Next week is really important for both Huawei and its sub-brand Honor, with the Mate 20 Pro and another Honor smartphone dropping. Honor is all set to launch the successor to their popular Honor 7C, ‘Honor 8C’ in India on the 29th November. The sub INR 15,000 market has been seeing a lot of competition lately.
Just like with the other Honor smartphones, the 8C provides an eye-catching design, a notched display, decent performance and a massive battery. We have been using the smartphone for a couple of days and here is our initial impression.
Design and Display
Unlike the Honor 8X which had a glass back design, the Honor 8C is made of polycarbonate. The paint job is nothing we have seen in the past on any smartphone. For the Honor 8C, the brand with what it calls a 3D nano-level texture design which provides a metallic shimmer. There are dual rear cameras aligned vertically on the side and a fingerprint sensor in the centre.
The buttons are placed on the right side with the triple slot tray on the left. The bottom of the phone houses the micro USB port, and speaker, while the 3.5mm headphone jack is placed on the top.
Coming to the display, the phone has a 6.26-inch HD+ display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. The phone has a notched design and a fairly chunky chin with the Honor branding. From the initial impressions, the color reproduction on the display is quite accurate with good outdoor legibility.
Performance and Software
With the Honor 8C, the brand has made the jump from the Snapdragon 400 series found on the predecessor to the Snapdragon 600 series. Honor 8C is the first phone in the market to feature the latest Snapdragon 632 processor. The phone is slated to launch in a bunch of memory variants but the one we have had 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. During our initial testing, the phone performed decently, for more in-depth assessment wait for our full review.
Talking about the software, the phone comes with the latest version of the EMUI with Android 8.1 Oreo underneath. EMUI just liked MIUI is feature rich and contains a bunch of quirks. AI plays an important role here as well. There are a bunch of preinstalled apps but most of them can be removed.
Camera
Honor has gone with a dual rear camera setup on the 8C with the AI camera branding clearly visible. The main camera is a 13-megapixel shooter which is backed by a 2-megapixel sensor for better depth shots. On the front, you get an 8-megapixel selfie shooter with a soft LED flash.
Software-wise, the AI makes a return in the camera app with scene detection which is on point. During our initial tests, the camera is a hit or a miss with a noticeable shutter lag. The daylight shots are passable but things aren’t good in low light situation. We will reserve the final judgement for the full review.
Final Thoughts
Since the phone is yet to be announced the pricing is playing a trump card here. We quite liked the overall build and the decent performance but camera performance is worry sum. If priced around INR 12,000 the phones seem like a good option but we’ll reserve our final judgement for the full review.
