Huawei’s wholly owned subsidiary Honor has launched pretty good phones so far. Last year, it launched the Honor 8 smartphone in the U.S. and now the company has announced its successor — Honor 8 Pro in the Europe. The Honor 8 Pro is the same smartphone that is known as the V9 in China.
This time, the company has opted for rounded corners and a matte aluminum finish on the 8 Pro instead of a glass back. The design update makes the device look similar to the iPhone. Even the footprint of the device is similar.
The smartphone features a 5.7-inch Quad HD display with screen resolution of 2960 x 1440 pixels. Under the hood, it is powered by the company’s own updated Kirin 960 octa-core processor, along with 6GB of RAM. As of the storage, the 8 Pro has 64GB of internal storage and supports microSD card of up to 128GB.
While this successor has received a spec bump in almost every department, the camera is the only one that remains the same as the Honor 8. It comes with a 12-megapixel dual-camera system. One captures images in RGB color, and the other in monochrome. The camera software then processes both images to create a single photo with better detail. On the front, there is an 8-megapixel sensor.
The dual-SIM smartphone comes with a fingerprint sensor at the rear for added security. It features NFC and USB-C charging, along with the usual set of connectivity options — Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
The device comes with Google’s latest Android Nougat operating system with its own EMUI 5.1 customizations on top. The company says it has included AI algorithms that will learn and understand what apps you open regularly and then optimize memory efficiently. Honor further added that it has 29 patent applications related to this technology.
While we haven’t seen it yet, reports suggest that the Honor 8 Pro will come in a box that converts into a Google Cardboard viewer for VR. Pretty neat way of introducing people to VR by reusing something that typically gets thrown away into some corner of the attic.
Huawei’s Honor 8 Pro will be available in platinum gold, midnight black, and navy blue colors in Europe. It is now available for pre-order at £474.99 (approx 549 euro). The shipping of the phone will start from April 20th. There is no information about the phone’s availability in other regions.
