Jumper EZpad 6 Ultrabook Tablet PC - Silverfrom:
GeekBuying
Xiaomi Redmi 4 Smartphone - 5 Inch Display, 2GB RAM, 4100mAh Battery, Octa-Core CPU, Fingerprint Sensor, Android 6.0 (Silver) - $129.98Retail Price: $152.08
You Save: $22.10from:
Chinavasion Wholesale Electronics & Gadgets
VKWorld F1 Android 5.1 Smartphone a€“ 4.5 Inch Screen, MTK6580 Quad Core CPU, Dual SIM, Bluetooth 4.0, Smart Wake (White) - $52.98Retail Price: $66.22
You Save: $13.24from:
Chinavasion Wholesale Electronics & GadgetsiPhone 5 Accessories: UP to 60% OFF and Low to $0.40
Huawei’s budget sub-brand Honor is the subject of increasing chatter in phone geek circles of late. In January, the Honor 5X introduced the “company” (insofar as they operate as a separate business unit) to a Western audience with a very affordable, metal-bodied phone.The device, though, seemed to land on deaf ears, at least among enthusiasts. I can’t speak to how the Honor 5X did in US sales channels, but initial launch buzz quickly wore off once reviews went to press, and the phone itself really was pretty mediocre in retrospect.
Its dazzle, its allure really came from looking the part of a $300-400 phone while costing much less. Reality was more... realistic: the experience it delivered wasn’t outstanding, and as a result the phone ended up being more notable for the corners it cut rather than the value it delivered. With the Honor 8, already out in China for some time, the company is trying something new with its Western market experiment.
At $400 ($350 if signed up on Honor’s site by a certain date), this phone seeks to compete with the ZTE Axon 7, OnePlus 3, and the increasingly-discounted but also aging Nexus 6P. That last one is made by Huawei itself, which makes for interesting juxtaposition. The Honor 8 shares essentially nothing with the outgoing 5X, because it shares essentially everything with the Huawei P9. The Honor 8 is simply a rebodied P9 for most intents and purposes, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing - but it does mean we’ve already seen much of what this phone has to offer, albeit not officially here in the US.Do a blisteringly quick chipset and exceptional battery life outshine Huawei’s ghastly software and occasionally glitchy behavior?
I think the Honor 8’s appeal to you will depend greatly on your expectations - it’s a polarizing device. Here’s our review.
The Good Battery life "Epic" is how I would describe it, all things considered. The Honor 8 sips power and easily managed almost twice the battery life of Alcatel's similarly-priced Idol 4S during my testing.
Granted, both the Axon 7 and OnePlus 3 have also received high marks in this area. Speed The Honor 8's Kirin 950 chipset, coupled with a 1080p display, means you'll be pushing pixels along expeditiously. The Honor 8 feels snappy and responsive in all things, but still provides the aforementioned longevity.
Fingerprint scanner It's on the back and it's lightning-quick. It's also a button, if that's something you find you want to use (I did not find any such appeal here). Great value The Honor 8 delivers exceptional performance, a solid camera, modern design, and excellent battery life in a highly competitive price bracket. Camera While I sometimes found images a bit washed out, the Honor 8 focused quickly and was a reliable daily shooter.
Its low-light performance, I'd say, is probably class-leading. The Not So Good EMUI I know EMUI has its fans, but I cannot stand this interface. It is an affront to Android, both aesthetically and functionally.
Did you know every time you install a new app in EMUI, the system won't let it run when the display is off (i.e., sync in the background) unless you go into an obscure settings menu and allow it to? No? And neither will most people who buy this phone. Get lost with this nonsense, Huawei. Bugs I encountered some, and at least one that caused any video playback to just totally stop working until I rebooted the phone was what I'd call experience-breaking.
Not a good look. Network issues While the Honor 8 supports the necessary LTE bands for AT T here in the US, I found actual LTE performance and signal utterly subpar. Where my other phones would have LTE, the Honor 8 would sometimes have 3G or even EDGE. This isn't acceptable.
Slippery Because the Honor 8 lacks even a rear camera hump, it's just a big slippery glass brick. I cannot count how many times I almost dropped this phone. Get. A. Case. Proprietary fast charging The Honor 8 tops out at around 65% of Quick Charge 2.0 speeds on anything but the in-box charger (which allows full QC2.0 speeds).
This is obnoxious. All the inconvenience of OnePlus's Dash without the blistering speed.
The Honor 8 will immediately lose points with the anti-glass crowd for its rear panel, that’s a given. And it may too upset those who find its unused “chin” combined with software navigation keys to be an inefficient use of space. But in my opinion, the Honor 8 seems to be a very competently designed smartphone from a hardware perspective.
The very quick fingerprint scanner sits on the back for easy access, the power and volume keys have a nice, clicky action to them, and the phone lacks any kind of camera hump. Its design is far from what I’d call striking or memorable, but that also all but assures its inoffensiveness. The Honor 8 is a blank glass and metal canvas. In this dark blue tint, I find it walks the line between “Galaxy S7 retread” and “generic Chinese smartphone” well. It’s distinct enough to be identifiable, but there’s nothing about it that really stands out.With a 5.2” display, the Honor 8 is also easy to palm and quite usable in one hand. Some will inevitably find it too large, some too small, but if you’re shopping the $400 unlocked phone market, the Honor 8 is in an increasingly rare size class.
This alone could be a major draw to some.The headphone jack and a USB-C port, along with the single bottom-firing speaker, line the lower portion of the device frame. Up top, there’s an IR blaster, something we see less and less on smartphones of any price.
The Honor 8’s 1080p LCD display is fairly unremarkable. It doesn’t really get bright enough in the sun, viewing angles are very good if not outstanding, and colors are clearly oversaturated with no possibility to adjust the profile.
Blacks are predictably more like dark grays, though light bleed on the panel edges is impressively subdued.In short, the Honor 8’s screen gets the job done. It does seem quite power-efficient if the battery life of the phone is any indicator, so that’s welcome news. But compared to the increasingly-common AMOLED screens on phones in this price bracket, the Honor 8 will probably fall a bit short in most respects, though that’s not exactly a surprise.
It’s a good screen, and one that would have probably passed for great three years ago. Today, it’s adequate, and that’s just fine by me. Fewer pixels to push mean great battery life, too, and on a 5.2” display, 1080p is totally acceptable. I won’t leave you guessing: it’s great. Even with all power-saving features and app sleeping disabled, I easily get 4-5 hours of screen on time with the Honor 8. If you use those features (or more accurately, don’t turn them off), I think 6+ hours of screen time if you’re mostly on Wi-Fi is totally achievable out of the box.Huawei’s Kirin chipset is well-known for being a power-sipper, and between that, the display, the large (for the size) 3000mAh battery, and whatever Huawei’s done under the hood, I don’t think the Honor 8’s battery life can be rightly considered anything less than above average, if not excellent.
Charging, on the other hand, can feel a bit slow. While the included proprietary fast charger will pump up to 18W of juice into the phone, it only does this up to a certain point. Once the phone reaches around 85% charge on the brick, it takes a full hour to get that last 15%, and it can be a bit agonizing if you’re like me and want to see how long the phone goes on a full charge. But in reality, this doesn’t matter quite so much, and probably serves to preserve the battery’s cycle life.Perhaps more frustratingly, the Honor will pull down considerably less juice from a Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0 brick.
As far as I can tell it's a maximum of around 65% of the full 15-18W these chargers are capable of. For full speed, you’ll need Huawei’s included quick charger. And because the maximum charge amperage is 2A, no, this phone will not charge at full speed on a Nexus 5X or 6P charger.
This seems like a misstep - Huawei already built a 3A/5V device with USB type C, why go back to an own-brand solution instead of at least using a common industry standard?I had no issue with audio output from the Honor 8’s headphone jack, though I will concede it seemed to require a bit more cranking of the volume level than I’d expect on some phones. As such, if you’re someone who regularly has issues with the volume output of smartphone headphone jacks, be forewarned that the Honor 8 is not exceptional in this regard.
On the subject of the one bottom-firing speaker, well, sorry: it sucks. It sounds muffled, it doesn’t get very loud, and while it doesn’t distort too much at the limit, it’s just not powerful enough.
Coupled with its sub-optimal positioning, I don’t really have anything nice to say about it.The Honor 8 comes with either 32 or 64GB of internal storage - we’re reviewing the 32GB version. Storage speeds seem typical for an eMMC 5.1 NAND chip, with performance in benchmarks around that of the HTC 10. For the money, that's definitely good. Available space out of the box on this 32GB variant is around 24GB before you update all the preinstalled apps. By the time I had loaded my typical setup, available space was around 16GB.Wireless performance is where things get iffy for me. Let’s start with mobile data: I’ve had repeat issues with the Honor 8 hanging onto an HSPA+ (3G) signal in areas that I knew to have strong LTE (4G) coverage.
In 2016, I just don’t expect this to happen. Often, even reboots wouldn’t fix this, but the phone eventually would switch over seemingly at random.
I’ve also had issues with Wi-Fi range on the Honor 8 - it kind of sucks. The phone regularly refuses to connect to my home Wi-Fi automatically because it finds the signal quality too poor, an issue the vast majority of devices I test do not have. Maybe some firmware updates can at least decrease the phone’s aggressive avoidance of poor Wi-Fi signal.
In an unfortunately similar respect, I often found mobile data signal in general was weak, and even going back to my nearly two-year-old Nexus 6 provided a far better mobile network experience. By contrast, call quality and general telephony functions have been excellent - I have no complaints here whatsoever. Granted, the Honor 8 doesn’t support VoLTE on AT T, so I can’t speak to that.The Honor 8 focuses quickly, and while colors can be washed out, low-light images are a cut above for a $400 smartphone.
Devices like the OnePlus 3 and ZTE Axon 7 have generally received middling reviews on imaging performance - good in strong light, weak in low, and sometimes wonky overall. While still not on the level of Samsung's Galaxy S7 or the results you can get from Google's HDR+ on Nexus devices, in dark environments the Honor 8 does a good job processing and cutting through noise without softening everything into a muddy blur.The camera app is fine - some have praised Huawei’s “pro” mode, and if that’s something you’re really interested in, it’s there. I wouldn’t call it more powerful than anything you can get on most phones out there, though, it really just has a flashier interface.
You get adjustments for ISO, exposure time, white balance, focus mode, and EV. It’s not as though there’s some special added functionality with the second sensor or anything, so I’m a bit puzzled to have seen this receive so much attention - it’s basically like what you get in any phone’s manual mode.And yes, as many have now pointed out: there’s no dedicated monochrome mode in the camera app, unlike the Huawei P9. This is almost certainly because Huawei wants to preserve this as a “Leica” experience, and the Honor 8 lacks that Leica branding, despite the cameras themselves presumably being identical. You can always monochrome your images after the fact, though (even if it’s not quite the same).So while I think the Honor 8's camera is good, it's certainly not amazing. I'm not really even sure what the point of the dual-camera setup is when the resultant images seem very average for a "budget flagship" device under most circumstances, even if the night performance may be a cut above the competition.
Phone sometimes latches onto a 3G connection and refuses to connect to LTE for no apparent reason, even though LTE coverage is available. Wi-Fi auto-connect sometimes doesn’t work, is very slow when it does (5-10 seconds after turning on toggle). NFC just turns itself off after every reboot, I have no idea if this is intentional.
Wi-Fi range is poor. The phone’s video/media server process just dies sometimes, meaning the Honor 8 will refuse to play any video at all in any app until restarted or, perhaps, hours later when the process decides to start working again. This one is truly aggravating. (Note: Huawei is aware and claims this will be fixed soon, but I cannot recommend the phone until this is addressed - it is experience-breaking.
) Some notifications get formatted improperly, like Google Maps navigation (everything looks squished). There’s no doubt that Huawei’s Kirin 950 chipset is quick. Benchmarks from the Huawei P9 (using the 955, which has a slightly higher clock speed) earlier this year shamed most competitors, and the Honor 8 is among the faster Android devices I’ve ever used, similar to the way I felt about the P9 when I used it. Motorola’s Moto Z is about the next quickest phone I can think of, and that device doesn’t get particularly good battery life.Apps load lightning-fast, the phone moves around the OS smoothly and speedily, and it rarely stutters.
Even the fingerprint scanner is shockingly quick. But that Kirin chipset does constitute something of a deal with the ROM-less devil: community support for custom software on the Honor 8 will probably be dismal.
Honor claims to have partnered with XDA to “support” the custom ROM community, but that still means people who build ROMs and hammer out the compatibility issues with Kirin have to actually buy the phone and want to modify it in the first place. So, the likelihood of flashing CyanogenMod to rid yourself of EMUI remains unclear at this point.I don’t like EMUI 4.1… at all. I realize the interface has its fans, and more power to you if you enjoy Huawei’s take on Android.
If you do, you’ll find basically what you’d see on any Huawei device released in the last year or so. The system finally no longer puts squircles behind your app icons by default, hallelujah, which at least makes my homescreen less of an eyesore when I slap on Google Now Launcher. Everything else is still basically as obnoxious as it has ever been. Huawei’s dual-pane notification shade makes for a great case study.
One pane for notifications, one for toggles - it is a usability dumpster fire leading to accidentally dismissed notifications constantly. Whoever designed this truly is just a masochist daft. The panes don’t even serve a purpose: you could easily fit collapsed quick settings in the area for the “Notifications” and “Shortcuts” tabs at the top with a second pull-down gesture to expand them, just like stock Android. But Huawei uses separate panes for no readily apparent reason.
It is things like that this that absolutely ruin this phone’s software for me. Choices made arbitrarily to differentiate the device that openly flout well-established Android UI trends. It’s like putting the ignition button for your car on top of the dashboard instead of the center console or steering column. People in China may expect or be accustomed to this layout, and good for them, but it is objectively more difficult to use and you are making it harder for customers not familiar with this layout to use your product.
It is dumb.This “our way or the highway” mentality extends to power management, too. By default, all newly-installed applications on the phone are not allowed to run when the screen is off. Every single time you install an app, you have to go into a special, buried menu in the settings to tell the phone it’s OK for that app to run in the background while the display isn’t on. This is insanity. Again: this may lead to a largely UX-positive outcome in malware and crapware-ridden China’s content wild west, but it makes no sense in the Western world. This behavior means that newly-installed apps generally won’t refresh at all when the screen is off, which is going to confuse and frustrate pretty much any person that it accustomed to, oh, I don’t know, normal push notification behavior.
I could go on - I really could. I still cannot fathom how anyone could possibly like EMUI unless they actively seek to load their phone with the useless junk and notification spam it is built around combating. It boggles my mind. But EMUI 4.1 is allegedly not long for this world.
EMUI 5 is coming with Android 7.0, and I have it on decent authority that the Honor 8 will be getting Nougat fairly quickly, at least as a beta. Now, do I know if EMUI 5 will solve all of my usability gripes about the skin? I have no idea. It may well be that everything will work exactly the same but look much better doing it. I don’t know.Apps aren't even allowed to place notifications on the lockscreen or over the UI on the status bar for "toast" pop-ups. You have to turn this on for every. single. app. you want to be able do these things.
But as is? The Honor 8’s software is simply unlovable. There’s no sugarcoating it. Does it make the phone itself terrible?
Of course not. I’ve been using the Honor 8 for over a week now and once I disabled all the battery-saving bullshit and added a custom launcher, at least some of my grievances were resolved. But the labyrinthine settings, terrible notification layout, draconian background app behavior restrictions, and bizarre alterations of typical Android functionality keep me well and truly turned off of this phone.
Still, if you’re not too concerned with learning a few new things and don’t mind much that this phone will never, ever feel as close to stock Android as even TouchWiz, EMUI may prove little more than an occasional annoyance that you learn to put up with.But if you’re like me and value an Android phone’s ability to respect Android, this is not the kind of phone for you. It’s Huawei’s world, Android’s just living in it. Hopefully EMUI 5 will see them finally wise up. Based on what I’ve heard, I’m remaining optimistic that we’ll finally get a skin that values the underlying operating system a little more.The Honor 8 is a contradiction. For the right person, this could be a great phone.
But for many, it will constitute a hardware:software trade-off that just isn’t all that appealing. Underneath the kludgy EMUI and annoyingly slippery glass exterior lie the building blocks of a very good smartphone.
If this phone ran stock Android - or at least stopped getting in Android’s way so much - I may very well have loved it.There’s a very good camera. Great battery life. Great performance.
And a great middle-of-the-road display size. But Huawei’s EMUI and a handful of annoying launch bugs make actually using the Honor 8 a constant battle for me. I encounter friction from the OS at every turn - something doesn’t work the way I expect it, and even once I become accustomed to it, find utterly annoying. An app wants permission to send a notification and I accidentally tap “deny” - now I have to go in and manually turn notifications for it back on. I’m not receiving notifications in a timely manner for a given app, only to realize I forgot to whitelist it to run in the background when I installed it. I can’t tell which app sent a notification in the bar, because EMUI doesn’t use app icons for notifications, but the second-level graphic you’d normally see after pulling down the tray (so for any chat app, the user’s avatar).
Oops, I accidentally dismissed a notification I didn’t even have a chance to read because I was trying to swipe over to the quick settings pane! Even after using numerous Huawei devices configured this way, I cannot adapt. EMUI is inherently just a bear to use if you spend most of your life with “normal” Android devices. If I had to live with it, I could probably get used to it. But I'm sure of this: I would never like it.But EMUI 5 is the big, mysterious turning point for Huawei’s software, supposedly.
And when the Honor 8 gets it (and Android 7.0), this phone absolutely deserves a revisit. So I’m going to do something unusual: the Honor 8 doesn’t get my recommendation, but that may well change once the software undergoes this supposed transformation. But right now, for all the Honor 8 does right, I just can’t tell you this is a safe buy unless you know you’re OK with Huawei’s software.
Two months from now could be a very different story, though. I agree. It makes me wonder if ANY phone is good enough for him. He knit-picks something that most wouldn't even care about.
He should just stay with the IPhones, and get a real job washing dishes. knizmi It's a review, you know. In a review the reviewer usually reviews the pros and the cons of the device that is being reviewed and that is exactly what David did. If you don't want to hear about the weaknesses, go read here - http://www.hihonor.
com/us/index. html PS: Did I mention that the article you are commenting is a review?
Rakesh Kamat His GS7 review is the same http://www.androidpolice. com/2016/03/17/galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-review-an-iteration-but-one-samsung-can-be-proud-of/ It doesn't matter if its a 400$ or a 800$ phone, he will find some thing or the other to criticize it. On the other hand would rather read reviews from Rita or someone alike mark Unless it's an ipad air, we should all go and buy one of those devices.
(Though given their plummeting sales, not many people listened. ) N6Perfection ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ EMUI is inherently just a bear That's an understatement.
I had the Honor 5X for about 2 days before I became so frustrated with EMUI that I couldn't take it. The hardware was beautiful, though. Great review.
David Ruddock But you'll find people who totally love it. And hey, to each their own. I personally just find it gets in the way 100 times for every one time it occasionally does something useful based on how I use my smartphones. N6Perfection ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ I personally just find it gets in the way 100 times for every one time it occasionally does something useful You're right. There was at least one thing that I liked - the "vault" (or whatever it was called) feature that was very handy.
Keith Reeder " personally just find it gets in the way 100 times for every one time it occasionally does something useful" Yeah - that's just hyperbolic cobblers, isn't it? paxmos Huawei EMUI is what Android should be, the beauty, aesthetic of iOS and the functionalities of Android. It is a shame that you have to have the stock android to enjoy its smoothness (well, sorta).
Android has come a long way and so have the OEM UIs. Stop bad mouthing UIs that are really good and not boring like vanilla Android. LANCE this is true, my old Note 3 was lagging so i put CM 13 on it and it runs almost as fast and fluid as my nexus 6, samsung phones relieved of the bloat are awesome..... Nope.jpeg I wish I could do the same. Too bad the bootloader is locked down by AT T. LANCE mine is verizon variant, i use the exploit that was found earlier this year to by pass the bootloader on XDA Winston I really have no idea what you guys are all compalining about TouchWiz for. On KitKat, yes it was a mess. On Lollipop however a factory reset after installing makes it all very very smooth.
Amazingly so. Even though my GS4 is one of the early batches that Samsung admits has a faulty CCI. LANCE lollipop touchwiz is fine on clean install but after a month or so i started getting micro stutters and 3 months straight lag, my sisters Note 5 is butter though, touchwiz has come a long way Ygor Vaz Long live CM 13 on Note 3 P. Sherman My Note 3 ran MUCH BETTER and smooter than my mum's LG G4 and that was on 6.0! (We sold it before the 6.0.1 was installed on it.) And next to an Xperia Z2 on 6.0.1 it keeps up fairly well sometimes it launches stuff faster but other times the Note schools it. I Honestly don't see how folks can say Note 3 became a cripple on Lollipop because of Touchwiz, I really don't, or I have actual patience... Triciajsilvas4 Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends family! !ie438t: On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks..
Its the most-financialy rewarding I've had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it !ie438t: ➽➽ ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash528MediaLightingGetPay$97Hour... ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!ie438t:....,.... james fuston If it's any consolation, 9/10 people who still bash TouchWiz didn't own a Samsung device newer than the Note 4. The vast majority of them have severely outdated opinions that are only 'informed' by looking at screenshots of the newer versions of TW. Yvetterpittman4 Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends family!
!oe395f: On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I've had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it !oe395f: ➽➽ ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash655DirectEverGetPay$97Hour...
★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!oe395f:.... ,....... gqukyo I can attest to this. Recently got a S7 Active and TouchWiz isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I can't even root it and I'm living with it quite well astonishingly. That was a pleasant and huge surprise for me. Ridge As one who has repeatedly bashed TouchWiz in the past, I can say that is much improved since the days of the Note 4. Still not my UI of choice, design wise, but at least you can theme it now. james fuston The dark material theme is so good too. Perfectly compliments the dark theme on the google keyboard balcobomber25 ToiuchWiz has improved a lot but it is still not good software in my eyes, and I have used every new Samsung up to the S7E. I would take MIUI over it any day. bugdroid Touchwiz - not bad? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha paxmos EMUI is great, these crappy bloggers have given it a bad reputation.
I don't get what is so different to have an app drawer and not having it, you've got to freaking find the app icon regardless of where it is. Huawei phones perform very well, I've used a Mate 7 for a year and use a Mate 8 frequently, don't see a big fuss about the EMUI. The interface is clean and fast. mjed mazga A year ago, I bought an Honor 5x for my mom and sister who badly needed upgrades and who constantly bugged me for assistance in "fixing" their phones - usually it involved telling them how to put the dialer icon back where it belonged, things like that. It was weekly requests at the minimum. The cheap price was just a stop-gap, I thought, until something better came along.
I rooted and configured everything, installed Nova custom launcher to get an app drawer back, and then locked everything down. Over a year later, and I've had exactly one phone call asking for help - it was because a phone had been dropped and the tempered glass was broken, not for any software issues. EMUI is definitely "different" and some of the features from Honor are new, but to call them hidden like this article does is a severe overstatement. Perhaps they are coming from iOS where you aren't supposed to be able to customize anything.
After 13 months of zero support calls, I will be upgrading their phones to Honor 6x or Honor 8 in the next few months, and likely picking up one myself. I've used Samsung phones for a while, almost exclusively with rooted and custom firmwares, but I was very happy with the design, feel, software layout, and features on the Honor phones, and I'm a pretty picky person.
mark Except iphone has the same limitation in that applications can't run in background! Except worse, as there's no option to allow them... I doubt us nexus fans would be happy with an android device skinned to be like ios! Just look at the uproar everytime that rumour appears about taking away our homescreen.
Rod iOS works really well, plus, it's always up-to-date. elchuby I think that statement is very inaccurate. There are plenty of manufacturers that use a near-stock software version of Android.
Sony, Motorola, BLU, OnePlus, etc. Their software is not shitty. Also TouchWiz and Sense are not bad at all. Rod TouchWiz is horrid.
Sense is acceptable. balcobomber25 MIUI is excellent and I would take it over Stock Android an day. OnePlus also has very good software that is near stock with some unique features.
Dave If Huawei/Honor went for a more stock like UI it would be very cool. I can't stand this UI either and the software in general is where these devices somewhat struggle. But as it looks like they missed an opportunity with EMUI 5 which seemingly goes further in favor of iOS. But maybe they'll work out their bugs at least.
BTW, what is the phone you consider 'the best' right now, David? David Ruddock For this price, released this year? I think the OP3 kind of dominates here. ZTE's skin turns me off big time, the Idol 4S just isn't great for the money, and the Honor 8's software is just tragic.
I'm all about software usability (which, IMO, Samsung took a step back on with Note7 and GraceUX), and the OP3 is probably the best on balance in this regard. But if you told me I could have an OP3 or a Nexus 6P until the Pixel XL came out, I'd take the 6P no questions asked.
Chuck Jones Yeah, another Oneplus fan-boy. You just can't admit that the OP3 is a crappy phone with very buggy software, can you. You drank the Koolaid. ZTE's skin is transparent, the few extra software apps can be disabled or uninstalled (why though makes absolutely no sense).
. You shouldn't be making any phone reviews with your insane ignorant views. P. Sherman Have you even used a ZTE phone? The software on It makes EMUI look elegant in comparison!!!
Also, EMUI at least is coherent in its problems and overall look, ZTE's,... Isn't. Dave Okay, so overall you still stay loyal to your beloved 6P :D Let's hope the Pixel XL can dethrone the 6P! salutcemoi EMUI is not that bad. It's even better for people who transition from iOS to Android with its familiar iosy look. If you want Stock Android go get a 6P. P. Sherman But that phone is straight up crap as a SMARTphone next to a Galaxy S7 or the Note Nuke. For one, the camera. And the limited software that Google had to steal from other OEM's ideas everyone cried as "Bloatware" to make the Nexus more palatable. And a CPU that likes to melt down after scrolling through PINTEREST, honestly the SD810 overheating is just embarassing!
mark Well I don't think he's saying it's necessarily the best - a great thing about android is the choice, and if you want a phone with the OEM ideas, things like the S7 are great. He was I think just saying that people who want stock android should get a nexus 6p rather then whining about every android device that isn't stock (and as nexus owner, I agree).
Snowsky419 What exactly is Huawei's naming scheme for its Honor devices? Why was the Honor 5X called the 5X and the Honor 8 called the Honor 8? matteventu "number" is just the high-end of the Honor series (Honor 6, 7 and now 8). The "X" is the low-cost phablet (Honor 4X, 5X) and "C" is just the low-cost smartphone, usually similar to the "X" but just smaller (Honor 3C, 4C, 5C). Snowsky419 Thank you! That really helps!
I had been wondering for a while how Huawei numbered its Huawei phones! :) matteventu That's for Honor.
For "own" Huawei phones, there's the high-end smartphone "P" (P6, P7, P8, P9), the high-end phablet "Mate" (Mate, Mate II, Mate "somethingelse", Mate 7, 8), the mid-low range smartphone "Px Lite" (P8 Lite, P9 Lite), the more "commercial phablet" or "bigger version of the high-end smartphone" (P8 Max, P9 Plus) and now the mid-low range phablet "G" (G6, G7, G8, G9, that sometimes or in some countries change a little in "GX" ie GX8). But this is just the beginning, there are plenty of other Huawei smartphones, the low cost series "Yx" or "Yxxx" (where "x" is a number) or "individual" phones (Mate S), and much much more. It's really a big mess lol KOLIO @ $400,the weirdness of EMUI could probably be smoothed over somewhat w/a 3rd party launcher. However,weak connectivity is no bargain at any price.
Aaron A shame launchers don't extend to the notification shade, quick toggles, and system settings. KOLIO Yeah, I found that out with OPPO devices on top of that, some settings actually became inaccessible.
Rand Phillips Hmmm... This review has some interesting disparities from my own experiences with this phone. I picked one up the other day at Best Buy, and haven't seen any of the weak connectivity issues with either WiFi or cellular data. Also, David states "and colors are clearly oversaturated with no possibility to adjust the profile" in the section about the display.
But when I look at my Honor 8 in: Settings, Display, there is a section for "Screen" settings with a "Color Temperature" option that lets you choose between "Default, Warm and Cold"... Strange. I wonder if David got a faulty unit, or something?
Chuck Jones He does that all the time, he's incapable of actually giving a fair review. If he dislikes it up front, he never puts any effort into diagnosing his so-called 'not-so-good' problems.
Makes me wonder why AP keeps him around, really. N6Perfection ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ Makes me wonder why AP keeps him around, really.
WTF? AP should be like the other Android "blogs" and slobber all over everything they review for fear of losing advertisers? What's teh point of a "review" if you know that everything wil always be sunshine and lollipops?
Chuck Jones Oh, c'mon, did you actually read this article? Probably not from your post. Aaron Have you seen any signs of the video playback bug he spoke of? This and signal issues would definitely be the deal breakers for me, so I'm curious if his unit's faults extend to the GPU and might not be indicative of every Honor 8. Rand Phillips I have not, but I've only had the phone for 2 days now so that's really not enough time to see if the same issues will eventually crop up for me or not. David Ruddock Color temperature is primarily to adjust white balance.
It is not the same thing as a color profile. A color profile would account for saturation and other factors as well, much like Samsung's "basic" display mode or OnePlus's sRGB. Rand Phillips Ah, I see. Thank you for the update and clarification!
:) Jim Smith With the partnership with XDA don't be surprised if you see development that could help with many of the gripes. EarlyMon I'll be surprised. h.k well they do nothing else but advertise the s**t out of this device with articles on their site. They even have a video on youtube with some top xdas who all tell you how great of a device it is :D EarlyMon As a member of the team that brought you TWRP for the honor 5x and as the guy who brought you the no-swap mod for the same device, both available on XDA, I think I'm familiar with the claims here. BTW - which of those top XDA developers did anything for the 5x? h.k https://www.youtube.
com/watch? v=7X1cPbuAAII I find the "Thanks to Honor for sponsoring this video.
" in the description to be a little bit too small for an ad 7:22 long. Sorry i like the Honor Brand and XDA but this is pure ad and I dont know how to feel about it :( And as I stated I haven't read their review but I plan to (because it is supposed to be good). BTW: great fan of TWRP (had Honor 5X) :) EarlyMon A number of great devs pitched in on the h5x. I have two in the family running CM13 and no complaints. :) Marty Partnership with XDA? Huawei?
Jim Smith Honor and XDA Marty Heh...no wonder the software sucks. Jim Smith So you have the phone then...? I do. Slap nova launcher on it and it's not much of an issue.
Marty I think from what I read of the review, the software issues are a bit deeper than the launcher. Permissions for background processes is one of the issues. Buggies and craching are other issues.
MJ Well, that was a disappointing review for the phone but expected... I am just patiently waiting for the V20 and new Nexus/Pixel reviews.
Dick Dastardly✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ Yeah, especially since this phone was made by the uhh..Chinese.. ugh 😣 /s Not for you "this phone will never, ever feel as close to stock Android as even TouchWiz" Heh - remember the days when TouchJizz was regarded as the worst of the OEM skins? Marty It still is Đức Thành I was also once young and innocent and blissfully unaware...
Oh how I missed those days. lomsha Still is EarlyMon "Whoever designed this truly is just a masochist. " Perhaps the word you were looking for was sadist.
Or perhaps sadomasochist. David Ruddock As in one who takes enjoyment in experiencing pain. Ie their own phone software causes them pain. Sadistic would, to me, imply the software team knew what they were doing was bad for users. I think they just believe their convoluted and cluttered approach is actually enjoyable to use. Chuck Jones "le" What the hell is that word? (i.e.) Chuck Jones You even said "whoever designed this" Doesn't that mean by the sadistically designed?
You really have no idea, and just make up shit all the time, wow. Good definition for you 'daft'. EarlyMon Having spoken with R D at length about some of the shit, I'm going to stick with sadistic and accept daft as well. :D Dick Dastardly✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ Okay, this is for your own good but.. STOP READING THOSE GODDAMN 50 SHADES NONSENSE ALREADY!!!!! 😠 Ahhh..that felt good. 😊 EarlyMon Lmao - to my credit, I had to Google that lol. Marty Ahh...I'm just gonna stick with big name brands... like Google, Apple, LG, Motorola, Sony, Samsung, Nokia etc. Software is more refined.
Zsolt V Do you still fly Eastern Airlines? Marty "Fly"? What's that? :P tekdemon Huawei is a much bigger smartphone player than LG or Sony or even Motorola (which is just a brand of Lenovo's now anyways).
And on top of that they manufacture telecom equipment for the cell towers and routers which is why it's really strange that this review had so many issues with reception and wifi. There's other reviews that seem to show it actually pulling in much better signal levels than the Axon 7 or OP3 so I wonder if there's a software glitch on the review phone or if there's an overall software issue going on. Marty But their software sucks. I've had Chinese-specific devices before and the software always sucks.
The review at AP confirms that to me. If Huawei wants to be a big time player in the industry, they had better put intense and extreme effort into understanding "good" software and creating it. If that takes hiring Google, Apple or Microsoft people, let them do it. Otherwise they'll continue to be a fringe brand outside of China. Sashank Narayan Preventing apps from running in the background messes with Android's Doze mode, no? How did this device even pass Google's CTS? IIRC, Sony reworked their Stamina mode so that it doesn't conflict with Doze by duplicating/breaking some of its functionality. David Ruddock I'm not sure how they get around this, exactly.
It probably doesn't technically interfere with Doze, just essentially makes much of what it does redundant unless you add all your apps to the whitelist. VAVAMk_2 So if possible, buy and flash AOSP-based ROM? Is there decent software development for Kirin processors?
PerhapsNever I did a quick check on XDA and there are a total of 2 ROMs available. One AOSP based and one EMUI based. So, I'm guessing there isn't a lot of development effort going on (at least on XDA). ishmane4 Kernal isn't released yet, it should be coming in the next week or 2. Also EMUI 5.0 is set to drop in Quarter 3 sometime.
Luke Richardson As a Xiaomi fan, I've used MIUI for a long time, and MIUI 6 and 7 had the same two-pane navigation/quick settings menu. Even so, I never once encountered the issue with accidental dismissal of notifications that the author describes, so maybe MIUI handled the two pane navigation better than Huawei does. I do agree with the author though, in that I never really did like this layout very much, which is why I'm happy that MIUI 8 allows the option of a single combined quick settings / notification panel again. Dick Dastardly✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ You a Xiaomi fan? Fancy meeting you here. Been planning to get one of you for a long time. Xiaomi must be one helluva company to make fans with such intuitive AI that they actually visit Disqus boards and engage in such eloquent self-promotion.
http://76.my/Malaysia/original-xiaomi-portable-usb-mini-fan-mi-fan-miworld1-1602-15-F65207_1.jpg Anon it's not direct from xiaomi.
it's those fucking resellers. Dick Dastardly✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ Oh really? http://global.
mi.com/en/item/3152800001 Anon what? maybe i misunderstood. i was under the impression that you said xiaomi directly visits disqus boards to self promote. i know they make those fans. it's pretty popular in asia especially hot and humid countries like singapore.
EDIT: just realized it was a wordplay on "fan". wtf. totally went over my head. Dick Dastardly✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ That's alright. Happens to the best of us. :) Karly Johnston Is 4hrs good? I consider that bad. PerhapsNever 4-6 hours of SoT is bad? Considering most flagship devices usually struggle to produce that, I don't think it's very bad at all. Plus, I think you are looking at overall battery time and not screen on time. The two are very different.
Karly Johnston 5hrs is average, 6hrs is good, 7 is great, 8 is excellent. I get 7-8hrs SoT on my Z2 Pro every cycle.
Alekh Khanna Considering they recently launched Honor P9 for the equivalent for ~ 600 USD in India, I think Honor 8 is DoA if they mark up the pricing from ~350-400 USD for Indian consumers. Bob R So fucking rude. The asus phones works pretty much the same and i don't remember such an unprofessional expletive laden review.
And did you really just call people in china dumb for expecting different things. Honestly greenify existed in the west first you know. Ughhh android police. Shameful!
Biggles I see expletives in your comment, but none in the review. And no, David Ruddock didn't call people in China dumb. He called the decision by the manufacturer to flout established Android UI trends to differentiate for the sake of it "dumb". It might be jsut me, but all the software flaws described are things that were, erm, borrowed, from iOS, but sometimes in a botched way (while iOS asks for permissions on app launch, EMUI does not). Flint_PS I know Android does. EMUI, apparently, does not. Catalin Traian Petrescu I have EMUI 4.0 and marshmallow and it asks me to allow various permissions whenever I open a new app. Maybe it's made different to you Flint_PS I'm not using it. I have read this review and the author mentions he has to specifically go to settings and enable notifications and running in the background for each app separately.
Catalin Traian Petrescu Well, I just downloaded an app for test and it DID run in the background by default. You can disable running in the background for specific apps if you don't want to to save battery (*cough* facecrap *cough*).
All notifications appear on top by default and you have the option to either allow notifications or not to that app. And that doesn't mean that an app doesn't ask you for permissions. This is built-in android and the skinning in it would be too high. Otherwise EMUI just runs smoothly and you can easily install a custom launcher to get a more stockish feel (there is a "stockify" theme in the play store for instance but you can look for others as well). P.S.: I am using EMUI on p8 lite and NOT on a Honor phone. It might be different, I simply don't know. But I don't think it's that bad (although I wanted a more stock android experience either) Flint_PS I see. Well, I don't think the author lies in the review.
Maybe Huawei changed stuff in 4.1? Dunno. Catalin Traian Petrescu I think the same. In 3.1 the navbar was much bigger, quite decent. Plus it had a feature that was "pre-borrowed" from Nougat: pressing and holding recent apps would bring you to the last used app. Too bad they ditched this functionality on Android Marshmallow EMUI 4.0. They tried to add some stock features but they messed it a lot. Keith Reeder Well, he's wrong.
mark At least you can enable running in background, I don't believe ios offers that option, it behaves like other feature phone OSs. Rod iOS allows background tasks up to 10 minutes. krazyfrog Huawei's EMUI needs to be called out at every opportunity. Absolutely fuckall piece of shit. People in China might be fine with that shitshow but no one else should have to suffer.
Benjamin Lehto An off topic question here, but are there any phones like the 1+3 or Axon 7 that are also waterproof and still in the $4-500 range? Does waterproofing add too much cost? Wolf0491 Been waiting on that for years myself mate. Personally still using my Z3 hoping something comes out that isn't $700 but only Samsung and Sony seem interested in this feature so no luck there haha Roberto Virga While OnePlus is merging Oxygen OS and Hydrogen OS, Huawei should do the exact opposite: release this phone with EMUI in China, and with stock android in Europe and North America. Why not? Unlike OnePlus, Huawei has the money to support parallel development of two OSes. Frank In January, the Honor 5X introduced the “company” (insofar as they operate as a separate business unit) to a western audience with a very affordable, metal-bodied phone.
The first Honor phone in Europe was the Honor 6 from 2014. Don't you count us Europeans as western? :,( marrecar Read the Good and the Bad list, and... You really need to be less subjective.
I'm talking about not liking EMUI. It's a subjective thing, like you said, some people like it, some don't. Whichever your side is, it's a subjective matter, aside from the functionality, bugs and features, you needn't talk about it as if it's a bad thing nor if it's a good thing. If you can't stand it, that's fine, but other people can. P.S. I don't own a Huawei device so I'm not the one to judge whether EMUI is good or not, but many people don't have a problem with it, so I guess it should be left out from the Bad list. Mark C. Maybe it's because I'm coming from LG, then Motorola, but I don't find EMUI to be that bad at all. In fact, the savings on battery and having this amazing processor have sold me completely.
The Honor 8 is awesome. EMUI update would be great, or an unlocked bootloader and CM, but the performance of this phone is head and shoulders above any phone anywhere close to it's price point.
Anyone who uses overlays is no stranger to the weirdness. Throwing Now launcher helped shoulder that a lot. I'm loving this phone though, and this is coming from a V10 user. awg wow, i read a lot of critics on emui for honor 8, but this is by far the most harsh critics.. hahaha i'm among the owner of honor 8..yes, emui kinda suck..but i learn to use it Jo Tjena Every time i connect my headphones it starts the google app, voice thingy, and starts all kinds of programs and stuff, automaticly changes the volume and so on. Anyone know what the problem is? Nevondrax I actually really grown to like EMUI, at first i didn't and used Nova launcher, but after half a year of having my Honor 7 (Same SW as H8) on EMUI 4.1 i really grown to it. Also i really like the tabbed design of the Status bar more than MM's pull down design.
But eh, thats just my 2 cents. ZG The nougat update adds the app drawer back which was my biggest drawback with EMUI initially.
I use NOVA launcher anyway anytime I get a new phone and this one wasn't an exception. I've only had it for about 3 weeks, but have been pleasantly surprised with it. It feels quality made and great in hand, fragile but great. The one annoying thing I can't seem to figure out how to disable is everytime I disconnect power or try to use the microphone in anothe app like Soundhound or Google Music Search, it gives me a pop up dialog informing me of what is happening.
Annoying as hell. [Update: gone from Amazon] Deal Alert Pick up a 64GB/4GB Moto G4 Plus for $200 at Amazon and B H, the lowest price we've ever seen 2017/05/02 11:24am PDT May 2, 2017 Play Store v7.8 prepares to add pre-registration rewards, settings for Instant Apps, Play Protect, and more [APK Teardown + Download] 2017/05/02 5:46pm PDT May 2, 2017 4 Years Ago Today [Bonus Round] The DRM: Death Ray Manta, Emilly In Darkness, Lemegaton Master Edition, And Wizard Ops Tactics 2013/05/03 6:55pm PDT May 3, 2013 Google Phone 9.0 prepares to add Android O's Notification Channels, picture messaging, post-call messages, and more [APK Teardown] 2017/05/02 5:00am PDT May 2, 2017
