Honor 8S review

Build Quality

Dewdrop display

The Honor 8S has a dewdrop screen that measures 5.71-inches. The IPS LCD display has a resolution of  295 pixels per inch / 720 x 1520 pixels) and this delivers a great experience whether gaming or watching videos.

The display uses a small dewdrop notch for the selfie camera sensor. This means you can see more on web pages or enjoy a more full-screen look when watching movie clips or gaming.

New: Honor V30 review

The screen passes the TUV Rheinland eye comfort certification, so you get a better viewing experience with less blue light to reduce eye strain.

Durable and stylish

The Honor 8S has a back that features a unique dual-texture. This multiple layers look not only gives the phone great style bit the texture makes it easy to hold one-handed.

Available in Gold, Black or Blue the phone looks great whichever colour option you choose. The phone is 8.5mm thick and weighs 146g. This makes the phone lightweight and slim.

Phone Set Up

Facial recognition

You will be able to get yourself up and running with the Honor 8S in no time. The phone has a simple set of features. You can choose to keep the phone secure with a PIN Code or pattern that you swipe on the screen to unlock. The Honor 8S also uses facial recognition technology, so once you set it up it will simply unlock when the camera recognises you.

Expandable memory

The Honor 8S has a Mediatek MT6761 A22 quad-core processor. The phone is available with either 64GB memory and 3GB RAM or 32GB of on board memory and 2GB RAM. While this may not be as powerful as some of the flagship models out there, the performance is still good enough for multiple apps and gaming. 

There is a microSD card slot which can take cards up to 512GB. That will give you lots of room for photos, music and more.

Features

EMUI 9.0

The Honor 8S is an Android 9 smartphone and the manufacturer has enhanced this with their own user interface. The EMUI 9.0  has a few different features and has an overall clean and simple look, which adds to the phones easy interaction.

A number of management algorithms use AI to make sure the phone runs smoothly, even after long periods of use. The phone will learn your routines, such as using apps at certain times and have these ready to go. The phone is responsive when running multiple apps and as it's Android you get a lot of familiar apps including Chrome, Maps and YouTube.

Reliable and durable

The Honor 8S has been tested under the highest standards when it comes to durability and endurance. Device Durability Testing 4.1 uses many different tests to determine how durable and long-lasting a device will be. The Honor 8S underwent testing and passed these to conform to the best benchmarks for quality and durability.

These tests include:

• 10,000 repeated on/off powering to make sure phone resumes normal functions
• 200,000 tests of the power button
• 800,000 tests on the durablity of the touchscreen
• Thermal test from -40 degrees centigrade to +70 degrees

Camera & Video

Wide aperture camera

The camera on the Honor 8S is a 13-megapixel camera with an f/1.8 aperture. This allows more light to enter the sensor for clearer pictures and detailed night shots.

The advanced camera lens can create accurate background bokeh effects for stylish shots that look professional. Shooting modes include:

• Night shot
• Panorama
• HDR
• Pro
• Continuous Shot
• Video

There is a 5-megapixel selfie camera on the front housed within the small dewdrop notch. This f/2.2 aperture fixed focus lens captures both video and photos and there is an intelligent beautification mode for refining features.

Battery Life

All-day battery

The Honor 8S has a high capacity 3.020mAh battery which delivers a good amount of power. Working with the highly efficient processor and enhanced features of the UI, the phone is able to manage the battery to keep you going all day.

Next: Huawei Nova 5T review

Written by: Carmel Brown