Dubai: Honor 8 Lite is a stripped-down version of Honor 8 but offers the flagship smartphone’s eye-catching aesthetics and high-performance at an attractive price point.
The 5.2-inch device is powered by Kirin 655 octa-core 2.1GHz processor, 3GB of RAM, and equipped with a 16GB of internal storage, expandable to 128GB using a microSD card.
Huawei has used the same chip set in Honor 8 Lite which was previously used in Honor 6X.
Out of 16GB, only 7.52GB is available as free space which is quite low, so users are forced to depend on microSD.
The Full HD screen is decent with bright colours and details and you cannot expect an AMOLED screen at this price point.
The build quality is good, same as Honor 8, but loses the unique reflection pattern of the original device.
The front and back is made of glass with metal frame and the glass back is prone to scratches as it is not Gorilla Glass. To avoid this, Huawei is providing a back cover in the box.
The right side houses the power and volume rockers, while the left side has the hybrid SIM tray, either two SIMs [one micro and one nano] or one SIM and one microSD card.
The dual speakers and microUSB slot are at the bottom of the device while the top side has the 3.5mm headphone jack.
The device ships with Android 7.0 Nougat and on top of that EMUI 5.0 version user interface.
The whole UI is also a little less reminiscent of Apple’s iOS this time and finally seems to be building its own identity.
With the fingerprint sensor, users can pull the notification centre up or down, take pictures, answer calls, sustained press activates a chosen app, such as Twitter, among other options.
The fingerprint sensor, which is on the back side, is one of the fastest in the market and unlocks the device in 0.3 seconds.
The apps load fast and surfing the internet and swiping the pages are also fast but demanding graphic intensive games experience lag as the GPU is not that powerful. The GPU is one area where Huawei needs to improve a lot.
The 12MP with f2.2 aperture rear camera with single LED flash is a solid camera for the budget phone and does well even in low light and at night, though it does tend to blur if you move too much because the shutter speed slows down.
Pictures are clear and detailed in better light conditions, and autofocus locks on quickly. Shots become grainy in dimmer light, but enabling HDR or Night mode does help reduce some of the muddiness.
It uses Phase Detection Auto Focus technology, which allows for an ultra-fast camera focus. Shutter speed is also pretty impressive and you can take a lot of pictures at once with minimal to no waiting time. It also records 1080p videos at 30 frames per second and 480p at120fps slow-motion video.
Huawei’s popular camera modes such as wide aperture mode, professional mode, food mode, perfect selfie, beauty mode, panorama, and HDR. Other more offbeat features include the option to add a watermark, make an audio note, or capture a document, ultra snapshot, best photo, smile snapshot, audio control, timer function, touch to capture, and time-lapse mode are a swipe away.
The front camera is an 8MP with a 77-degree wide angle camera [F2.0 aperture] and works perfectly well for a casual selfie or a group picture and a built-in “Beauty” mode recognises and fixes blemishes. It also takes decent snaps.
The 3,000mAh non-removable battery lasts close to a day for heavy users and two days for moderate users. The built-in Battery Manager lets you reduce power drain by controlling which apps run in the background. There also two different power saving modes.
Regarding connectivity, it has 4G, Bluetooth 4.1, WiFi, WiFi+, GPS and Link+ but no NFC.
The Honor 8 Lite is available in four colours — blue, black, gold and white — from Dh749.
Pros
Value for money
Excellent battery
Rich camera features
Fast fingerprint sensor
Neat design
Cons
No dual camera
No NFC
Less built-in storage space
No 5 GHz WiFi support
No fast-charging battery tech
