The competition is really heating up in India’s budget and early mid-range segments. OEMs are spoiling and confusing the consumer for choice, as they continue releasing a wide variety of devices across often-overlapping price points. After releasing a new color variant for the Honor 8X in India, Huawei has now announced the Honor 8C, pitching it at a slightly lower price point.
Honor 8C — Specifications at a Glance
| Category | Huawei Honor 8C (BKK-AL10) |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 158.7 mm × 75.94 mm × 7.98 mm; 167g |
| Display | 6.26″ HD+ (1520 x 720 pixels, 19:9) LCD, 269ppi |
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 632: Kryo 250 semi-custom cores comprising of 4x Cortex-A73 @1.8GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @1.8GHz; 14nm FinFET process;Adreno 506 |
| RAM and Storage | 4GB RAM + 32GB storage;
4GB RAM + 64GB |
| Expandable Storage | Yes; up to 256GB with dedicated microSD card slot |
| Rear Camera | 13MP, f/1.8 + 2MP, f/2.4; LED Flash |
| Front Camera | 8MP, f/2.0; LED Flash |
| Battery | 4,000mAh |
| USB Port | microUSB |
| 3.5mm Headphone Jack | Yes |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Yes; Rear |
| SIM | Dual; Dual 4G VoLTE |
| Android Version | Android 8.1 Oreo underneath EMUI 8.2 |
Huawei chose to stick with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 SoC instead of its own Kirin SoC, which isn’t a bad thing as the Snapdragon 632 is the spiritual successor to the beloved Snapdragon 626, which in turn was known for its excellent efficiency. While you can get better CPU’s like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 and even 660 at close price ranges, Huawei seems to be focusing on efficiency rather than on pure performance with this smartphone. To put this into perspective, the Snapdragon 632 will only be responsible for a 6.26″ HD+ display (and not a FHD+ display, as seen in this price range), and will also be helped by the beefy 4,000mAh battery and EMUI’s questionably aggressive battery management. The entire combination may seem underpowered for users looking for a budget gaming device, but for average consumers, it means battery life for days. We would be entirely unsurprised if the Honor 8C manages to easily touch 2 days of regular usage.
The Honor 8C also packs in a decent camera setup. The camera hardware is complemented by the AI-backed camera app, allowing the Honor 8C to recognise over 500 scenarios in 22 different categories as per its own claims. There’s also an AI Shopping feature that detects objects in the scene and searches online for similar items using the built-in NPU. To add in more AI buzzwords, the front camera also has an AI Beautify feature.
Pricing and Availability
The Honor 8C will be available in Blue, Black, Gold and Purple colors. The device is priced at ₹11,999 ($172) for the 32GB variant and ₹12,999 ($186) for the 64GB variant. The Honor 8C will go on sale in the country exclusively through Amazon.in and HiHonor stores from December 10, 2018. For Reliance Jio uses, the Honor 8C also comes in with benefits worth ₹4,450 as well as 100GB additional data.
The Honor 8C does not exactly compete with the newly launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro, but starts treading on the price range with its higher specced variant. The market at this price range sees intense competition as competitors like Asus, Realme, Oppo, Vivo and more have their own set of offerings with better processors and better displays. The inclusion of a HD+ display on a 6.26″ device does not make sense to us, but for the average consumer, it will be difficult to immediately spot the shortcoming unless they have a FHD+ device side-by-side. Huawei is clearly targeting average consumers with poorer research skills, or users looking for an efficient powerhouse, as there are alternatives in the market that you can consider depending on your specific need.
Note: Huawei has stopped providing official bootloader unlock codes for its devices. Therefore, the bootloader of the Honor 8X cannot be unlocked, which means that users cannot flash Magisk/TWRP/custom ROMs.
Source: HiHonor Online Store
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