Huawei journey to carve a spot of it’s on in the price-sensitive Indian market was met with unprecedented enthusiasm from users. Huawei managed to slip right past Apple to become the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. In a bid to secure its place, Huawei isn’t willing to neglect India, owing to its fastest-growing smartphone market in the world.
Huawei has managed to deliver distinctive products in terms of design, sporting flamboyant colours through its elegant gradient back while packing the latest spec on the market. This seemed to be a stupendous value proposition which scaled them to be amongst the top smartphone companies in the world.
Their latest offering the Honor 8C marks the debut of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 with a large 4000mAh battery. Does Honor 8C ticks all the right boxes and proves to be the best affordable mid-ranger? Let`s find out.
Design & Display
The design seems to be spot on with just the right amount of bling. Honor 8C comes with a polycarbonate body which seems quite sturdy and adequately robust. But we recommend you slap-on a case to prevent 8C slipping out from your hand now and then.
The gradient effect on the back is not as pronounced as its elder sibling the 8X. The rear houses dual camera setup with LED flashlight below it. The fingerprint sensor takes the centre stage with easy reach and natural placement.
The front is all screen following the edge to edge notch display trend floating in the market. The Honor 8C’s 6.3-inch display comes at 720×1520 pixels with a brightness that’s quite legible in outdoor sunlight.
Default colour is set to the cooler side, with an option to change the colour temperature manually. The notch can be hidden off completely for all the apps you opt for. Honor prompted New Eye comfort mode feature certified by TuV Rheinland to reduce blue light as a measure to prevent eye fatigue.
Overall, the Honor 8C fairs well in design and display department with its accurate colour reproduction and adequately robust build.
Camera
Honor likes to tout its camera expertise with AI capabilities as segment best. But it turns out its more of a marketing gimmick than an anything useful. Honor 8C uses a 13MP + 2MP dual camera setup at rear with 8MP at front with an f/2.0 aperture. The primary lens comes with an f/1.8 aperture with PDAF, while the secondary camera serves to provide depth calculation.
Honor 8C manages to take decent images in well-lit conditions but the images seem to be overexposed where it loses out on the essential details. HDR doesn’t seem to help either with just bare minimal perceived change. AI option helps the scene recognition but the images can still be said to be mediocre at best.
The 8MP front camera struggles to capture good selfies while the added flash in front helps little to light up your face. The images come out on the grainy side with too much saturation.
Indoor shots too seem decent with enough ambient light but the images lacked the required sharpness unless taken up close. Fortunately, we didn’t notice any colour smudging or noise in indoor shots.
Performance
The Snapdragon 632 was something we were anticipating for, as it marks the newest iteration that supersedes the Snapdragon 625 that powered the mid-order range. Honor 8C packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 with octa-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz and includes Adreno 506 GPU. It comes with 4GB RAM and 32/64GB of internal storage (expandable storage via micro SD card support). The smartphone runs on EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo operating system.
Using the 8C as a daily driver for a week it was quite impressive. It handled all the task thrown at it with a breeze. We buzzed through some social media, phone call, messenger, gaming without it breaking a sweat. After playing through some graphics-intensive titles like PUBG and Asphalt 9 it didn`t raise any caveats until we jump up the graphics settings. The Honor 8C managed to mark a score of 1260 in single core performance with multi-core score of 4627 in Geeky benchmark score. Honor runs the EMUI 8.2 user interface based on Android Oreo 8.1 which blatantly resembles the IOS to a certain extent.
Screen Resolution lets you down while streaming through Netflix, YouTube or Prime Video. Audio Clarity through the single speaker setup at the base is good but not the best compared to its rival.
The large 4000mAh battery complemented by the lower resolution display makes sure the Honor 8C last the day with moderate use of social media, calls and streaming videos on 4G connectivity. It misses out on fast charging which is a big bummer as it could have differentiated this device and justified a fighting chance to lead this segment. Charging through the cable provided in the box takes an hour at least.
Gizmo Verdict
The Honor 8C has its share of pros and cons, while a strong performance and aesthetic appeal bolters its stand, poor camera and screen resolution roots against it. If you’re looking for a phone below a budget of Rs.15000 that stands out from the crowd, 8C is the perfect bet.
