The mid-ranged smartphone market keeps on getting hotter, as global mobile makers are intensifying competition by offering superior products at affordable price points. And when it comes to cutthroat competition in the budget or mid-ranged smartphones, then the Chinese mobile makers certainly take the market rivalry to the peak. One such highly attractive new smartphone model is the recently launched Honor 8. It’s positioning and pricing makes it a close rival of another new Chinese device – OnePlus 3.
Both the Honor 8 and OnePlus 3 are highly capable devices with premium quality, design and features, while also being competitively priced. So, which among them is a better choice? Here, we try to find out the answer by comparing the two smartphones side by side.
Honor 8 Vs OnePlus 3
Design & Display :
The new Honor 8 has evolutionary design and feels very premium as compared to the previous Honor models. The smartphone has a full metal body that is covered in 2.5D curved glass both at the front and rear. The device also gets a unique 15-layer glass treatment at the back for a stunning reflective pattern which makes it a brilliant looking new smartphone model. The device also flaunts slightly sandblasted metal frame which further enhances the visual appeal along with diamond chamfers.
The OnePlus 3 is also great looking smartphone that has matured a lot from its plastic build predecessors. It also flaunts a full metal unibody construction. It has a distinctive appeal with its particularly squared and sharp design language. It looks more conventional and less gorgeous than the Honor 8. Nevertheless, it has nice rounded edges which make it smart to look at and good to hold. Moreover, the OnePlus 3 is a larger smartphone among the two, but weighs only five grams heavier than the Honor 8.
Then again, the OnePlus 3 has an undesirable camera bump, which the Honor 8 smartly avoids. However, the OnePlus 3 is 0.1 mm thinner than the Honor 8.
Both the smartphones offer bright Full HD resolution displays. However, while the OnePlus 3 flaunts a larger 5.5-inch screen, the Honor 8 packs in a slightly smaller 5.2-inch display. This results in higher ppi in the Honor phone offering little sharper visuals.
On the other hand, the OnePlus 3 gets a superior AMOLED display technology against the Honor 8’s LCD screen technology. This makes the OnePlus 3 offer deeper blacks and more vibrant colors. Nevertheless, the Honor 8 is also no less and offers brighter and sharper imagery with its LTPS LCD display.
The Honor 8 offers a blue light filter, while the OnePlus 3 boasts of a night mode option.
Hardware & OS : The OnePlus 3 seems to be a better performer among the two, as it is powerfully packed with top-notch hardware specifications. It boasts of being equipped with Qualcomm’s range topping Snapdragon 820 quad-core chipset that is supported by an incredulous 6 GB of RAM.
On the other hand, the Honor 8 gets powered by Huawei’s own Kirin 950 chipset and is supported by 4 GB of RAM which means also a great performer. However, in comparison, the OnePlus 3 should offer more consistent, smoother and faster performance.
Both the devices run on the Android 6.0 Marshmallow based OS topped by two different UIs. The Honor 8 uses the company’s latest Emotion UI 4.1 skin that makes a lot of changes to the stock Android OS such as apps drawer removal and the integration of a new notifications drawer.
On the other hand, the OnePlus uses the Oxygen UI that is more similar to the stock Android OS, but comes with greater customization options and also has a dynamic home screen that is known as the ‘the shelf’ that shows the most used apps, calendar information and most frequent numbers from the contact list.
Android users would like the Oxygen OS better, while the users familiar with iPhones would like EMUI as it has a similar design with the iOS.
Connectivity & Battery : Both the Chinese devices offer dual-SIM support as well as NFC, but while the OnePlus offers a great 64 GB of onboard storage space, the Honor 8 keeps it to a standard 32 GB of onboard memory. However, while the Honor 8’s storage is expandable through a microSD up to a massive 256 GB, the OnePlus does not offer this flexibility.
Then again, both the handsets pack in similar 3000 mAh non-removable batteries, which are nice and can offer a good backup of more than a day with moderate usage. Both also offer quick charge support. However, the OnePlus’s Dash Charge technology outsmarts the Honor 8’s Smart Power 4.0 fast charging capability. While the OnePlus model can offer more than 60 percent battery life with just half an hour’s charge, while the Honor phone can charge only up to 47 percent in half an hour.
Cameras : The Honor 8 flaunts a dual-lens 12 MP rear camera which is its highlight. It is a solid performer with some cool shooting modes and dual-tone LED flash with Full HD video recording support. The device also boasts of a great 8 MP front facing selfie shooter which comes along with an array of superb beauty mode functionalities as well.
In comparison, OnePlus 3 offers straightforward options and fewer camera modes. However, its single lens 16 MP primary shooter seems to offer overall better performance that the Honor’s highly touted dual-rear camera system. The OnePlus phone’s primary camera offers superior images aided by optical image stabilization and manual control and also offers superior 4K resolution video recording.
Conclusion
While the Honor 8 is definitely a better looking new smartphone with more oomph factor, considering all the other aspects, the OnePlus 3 seems to be a very tough competitor to beat. The OnePlus 3 certainly is a more superior device than the Honor 8 when overall performance, hardware specs, fast charging and camera performance are concerned. You can find more details on both the phones on 91mobiles. By visiting 91mobiles, you can also compare all the aspects of these to devices side by side. Considering that looks can’t beat performance, the Honor 8 doesn’t really pose as a real threat to the OnePlus 3.