The honor 8 Pro is big on everything except the price

Everyone loves a bargain especially when you can find a phone that offers more for less. Unfortunately, due to our unfavourable foreign exchange rates, there aren’t much bargain flagship smartphones these days. The rather recent OnePlus 3T/5 and Xiaomi Mi Note 2 are priced well above the RM2,000 mark and if you’re looking for anything cheaper, you would have to settle for a mid-range alternative.

Now, that’s no longer the case with the arrival of the honor 8 Pro. It has top notch specs, higher resolution 2K display and a larger battery that could put its more expensive rivals to shame. Read on for our first impressions of this new RM1,999 flagship contender.

For starters, the honor 8 Pro gets a phablet sized 5.7” screen that pushes a Quad HD resolution. This is probably the most affordable 2K display smartphone you can get right now. Despite having a larger screen, the overall phone is about the size of a 5.5” iPhone 7 Plus thanks to its thinner bezels.

Instead of using glass for both front and back, the rear of the honor 8 Pro uses a nice matte metal finish. Not only you won’t have to worry about fingerprint smudges, it also feels nice in the hands.

The sides have a slight curve to it which makes it feel like a thinner phone when held by the fingertips. You still get a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor but it is different from the original honor 8 which doubles up as a pressable action key.

The overall software experience is similar to Huawei’s P10 Plus as it runs on EMUI 5.1 that’s based on Android 7.0 Nougat.

In our short usage, it feels pretty fast and smooth like what you would expect from a flagship and it’s no surprise since it runs on the same Kirin 960 processor with 6GB of RAM as Huawei’s top of line model. Unlike, the P10 Plus, storage is a notch smaller at 64GB but you can expand it further via microSD.

In the camera department, the honor 8 Pro comes with dual-cameras which consist of two 12MP sensors that shoots individually in colour and monochrome. Unlike last year’s honor 8, this new model comes with a proper Monochrome mode that shoots purely from its dedicated monochrome sensor.

You also get a whole lot of options including Pro Manual mode, light painting, time lapse and Pro Video mode. The honor 8 Pro also shoots 4K videos while the front camera comes with an 8MP selfie camera.

The design of the device looks and feels like a bigger honor 8. You still get a USB Type-C port and headphone jack at the bottom while the top comes with an Infrared blaster which you can use as a universal remote.

While the honor 8 Pro loses out to the P10 Plus in the camera department, its extra heft comes with a larger 4,000mAh battery. According to honor, a full charge can push up to 6 hours of gaming at 2K resolution.

Overall, the honor 8 Pro is an affordable buy if you’re looking for a phone that offers a big screen, big performance and a big battery. To some certain extent, this can be seen as a budget Huawei P10 Plus if you don’t mind not having a newer 2nd generation Leica approved dual-camera with OIS and faster f/1.8 lens.