and many more. PDAF also applied to video shooting, combined with new video editing function paired with multiple modes. With Honor 8 lite you can create your own mini-movies.
Along the camera, there is a single LED flash – that is dual-tone in technical terms, to maintain well balanced color tones. Which I don’t like using but sometime it acts as an important medium to lighten up the nearer objects.
Native Camera UI
Huawei usually ships different phones with different camera features and as well the interfaces. Whereas basic principle remains identical with three slides – live viewfinder in the middle, camera modes on the left-hand side, and the settings on the right-hand. You just need to swipe either way.
Camera modes include mostly common ones – Still photo and Pro photo, Video and Pro Video, HDR, Document scan, Panorama, Light painting, Time-lapse, Slow-mo, All-focus, Watermark and Audio note. You can download more as plugins. We’ll not cover all of them however for time constraint but major usability of the camera which is still photos, videos and sometime panorama.
Maximum resolution in still photos which is 12 megapixels or 3968 x 2976 pixels is served in 4:3 aspect ratio. For wide photos or photos in 16:9 aspect ratios, you need to shoot with 9 megapixels’ maximum resolution. But hold-on, it’s just the same and most common 16:9 mode that is not actually wider than the 4:3 photo. It just crops the photo from top and bottom to make it 16:9 – seriously it’s of no use. I recommend using full resolution mode unless the wider aspect ratio has the higher or equal resolution, which you won’t find in recent phones.
Pro Mode is seriously good in Huawei devices which is present in each of their phones. Features like manual shutter speed, ISO sensitivity, metering and focus are much common now but controlling white balance manually with kelvin temperature scale is too good in a smartphone.
EMUI 5 in Honor 8 Lite had some trouble with 3rd level of scales where you move the slider to set a value of e.g. range in manual focus, or kelvin value in white balance. Fortunately a recent software update fixed it.
Pro controls are also present in Video mode but that’s not so cool as there is no ISO control. Shutter speed is just out of question as it doesn’t make any sense in a smartphone with non-mechanical shutter. However still we have metering modes, EV and manual focus but still most important ones of them in video are the metering mode and manual white balance.
Still Photo Performances
Again, it’s the output result of the photos or videos out of a camera, which are important. The performance of the camera was good how it managed to keep low noises with good detail in image. But like Honor 6X, 8 Lite also has some good to deliver outdoors. Indoor shots weren’t that much sharp and had grain unless the environment is well lit.
Colors tones are quite impressive as the camera maintained it well and images are vibrant at some extent which is not overdone. Autofocus was fast mostly but some of the times it failed. Dynamic range is also not that good but HDR feature is there to help somewhat.
Using flash indoors is not a good idea mostly but sometime it helps when you don’t have to bring background object into light. Light on the focus object is well controlled and the tones are really good. Red-eye is the problem that the system doesn’t seem to control, nor I could see an option in photo edit mode.
You can check the photos below.
Outdoor Shots
Indoor Shots
Closeup Shots
Flash Shots
Video Recording
Video resolution is 1080p at maximum with 30 frames per second. 720p recording is also done at 30fps. Higher resolution records at 17 Mbps while the lower one uses 12 Mbps for good quality. Both supports stereo audio recording while there are even lower resolution options are available with single channel audio.
1080p / 30fps
720p / 30fps
8 Megapixel Front Camera
While it’s also the standard not-so-special front camera, it brings with EMUI 5, all-new selfie modes including an improved softening filter and panoramic option to capture even wider group photos, or group selfies – oh wait “usies”. Single non-panoramic photo will have a 77° wide angle field of view and even wider f/2.0 lens aperture. Honor 8 Lite supports screen flash when you take selfie in darker environments. It triggers automatically when enabled – you can’t force it like rear LED flash. There is new plugin management interface as well.
[nextpage title=”System Performance and Benchmarks”]
Honor 8 Lite – Performance and Benchmarks
Running inside Honor 8 Lite is the same proprietary mid-range processor – Kirin 655, as equipped in Honor 6X. 3GB RAM is also similar to what we had in the mid-ranger dual-camera phone. However storage is limited to 16GB only.
Storage is only a concern for those who take a lot of photos and record videos in addition to bunch of apps on their phone. Sure the system performance is also degraded if you are running a lot of apps; because most of those apps run in the background and occupy the memory.
Actually what’s important, is the practical use of a system that has impacts of the software. If software is not well optimized, even a bigger hardware could not perform well. Considering EMUI 5 in its early stages, it’s has actually performed well in this Honor 8 Lite. Regular use, calling, texting, or browsing – social apps like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp were fluid and responsive. In fact heavy titles in games also worked fine but there is still a room for improvement. Lagging could occur not so frequently but indeed it’s there to face you.
If you are wondering about how did it perform on the benchmark tools, following are the numbers. And tell you what they are actually a bit low but similar to Honor 6X’s. However AnTuTu tells that Honor 6X is better than Honor 8 Lite, if you care about these numbers.
Battery Performance
Well, when the performance is something to have concerns about, battery has it too. But 3000mAh battery in Honor 8 Lite is something you shouldn’t be worried about. Normally it would give around 24 hours practically and it’s pretty much acceptable for moderate use of a smartphone – a little gaming and a few videos offline/online also included.
For some, it could be an issue as Honor 8 Lite could not catch up with you watching extensive videos online and playing games for hours. Extensive usage of the phone with highly needy games, continuous video playback, a GPS navigation of a few minutes and shooting with camera pretty frequently, wonder if Honor 8 Lite could live it up for half a day.
Ultra-battery saving is also there however to come handy in urgency. If you are not familiar with it – while most would be, it leaves you with only a select apps and services to run. It’s usable when you are out and know that you’ll have no access to charger for a few hours.
Usage depends on individual basis, what’s more problematic is the charging. Honor 8 Lite doesn’t support real fast charging. It could easily take over 2 hours to have full charge. That’s a big issue, also present in Honor 6X. Huawei has to think about that.
Fingerprint Scanner
The most common component in almost every next smartphone – mid-range or high-end, today is fingerprint scanner. Honor 8 Lite sure as that as well and it’s quite fast to be in a mid-range smartphone. The one in honor 6X also impressed anyway. It’s commendable that Huawei maintains its features quality at most extent.
With this fingerprint scanner you can lock the phone down and quickly unlock it by putting the finger tip on the scanner on rear side. Oh, well you must know it already. But that’s pretty much it with Huawei’s fingerprint scanner. You can unlock the phone screen quickly, or unlock anything that is locked with the preference of being unlocked by fingerprint scanner – etc.
The good thing is that it’s not bad on this mid-range device. It’s fast enough to take you to the home screen within milliseconds from a black sleeping screen.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion and Verdict”]
Honor 8 Lite Review – Verdict and Final Remarks
It’s a nice mid-range smartphone with pretty much good features and specially its performance. Most importantly, it’s good looking and handy. Imitating metal, the plastic body frame is tough and not so fragile but easily can get hard scratches that you won’t like.
For the price Rs. 24,000/-, you get a 3GB RAM with a mid-range processor and 16GB storage which is not that that cool. If you have waited to buy Honor 6X then you have another option to choose now. With a little lower price Honor 8 Lite is equally good but sure Honor 6X’s thin metal is still better than the non-metal Honor 8 Lite. Even though Honor 8 Lite has half of the storage and even a single camera module when compared to Honor 6X, former is still a better looking smartphone than latter.
Cameras on both of the phones are equally good but 8 Lite doesn’t have the aperture mode to take portrait shots with background blur (bokeh effect). Dual-cam of Honor 6X gives you that feature. But frankly I liked the pictures more from Honor 8 Lite.
Finally, for the budget we are talking, I’d prefer Honor 8 Lite only if I prefer the nice and handy design. Because it works just fine alone. But storage is the serious matter, if 16GB is not enough for you, it’s not an option for you.
Honor 8 Lite – Gallery
