Honor V8 review with super configuration and positioning as Internet flagship

IT168 Review In 2014, Honor officially pursued a dual-brand operation strategy with Huawei as an independent brand. As a veritable "rich second generation" entrepreneur, the Honor brand gradually got rid of Huawei's influence within two years. Shadow, in just two generations of products after Honor 6, the seemingly radical product strategy also allowed Honor to put a unique mark on its products in a short period of time. As the flagship product of the year, Honor has defined the new product as the V series this time, which not only contains the meaning of Victory, but also reflects Honor’s product philosophy of breaking through conventions and bravely being itself. Compared with some manufacturers who are still playing the price/performance card with high configuration and low price, Honor V8 is more focused on solid product improvement.

Today’s mobile phone market is gradually transitioning from the past “purchase era” to the “replacement era”, and users will be more cautious when continuing to purchase products. For Internet brands like Honor, they need to be more cautious in product iteration. Therefore, we see that Honor has gone through nearly 9 months of silence before bringing us the Honor V8 again. Honor V8 not only comes with a 2K screen and dual cameras, but also begins to lay out VR. The tone is high enough, and it even has an attitude of getting everything done in one battle. As the flagship responsible for expanding Honor's territory in 2016, whether Honor V8 can continue to live up to its reputation as a flagship this year, which is a bit special for Internet phones, is what we need to know in this review. problem.

"Hardware part:

As an Internet brand mobile phone, the hardware configuration naturally carries the positioning of the mobile phone. As the flagship of the year, Honor V8 released an interpretation of the use of 2K screen during the warm-up stage The use of dual cameras has made many people very concerned about its configuration. At the beginning of the article, let’s take a look at the hardware configuration of Honor V8.

"Honor V8

Parameters

Mobile phone model

Honor V8

Honor V8 (full Netcom)

Screen size

5.7 inches

5.7 inches

Resolution

1920*1080

2560*

1440

Processor

Kirin 950

Kirin 955

SIM card

Dual NanoSIM

card slot, Dual SIM card dual standby

Dual NanoSIM card slot, dual SIM card dual standby

Running memory

4GB

4GB

Body memory

32GB

64GB/128GB

Main camera

12-megapixel dual camera

12 million pixel dual camera

Front camera

8 million pixels

8 million pixels

Operating system

EMUI 4.1

EMUI 4.1

Body size

157x77.6x7.75mm

157x77.6x7.75mm

Features

Does not support NFC

Supports NFC

Battery capacity

3500mAh

3500mAh

Network standard

Carrier version/Full Netcom

Full Netcom

Price

2299/2499 yuan View

View for 2799 yuan

Through the table comparison, we can see that the biggest difference between the Honor V8 64GB full network version and the standard version is that the high-end version uses Kirin 955 processor (the standard version is Kirin 950), supporting up to 2.5GHz (standard version is 2.3GHz). Paired with 4GB RAM 32/64GB ROM, it supports up to 128GB memory expansion.

Honor V8 uses a 5.7-inch screen with a resolution of 2560x1440 (the standard and carrier versions have a resolution of 1080P). The full Netcom version supports NFC, while the carrier version does not support NFC, and even the colors are different. It can be seen that there are still considerable differences between the various versions of Honor V8, and users can choose according to their own needs.

"Appearance:

An excellent mobile phone not only has powerful configurations, but also has excellent appearance design. As the problem of excessive performance of smartphones gradually becomes apparent, the appearance has become It has become the first criterion for many users to purchase flagship phones. Only if a good flagship phone has solid workmanship, excellent industrial design and excellent feel can it hope to capture the hearts of users. Let’s take a look at the Honor V8. What are the characteristics of the exterior industrial design?

In terms of appearance, the Honor V8 is equipped with a 5.7-inch 2K screen with a resolution of 515 ppi, 94.5 color saturation and 2048 levels of backlight adjustment. This allows the machine to bring a more realistic and delicate display effect. There are no physical function buttons on the front of the Honor V8. This design makes the front look very refreshing, but the design of the virtual buttons on the screen will reduce the actual usable area of ??the screen. Honor also provides With the virtual button hiding function, you can call out or hide the virtual buttons according to actual needs.

With the rapid development of smartphones, smartphones have already entered the "metal age". On the back of the fuselage, Honor V8 It adopts a metal integrated body design, combined with 3D diamond-cut bright edge design and sandblasting micron-level spraying technology, so that the Honor V8 presents different metal textures at different angles, and at the same time, the hand feel and wear resistance are better. It has improved a lot in the past. This time, fluorinated liquid waterproofing technology has been added to effectively reduce the damage caused by water droplets, hand sweat and other common life situations. Obviously, the Honor V8 has gone a step further in terms of appearance design and body processing. The addition of metal sandblasting technology makes this phone more recognizable among competing products at the same price.

On the top of the back of the fuselage are the camera and fingerprint recognition modules, which we can clearly see. The two cameras are fixed on the same base, using a solid zinc alloy protective bracket. After precise debugging, it fully ensures the shooting quality and stability during long-term use. The Honor V8 uses dual 12-megapixel cameras. It adopts black and white and color dual sensors, supports contrast, laser, and depth-of-field hybrid laser focusing technology, and is specially optimized for Asian skin tones. It can be said that this time the dual camera technology has been fully upgraded.

The right side of the Honor V8 mobile phone still retains the well-received smart key, and the smart key

the keys have been re-adjusted and placed on the same side as the volume button and power button, allowing It is more convenient for users to use and more ergonomic. It is worth mentioning that this time Smart Key deeply integrates Internet resources and services to achieve a breakthrough experience for consumers in mobile Internet life.

Unconsciously, the symmetrical design style became popular in the mobile phone circle, and was gradually adopted by more and more mobile phone manufacturers. Honor V8

The openings at the bottom also follow the symmetrical style. The design principle is more unified visually and looks simpler. In terms of interfaces, Honor V8 also performs very mainstream. The bottom of Honor V8 uses the latest Type-C interface. Compared with the traditional MicroUSB interface, the blind plug attribute does not need to distinguish between forward and reverse, making the control experience more convenient.

"EMUI4.1 system experience:

Honor V8 is equipped with a deeply customized EMUI4.1 system based on Android 6.0. Compared with the previous EMUI4.0 system , this update has not changed much in the overall interface style. It still uses a large arc rounded rectangular icon design. The overall EMUI4.1 system maintains simplicity and intuitive features, and has added some practical and interesting features. small functions.

In this part of the article, we will explain to you what optimizations and new features the current version of EMUI 4.1 system brings?

"1. Optimize wireless network connection

EMUI4.1 In terms of network, WiFi 2.0 has been upgraded, and the connection quality of each WiFi is automatically identified through background calculation, and the user is automatically notified that the quality of the hotspot is accessible (good quality, average, poor), not accessible, and requires a verification code (Portal hotspot), and It can be sorted according to network quality or other more intuitive methods. At the same time, login is simplified for Portal hotspots that require verification codes, so that users can connect directly and use them without manually entering mobile phone numbers and verification codes.

"2. More comprehensive 3D color temperature adjustment

According to each person's sensitivity and preference for color, Honor V8 also has a built-in screen color temperature adjustment option, whether you prefer cold Screen or warm screen can be adjusted by yourself in "Settings-Display-Color Temperature". Different from the previous default three modes of color temperature adjustment, the biggest feature of EMUI4.1's color temperature adjustment is that users can drag the color ball to customize their own The preferred color temperature satisfies the user's personal preference for screen color to a greater extent.

"3. ROG power-saving mode ensures long battery life

Honor V8 focuses on long battery life. In addition to reducing power consumption in hardware and using high-energy-density and large-capacity batteries, it also optimizes the system It is also one of the important parameters that affects battery life. The "Internet-based super power-saving mode" mentioned at the press conference will be officially pushed to Honor V8 through OTA upgrade in June. However, in EMUI 4.1 In the battery management, we also discovered a function called "ROG Power Saving", which can reduce the screen resolution to 1920*1080, which can effectively improve battery life when other settings remain unchanged. By reducing the API resolution of the system to achieve the purpose of saving power, it can be achieved without shutting down and restarting. In principle, this can definitely achieve the purpose of saving power. As for the specific power saving effect, further battery life tests will be conducted later. .

" 4. Multi-user mode

In life, we often encounter situations where we temporarily borrow our mobile phones from friends and relatives. It is really troublesome to log out of a bunch of social software accounts, back up and clean up personal privacy information. , EMUI4.1 has added a multi-user mode for this purpose, which is actually an upgraded version of the guest mode in the previous EMUI system. It is similar to the multi-users on the PC system. They can create their own user accounts on this machine without interfering with each other; new accounts are created. A series of basic settings are required after the first boot;

On the lock screen, all created users (avatar names) can be displayed, and you can click to switch.

After switching to other accounts, all the original information of the owner's account will be isolated. When using it, the information content between the accounts will be independent and cannot be shared with each other.

At the same time, we also found that different users can’t share it with each other. After connecting the Honor V8 to the computer, the content read is also independent, which ensures privacy to a large extent. However, it would be more meaningful if users can set their own user passwords.

　5. New student mode

Nowadays, many students are also equipped with a mobile phone, but parents are worried that their children are addicted to mobile games or browse some web pages with inappropriate content. The student mode added in EMUI 4.1 is obviously designed for this. After turning on the student mode, the use of applications will be limited by time. At the same time, applications cannot be installed and downloaded at will. In addition, parents can restrict web browsing. In order to avoid "bad kids", functions such as modifying the system time and multi-user are also blocked in student mode.

" 6. Customized and rich VR content resources

In order to better enjoy the VR experience with the 2K screen, the video in Honor V8 has been upgraded to Video 2.0, in-depth cooperation with Youku Tudou Cooperation, in addition to a massive 60 million hours of high-quality film library, it also opened a VR panoramic area. Currently, 156 VR video resources are online, and they will continue to be updated in the future. At the same time, Youku promises that there will be 10,000 VR movies in the future, which will be updated every month. At the same time, VR content is customized for Honor users every two weeks.

"7. Smart Key Upgrade 2.0

Smart Key is a newly launched feature on Honor 7, which can sense clicks, Three different scene modes, such as double-click and long press, can be used to quickly take pictures, quickly open applications, enter smart scene mode, enter smart voice mode, etc. This time, the smart key of Honor V8 has been upgraded to 2.0, which optimizes the navigation, food, air ticket/hotel booking functions, and adds movie ticket reminder and monthly traffic report functions. In addition, users can also customize the smart key for making phone calls. , screenshot or other function shortcut keys.

"Hardware performance:

"Huawei Kirin 950/955 SoC chip parameter comparison

Product model

Huawei Kirin 950

Huawei Kirin 955

Process technology

16nm FinFET TSMC

16nm FinFET TSMC

Core number

8 cores

8 cores

Architecture

Cortex A72 A53 i5 coprocessor

Cortex A72 A53 i5 coprocessor

Frequency

4x2.3GHz 4x1.8GHz

4x2.5GHz 4x1.8GHz

Network baseband

LTE Cat6

LTE Cat6

Graphics Processor

Mali-T880 MP4

Mali-T880 MP4

Graphics Frequency

900MHz

900MHz

For today’s smartphones, the realization of various functions depends more on the development of hardware, so the hardware becomes more and more important. The more important it is. As the flagship of Honor, V8 naturally still chooses Kirin 955 (high-end version) made of 16nm process technology. Kirin 955 uses quad-core A72 quad-core A53 architecture, Mali-880 MP4 900MHz. We all know that for a processor, the architecture and manufacturing process determine the performance of the processor. The smaller the chip's manufacturing process, the stronger the computing power under the same power consumption, and the lower the computing power under the same computing power. power consumption. The 16nm process technology of Kirin 955 is still in the leading position in the industry.

▲Shape under FinFET process

Kirin 955 uses 16nm FinFEF process. FinFEF effectively controls the leakage rate of the chip fence by transforming the fence shape. As early as the Kirin 950, Huawei has participated in the entire process of TSMC's 16nm FinFET from research and development to tape-out to being able to meet mass production requirements. As an upgraded version, Kirin 955 has increased its main frequency from 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz to enhance emergency handling capabilities. Architecturally, Kirin 955 adopts the public version architecture based on ARM A72. ARM officially claims that the core performance of the A72 architecture is 3.5 times that of the A15 architecture (the data is based on the 16nm FinFET process A72 versus the 28nm traditional process A15). The previous A57 has a performance improvement of 1.9 times compared to the A15 architecture (the data is based on the 20nm traditional process A57 versus the 28nm traditional process A15). So it can be roughly seen that the A72 core performance with the same frequency and same process should be improved by about 25 to 35% compared to the A57 architecture performance.

It also has an additional built-in i5 processor. The power consumption of the i5 co-processor is only 6.5mA, which makes the collection standby power consumption lower. In addition, it is also responsible for collecting information from various sensors and can calculate and organize data more accurately.

In addition, Kirin 950 uses Mali-880 as the GPU. In official tests, Mali-880 can reach an almost crazy MP16, out of considerations of reducing the number of transistors, reducing the SoC packaging area, and reducing power consumption. Kirin 955 adopts a high-frequency few-core strategy and uses a Mali-T880 MP4 quad-core GPU clocked at 900MHz. We also conduct GFXBench GL testing on this GPU.

In the 1080P Manhattan off-screen scene, the Honor V8 achieved a score of 17Fps, and the 1080P T-Rex off-screen scene achieved 30Fps. Such results may not be beautiful enough intuitively, but the use of GPU performance is not The result depends on a sudden event, but is a continuous event like CPU operation. How to ensure that the GPU works at high frequency for a long time can ultimately improve the actual use experience. At this point, the advantage of the strategy of high frequency and fewer cores is more obvious. The GPU can stay within the power consumption threshold for a longer period of time, so it can run at a higher frequency for more time.

In addition, we also used AnTuTu to test the CPU part of Kirin 955. It can be seen that Kirin 955 scored 95323. Although there is still some gap compared with the current score of hundreds of thousands, the Kirin 955 has reached the first-tier SoC in terms of performance after years of accumulation.

"Dual camera experience:

Honor was the first to adopt bionic parallel dual cameras as early as the Honor 6Plus. With a certain accumulation in the exploration of dual cameras, compared with other Mobile phone manufacturers who are waiting on the sidelines have technical advantages. This time, Honor V8 adopts the newly upgraded second-generation dual camera technology. Different from the dual camera principle of Honor 6Plus, Honor V8 is equipped with dual 12-megapixel parallel lenses, using dual black and white and color lenses. Sensor. The official claims that the normal camera performance is improved by 36%, and the large-aperture camera performance is improved by 44%. We still need to verify the experience through actual testing. Before the official experience, we will briefly introduce the working principle of the Honor V8 dual camera.

One of the dual cameras of Honor V8 is responsible for recording the color of the object being photographed, and the other is responsible for recording black and white information. The advantage of this is that during the imaging process of the traditional color sensor, light passes through. When using a filter, each pixel generates a color value, and adjacent pixels must be interpolated to calculate the lost color information. Since the black and white lens does not have a filter, it is a fully transparent sensor, and the amount of light entering when taking pictures is normal. The amount of light received by the color sensor is 4 times. Therefore, in terms of imaging, the dynamic range of the picture can be improved and noise can be reduced. When taking pictures, when two pictures are combined into one, more details can be preserved without affecting the color. There is any impact.

At the same time, the dual camera also brings more focusing advantages. First of all, the Honor V8 supports two focusing methods, laser focus and contrast focus, which have good performance. The design will bring a new choice of depth of field focusing, that is, by calculating the angle between the subject and the two lenses, supplemented by the distance between the two lenses, the distance to the subject can be accurately calculated, thereby simplifying the focusing steps and quickly Get it right at once. For different shooting environments and subjects, Honor V8 will automatically select the most suitable and fastest focusing method. Let’s take a look at the sample photos to find out. /p>

The background blur effect brought by the large aperture is impressive. This time, Honor V8 brings a newly upgraded large aperture mode. The official claims that the large aperture performance has been improved by 44% and supports aperture adjustment of F0.95-F16. . After turning on the large aperture mode, the dual cameras will not only measure the distance of the focus object and record the depth of field, but also focus on objects at various distances on the screen, so that different background blur effects can be obtained according to different focus points. , which is very effective for some scenes with obvious front-to-back distance.

By comparing the sample photos with the iPhone 6s Plus, we can see that the Honor V8 achieves a better background blur effect in the large aperture mode, and the main body of the picture is more prominent. At the same time, photos taken in large aperture mode can also reselect the focus and adjust the degree of blur at will, making it more flexible and playable.

"Night scene shooting

Night scene shooting is also another major advantage brought by the use of dual cameras. The color lens is responsible for recording color, while the black and white lens is responsible for outline, detail, and brightness. ISP synthesizes the image information collected by the two. After the synthesis, the smear is almost invisible to the naked eye and the dark details are richer. At the same time, because the black and white lens has no filter, the overall brightness of the synthesized picture is higher, with less noise and a pure picture. It achieves excellent night-time imaging effects. From the sample, we can see that it can achieve relatively good performance at 100% detail.

▲

Click to view the video.

"3D Dynamic Panorama

This time Honor V8 cooperates with Fyuse to build a 3D dynamic panorama function into the camera. When turned on, it can make the pictures taken have a three-dimensional sense, and use the sense of motion to create a sense of movement for the viewer. The principle that brings about stereoscopic vision. Make photos dynamic by viewing them from different angles by swiping on your phone screen or moving your phone. At the same time, the entire shooting process is very simple. Just press and hold the red area of ??the shooting page, move the phone along an arc, around the object, or take pictures of the surrounding scenery with yourself as the center, and record the part you want to show. Of course, this cool-looking photo also supports hyperlink sharing on social platforms such as WeChat and QQ.

"There are some questions you want to know:

"How many versions of Honor V8 are there?

Honor V8 is Honor’s latest flagship, *** There are three versions, namely 4G 64G full Netcom version, 4G 32G full Netcom version and 4G 32G operator version. The 4GB 64GB all-Network version comes in 4 colors: champagne gold, rose gold, ceramic white, and elegant gray***; the 4GB 32GB all-Network version and carrier version come in 2 colors: platinum gold and glacier silver***.

"Will the Honor V8 equipped with a 2K screen affect the efficiency of mobile phone use?

Everyone who knows mobile phones knows that the biggest problem with a 2K screen is that it will give the mobile phone It brings problems such as high heat, high power consumption, and sharp decline in battery life. The technology in the mobile phone industry was not mature before, and some manufacturers used it in advance, which affected the user experience.

Honor V8

A breakthrough has been made in 2K screen technology. At the press conference, it was officially announced that with a 2K screen, the Honor V8 can still browse WeChat for 11 hours, watch TV series for 11 hours, and play games for 6 hours; for ordinary users. 1.78 days for heavy users and 1.21 days for heavy users.

Honor V8

can continuously use WeChat for 12 hours, follow TV series for 14 hours, and play games for 7 hours. Ordinary Internet users. The usage has also increased to 1.94 days; heavy Internet users can use it for 1.35 days to achieve a truly super satisfying feeling of playing for one day.

"What advantages does the dual camera design of Honor V8 bring?

Honor V8 uses dual 12-megapixel parallel lenses, dual black and white color sensors, dual ISPs (image processing chips), bringing up to 2 times the amount of light and photosensitive area, and uses second-generation dual camera technology , which improves the normal photography performance by 36% and the large aperture photography performance by 44%. Laser focus, depth of field focus and contrast focus assist each other to achieve faster and more accurate focusing. Honor V8 supports aperture adjustment of F0.95-F16, deep ISP chip, realizes real-time preview of large aperture, dual lenses and HDR technology can achieve better backlight shooting effect, synchronous iterative exposure, multi-frame noise reduction algorithm and Vision Camera technology processing , which can make night shots clearer. The dual lenses simultaneously achieve extremely rich high-frequency details, making objects with more details such as hair, small animals, and stuffed toys clearer.

In addition, thanks to the beauty algorithm tuned by French beauty experts, more accurate skin color restoration can be achieved when taking selfies; coupled with the Dark Light Shadow and Charm Me functions, the selfie experience has been greatly upgraded.

"Purchase channels for Honor V8:

Currently, Honor V8 has opened reservations in Huawei Mall, JD Mall, Baidu VIP offline stores and other channels. Honor V8's 4G 64G The full Netcom version is priced at 2,799 yuan, the 4G 32G full Netcom version is priced at 2,499 yuan, and the 4G 32G operator version is priced at 2,299 yuan. The reservation time is from 21:00 on May 10 to 20:00 on May 16. Netizens can Choose between 0 yuan reservation or 99 yuan reservation. It will be officially launched on Huawei Mall (VMALL) and JD.com at 10:08 on May 17. It is only available to reservation users. Non-reservation users will still not be able to purchase it by reservation. Of course, it can also be purchased through offline channels or third-party platforms. There may be value-added purchases in the initial stage. With the further expansion of production capacity, I believe it will not take long to buy it at the original price. As for whether this product is worth it. Question, objectively speaking, among mobile phones of the same price in the offline channel market, the Honor V8 with dual cameras and 2K screen is still very competitive.

"Direct link:

Jingdong Mall makes an appointment for Honor V8 dual camera 2K screen

Click to view details

Huawei Mall Honor V8 dual camera 2K screen click to view details

" Summary:

If we review Honor’s products since Honor operates independently, we can see that in just two years, Honor has developed dual cameras, smart keys, and flip cameras in just two generations of products. This product strategy may even seem slightly radical, but it also gives Honor’s products its own unique mark. When these technologies are combined with 2K screens and are integrated into a mobile phone, There is no doubt that it can stimulate consumers' desire to buy. At the turning point of the Internet mobile phone market, as a technology-oriented company, Honor V8 can see Honor's flexible changes in market segmentation to better respond to user needs.