Huawei has managed to impress many a tech outfit with their new dual-camera wielding Honor 8 in countries where it has officially been launched, including the US, Europe, Middle East and Russia. Now the smartphone is slated to arrive in neighboring Malaysia, where the company hopes to make a splash against entrenched players like Samsung and Apple.
Huawei Honor 8
- HiSilicon Kirin 950 octa-core processor, 4x Cortex A72 at 2.3Ghz + 4x Cortex A53 at 1.8Ghz
- Mali-T880MP4 graphics processor
- 4GB of RAM
- 5.2-inch Full HD IPS display, 1920 x 1080 resolution
- 32GB / 64GB of expandable storage
- 12-megapixel dual rear camera, f/2.2 aperture
- 8-megapixel front camera, f/2.4 aperture
- Dual SIM (Asia)
- 4G LTE
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
- Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C
- 3000mAh battery, fast charging
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow, EMUI 4.1
Why the big fuss over this phone? Well, it’s a stylish mid-range phone with plenty of flagship trimmings – a premium body, a dual-camera shooter that’s a spitting image of the one in the company’s Leica co-branded P9, up to 4GB of RAM, fast, octa-core Kirin 950 octa-core processor and up to 64GB of storage space. It’s pricing isn’t too bad as well – the basic 3GB/32GB version of the device is priced at RMB 1999 in China, which is only Php 13.9K in the PH. That’s definitely quite a good deal, considering what you’re getting.
The only problem here is that Huawei has unofficially stopped selling Honor-branded smartphones in the PH, and has decided to start selling only their main line of smartphones like the P9 and the P9 Plus. It’s not hard to see why – online-only smartphone sales hasn’t taken off in this country (just ask Xiaomi), and selling phones of their online-only Honor sub-brand (that have lower price tags) in physical retail stores along with their regular phones is simply asking for trouble.
Still, Huawei’s seen the appeal of some of the devices in Honor lineup – the Chinese company sold the Honor 5X as the Huawei GR5 earlier in the country earlier this year, so a re-badged Honor 8 is not out of the realm of possibility. If Huawei can bring the Honor 8 to the PH market without too much of a price increase, it may become another solid mid-range contender for the company.