Huawei releases the Honor 8 premium phone

First announced in July 2016, the Honor 8 is Huawei’s first flagship phone for the U.S. market. It’s finally available today, and brings great features to the Android arena.

Camera

The Honor 8 has several features that stand out. First, let’s talk about the camera. It’s a dual-lens system with one RGB and one monochrome sensor. The RGB sensor gives your photos bright, crisp colors while the monochrome sensor gives you sharp details and clarity.

Camera sensors work by capturing light into a grid of photosites, which are tiny cavities on the sensor. Color sensors work by capturing only one of three primary colors (red, green, blue) at each photosite in an alternating pattern called a color filter array (CFA).

A side effect of the CFA is that each pixel can only capture 1/3 of the incoming light, since any color that doesn’t match the pattern is filtered out. For example, any red or blue light that hits a green pixel won’t be recorded.

Additionally, at any given photosite location, one color is directly measure while the other two are inferred. This process of combining photosites to produce full color pixels is called demosaicing.

Unlike a color sensor, a monochrome sensor is able to capture all of the incoming light at each pixel regardless of color. Each pixel gets three times more light since all colors are absorbed. Monochrome sensors therefore don’t need demosaicing. This lets them record an image with a slightly higher resolution

Body

The Honor 8 has a sleek, double-sided glass body. Beneath the surface, a special 15-layer process is applied to give the phone an “aurora effect” that reflects light. On the back of the Honor 8 is a fingerprint sensor around a button that promises instant access to the phone.

The button offers additional functionality, like clicking to capture a screenshot, double-clicking for the flashlight, and long pressing to launch favored apps. Your fingerprint data is encrypted and stored in the phone, but it’s unclear if it’s software- or hardware-based.

The phone also has a dual-SIM card slot. You can use two SIM cards with it, or one SIM card and one microSD card with support for up to 256GB of external storage.

Power

The phone has an octa-core CPU (4x 2.3 GHz Cortex-A72 & 4x 1.8 GHz Cortex A53). It also has a non-removable 3000mAh battery with Huawei’s proprietary power saving features. The battery includes fast-charge tech to recharge your battery up to 50% in 30 minutes. The phone has 4GB of RAM for high-speed access.

Price & Availability

Pre-ordering begins August 17-September 3 at Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video and Newegg. You can also pre-order at Honor’s website. The Honor 8 is $399 for the 32GB model and $449 for the 64GB model. It comes in Sapphire Blue, Pearl White and Midnight black.

Best Buy will exclusively offer the Sapphire Blue model for the first 60 days. Customers who pre-order the phone will also get a $50 gift card from participating retailers. Visit Honor’s website for more information.

Finally, those who buy the Honor 8 can register the phone on Honor’s website to qualify for a one-time repair of any accidental screen or back-cover glass damage during the three-month cover period. This coverage period is in addition to the standard 12 month warranty