One month with Huawei's Honor 8

The Honor 8 is what I would call an underdog of a smartphone. Sporting a Kirin 950 SoC and Dual camera system, this device hopes to sway buyers away from flagship devices. For RM1699, you will get a 32GB version of the phone, and for RM1899, you'll get double the amount of storage

In the month that I had the chane to use the deivce, I've learnt about the Honor 8's good and bad side. The Honor 8 comes in a variety of color options and we received the 64GB gold model and do note that the memory configuration is the only difference between the two storage tiers.

Huawei Honor 8 Key Specifications

— 5.2-inch 1080P LTPS Display
— HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC
— 4GB RAM
— 32GB/64GB expandable memory
— Dual 12MP f2.2 rear camera
— 8MP f2.4 front facing camera
— Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow w/Emotion UI 4.1
— 3000mAh battery
— Dual SIM LTE
— 145.5 x 71 x 7.5mm
— 153g
— White, Black, Blue, Gold


As you may have already noticed, the Honor 8 has a dual rear facing camera setup. Before the Honor 8 officially launched, the 8 was put sideways, teasing the Dual Camera setup. Both camera's are of 12 Megapixels with an f2.2 aperture and in real world situations, the camera produces excellent photos for the price that it's going for.

Though video quality is nothing to write home about, it isn't bad either. Back to still shots, with good lighting, the smartphone takes detailed shots. One would expect that in low light the photos produced be noisy and bad, the shots taken by the Honor 8 aren't as bad and noisy as one would expect in most situations I put it through

Immediately visible are big stars, but when zoomed, more smaller stars show themselves

In short, you wont be disappointed by the camera's performance. Switching the camera into manual mode fully unleashes the camera's performance. With the ISO set to 3200, exposure time to 5 seconds and manual focus, I was able to take a photo of the night sky with the stars visible which is something most phones struggle with

Moving on, the Honor 8 has a HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC powering the device. In the recent past, we reviewed the Honor 5C and that had a Kirin 650 SoC, which is pretty snappy for everyday tasks. The SoC's we have in current generation devices have matured a lot compared to what they used to be in say 2012-2014

The camera application also has a light drawing mode

The same attempt at light drawing was taken on a DSLR. Its clear that the phone only takes in strong rays of light and blocks out the rest, software magic is also applied

The Kirin 950 employs ARM's big.LITTLE architecture, using four Cortex A72 cores and four more Cortex A53 cores. Pair the Kirin 950 with 4 Gigabytes of RAM and we have a pretty speedy device. Note that not all of the four gigabytes are usable by end users as some of the RAM has to allocated to GPU RAM and System RAM, and then we have our remaining memory for us to play with ( about 2.9GB )

Huawei chose ARM's MALI T880MP4 graphics processor for this SoC, one equipped with 4 cores, hence the 'MP4'. During my time with the device, the graphics processor earns its right to stay by delivering smooth visuals in Google's Cardboard app as well as some graphics intensive games, I played CSR 2 quite a bit on this device

The recently opened McDonald's branch in Cyberjaya

The software does a great job at stitching the frames together

The Honor 8 also manages pretty good battery life, as do most new devices. There is a fault with the phone. During charging, oh and the device comes with Huawei's QuickCharge adapter in the box, the phone has this static feeling on the metal parts of the phone. I noticed this on the Honor 5C as well so it may have something to do with metal frames and charging.

My New 3DSXL Galaxy Style, taken with the camera application. Snapchat's shot of this had the colours off and my MSI keyboards lighting show more white than the actual colours

With a camera setup this good, we figured that sharing some of the shots on social media be the next thing to do, and we did. Using Instagram's integrated camera did okay, with the focusing and exposure being a hit and miss but great when things go well. Using Snapchat's integrated camera was absolutely horrid, focusing would miss almost all the time and white balancing would be off

Shutterbugs who love sharing their photo's to social media will have to use the smartphones camera app to take balanced and detailed shots and then share it. Note that this issue is NOT Huawei's fault but instead the respective applications issue. Moving on to the not so good parts of the phone, the display. Its a great 1080p display, but its still on LCD technology. Competing solutions, like the One Plus 3 and the ZTE Axon 7 both use AMOLED technology, with the ZTE even using a 1440p AMOLED display

The speakers are also somewhat a letdown. It doesn't get as loud as the Galaxy S7, the S7 has waterproofing measures built in and its still louder. Though apart from sheer decibels, it is otherwise a good mono speaker with good low end delivery as well as mid tones. the high ends paired with almost the maximum volume will introduce some distortions

Assigned launching the camera with the single tap of the Smart Key and it takes a photo as well

Conversely, we absolutely love the positioning of the fingerprint reader. And I also love the fact that there is a button Huawei calls the Smart Key, which you can assign to launch apps with single and double taps. Fingerprint scanning is also very fast on the Honor 8. With the readers positioning as such, unlocking the device whilst taking it out of my pocket was a single swift move

There is also an option for you to reduce the Honor 8's screen resolution from its native 1080p to 720p HD resolution. What this does is quite significantly increase your battery life on a single charge as well as boost performance for games and apps that render to native 1080p


Coming to the conclusion of whether I would buy this phone, I would but i'm leaning towards a no given the ZTE Axon 7 exists. If the Honor 8 had a dual front facing speaker setup, I'd have no issues picking it up. The screen technology doesn't push me away as much as the speaker setup did. Also, potential buyers of this phone WILL want to get a screen protector for the front and a protector for the back, as the rear glass picks up smudges really easily

First Unofficial Photos and Unboxing Video of The TECNO Boom J8

In January, Mobilityarena reportedly shared exclusive photos of HIOS, TECNO’s new custom user interface.  Now here are the first official photos of the smartphone that will debut this new UI. Say hello to the TECNO Boom J8 along side its Boom Headphone accessory that ships with it....yeah you read right.

It's no longer a rumor that the TECNO Boom J8 will be launched this month as a trusted anonymous tipster placed its bet on the 17th of March. 

If you observe closely, you would see that this is a revamped design when compared its predecessor, the Boom J7 and infact, any other TECNO Smartphone on the market. It's also not far-fetching to mistake this sleek new Boom J8 for the Apple iPhone flagship. 

Here’s a brief run down of the specs:

• 76.84*153.3*7.35mm dimensions.
• 5.5 inch Display with 1080*720 resolution.
• 2 GB RAM/16 GB ROM.
• 3000 mAh battery.
• 13 MP/5 MP camera with front facing flash.
• Android 5.1 Lollipop (with TECNO HiOS) upgradeable to Android 6.0.
• Notification Light a.k.a Breathing Light  (you'd never guess where)

Wait there's more, we also bring you the first unofficial unboxing video of the TECNO Boom J8. Enjoy!

*** The TECNO Boom J8 is currently available at every 3CHUB store for 41,000 (Price)  as at 24th of March 2016***

Tecno Boom J7 First Impressions

Hey guys,

So the generous guys from Tecno thought it wise to consult my "expert" opinion on how they could reach you, the target market. I received a phone from Tecno at about 3pm yesterday and now I'm going to try to arrange my first thoughts and what I have observed within the first 24hours of using their latest midrange Smartphone, the Tecno Boom J7

Upon unboxing, I noticed that Tecno has taken a different approach with the color of its casing as it differs from that of its 2013 flagship, the Phantom A+, that I purchased way back when. The A+'s case was basically Blue and quite playful whereas the Boom J7's box is white and Black with music related artwork, which could mean that the J7 primarily caters to the music lovers. Inside the box, you have your Smart phone, a premium headset, 2 plastic protective cases(without a leather flip), A charger, the Battery and some literature booklets.

The spec summary;

 5.0" touchscreen display at 720 X 1280p (~294ppi)

8.0MP + 2.0MP primary and secondary camera

Dual sim, 1 Micro and 1 Normal sim (Both 3G capable)

2020mAh Li-ion battery - removable

Android KitKat OS 4.4

1.3Ghz Quad-core Processor

1GB Ram

16GB Rom (Internal Memory)

Took the liberty of attaching an unboxing video from the official tecno YouTube channel.

 The front face of the Tecno Boom J7 smartphone is an edge to edge glass i.e touchscreen and 3 soft touch buttons. 

At the top, you have the 3.5mm headphone jack.

At the bottom, you have the micro-usb port and microphone

At the left side, you have the volume rocker.

At the right side, you have your power button.

At the back, you have the raised camera and flash and a circular speaker that looks rather interesting.  The phone is pretty light weight due to the fact that the entire body is made of plastic however, it does have a nice grip to it and feels above average in terms of build quality.

The back is beautifully curved at the edges, which I don't think I've seen on another Tecno device yet.





Went ahead to pop the battery right in and turned it on.
I was outdoors when I did this, first off, fantastic sunlight legibility, zero glare and it also has the auto adjust screen brightness option.


 The launcher (theme) is similar to what you have on the iOS devices. The icons are flat, and the toggles are even flatter. Nothing looks out of place if you're already used to the seamless android 4.4 KitKat user interface . There's also SwiftKey Keyboard pre-installed as well as other proprietary apps, a couple demo games and a new addition to the Tecno ecosystem, the Boom Player. I would explain how it works in my full review.



BOOM Player interface

Took some photos. Those turned out quite impressive especially because its an 8mp shooter and I know first hand that the 8mp snapper on the phantom A+ rarely takes crystal clear shots at first attempt. I would definitely be uploading more pictures and maybe a video sample on request, please let me know in the comment section.


Rear 8mp Camera of the Boom J7

Went ahead to plug in the headset and I realised afterwards that I couldn't hear much of what the Tecno rep before me was saying. It apparently, blocks you out from the background sounds and what not. He reiterated and said it was a noise cancellation premium headset. I would expatiate on this in my full review




Music Player Interface

Battery life so far....too soon to tell, only after 24hours of use with WiFi only. I charged it fully this morning and took it off its charger at 8am. Its 3:30PM now. I have downloaded & updated some apps. Spent  a little time on facebook, whatsapp, sent a few emails, taken a few pictures and generally fiddling with it for about 3 hours straight.
Meanwhile, I watched a full 1:30min movie  on flight mode last night and batt went from 100% to 78% (the 720p display delivered a satisfactory viewing experience). I haven't felt any heating or warming at the back yet.
There's also a power saving and Ultra mode which is proposed to squeeze some extra hours out of the battery life.

I'd definitely be putting the Boom J7 under more burden such as heavy gaming just to see how the li-ion battery holds up when compared to the polymer variant of the Phantom A+ in my full review. 

The tecno Boom J7 is already available in the market but the price varies from store to store. However, one of the lowest prices that I have seen is from Konga. As low as N23,999.
Click to buy now!
Feel free to hit the comment section if you have any questions or to let know what feature you would like me to write about extensively, in my forthcoming review.