Hands-on with Huawei’s Honor 8—heavy software skin on a budget

Huawei might not be well known in the US, but after Samsung and Apple, it’s the third most popular smartphone OEM worldwide. The company’s sub brand, “Honor,” launched in the US in the beginning of the year, and today the company took the wraps off its second US-bound phone, the Honor 8. The device is more-or-less a cheaper version of the Huawei P9.

For $399, you get a 5.2-inch 1920×1080 LCD, an eight-core HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage (with an SD card slot), and a 3000mAh battery. There’s also the option of upgrading to a 64GB model for $449.99.

Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of a “HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC.” Huawei is one of the few companies that makes its own SoCs, and this division is called “HiSilicon.” The Kirin 950 uses four 2.3GHz Cortex A72s and four 1.8GHz A53s, making it a high-end chip that should be within the ballpark of a Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890. Other goodies on the Honor 8 include a totally-not-optional 3.5mm headphone jack, NFC, a USB Type C plug, fingerprint sensor, and an IR LED.

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Source: Ars Technica – Hands-on with Huawei’s Honor 8—heavy software skin on a budget