Netflix’s overly simplified thumb ratings are here
The rumors are true: Netflix is dropping its star-based rating system in favor of “Thumbs,” a new way for you to vote up (like) or down (don’t like) on movies and TV shows that show up on your feed. As Variety reported earlier this month, the streaming service began testing this feature in 2016, but only with a small number of subscribers. Starting today though, Netflix will start rolling it out to all users on its site, mobile apps, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and smart TVs.
In addition to Thumbs, the company is introducing new “percentage match scores,” an algorithm that relies on your viewing habits to suggest how much you may be into different titles on the platform. For example, if you’re into dramas series and go to the landing page for a show like The Crown, you might notice an icon that says it’s a 90 or 95 percent match. That number could also be lower, naturally, depending on what each individual in your account typically watches.
Netflix says both of these features are going to help it make better recommendations to you, which it hopes translates into you spending less time browsing and more time watching.
Source: Netflix
Facebook helps you prevent the spread of revenge porn
Revenge porn is difficult to fight. Even if you successfully get the photos pulled, it’s all too easy for someone with local copies to upload them again. Facebook thinks it can help. The social network is launching tools designed to keep revenge porn offline and prevent an already bad situation from getting worse. You can report photos shared without permission, of course, and Facebook will both remove them and (typically) disable the accounts that posted them. However, the most important part is what follows next: Facebook uses photo matching to prevent people from sharing the shots again, including on Instagram and Messenger. You won’t have to constantly police Facebook to make sure the images stay down.
This isn’t a surefire solution. A determined poster could theoretically alter an image enough to evade the safeguards. However, this could go a long way toward discouraging rampant ‘casual’ sharing. The technology could also help in other instances, too — for example, when a photo of yours is attached to fake news and risks ruining your public image. No matter the circumstances, it should take some of the burden off of victims that already have enough trouble on their hands.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
Use AI to turn your favorite film into a color palette
If you’re seeking color inspiration from a distinctive-looking film like Grand Budapest Hotel, you could just “eyedrop” it in Photoshop or try an app like Adobe Color CC. Thanks to Vancouver-based developer Jack Qiao, though, there’s now a slightly easier way. He came up with Colormind, an AI algorithm that uses films, video games, fashion and art to “generate color suggestions that fit the distinct visual style of those mediums,” he says.
In coming up with his system, Qiao writes that he first looked at so-called color quantization (MMCQ), in which algorithms extract representative colors from images. However, those colors are often “haphazard” and not very useful for design, unlike human palettes that feature “similar hues grouped together … and some minimum amount of contrast between each other,” he says.
To find a balance between the two, Qiao thought about using a fancy adversarial network deep-learning system, but instead “settled on a brute-force technique that I call generative-MMCQ.” Basically, it selects representative colors using quantization, shuffles them randomly, and runs them through a classifier, “the ultimate judge of a ‘good looking’ color palette,” Qiao writes. He then trained it on some hand-picked examples, with the aim of making palettes with decent color contrast and a solid theme, while avoiding random-looking ones with poor contrast.
After testing it on films like The Godfather Part II, Jaws, Total Recall and random Michael Bay films (that teal and orange) I found the results to be mixed. Sometimes, it doesn’t choose representative colors to my liking, and sometimes the range of hues is inadequate for a design. Since it’s pseudo-random, however, you can just keep clicking until you get one that you like. Try it yourself by uploading an image or video and clicking “generate” — it’s pretty fun.
Via: Design Taxi
Source: Colormind
Scania Announces CarPlay Integration Coming This Summer for Truck Drivers
Swedish truck and bus manufacturer Scania today announced that it will begin introducing Apple’s CarPlay system into some of its heavy trucks beginning in June 2017, as well as revealing that some of its older model vehicles will be upgradeable with aftermarket CarPlay infotainment systems. Scania is among the first in the industry to introduce CarPlay into big rig trucks.
Scania trucks that come with a Scania Infotainment System and a voice control option will be able to support CarPlay, which functions by connecting to a nearby Apple iPhone through a USB cable — or wirelessly in some vehicles — and displaying relevant iOS information on Scania’s 7-inch touch screen. This way, drivers can use Siri, call someone, listen to music, and navigate without being distracted from the road.
Scania believes that CarPlay will be particularly invaluable for truck drivers “who spend a lot of time behind the wheel.” The specific Scania truck models that will be getting CarPlay this summer have not yet been announced.
“Scania’s infotainment system will work with Apple CarPlay, the smarter, safer way to use your iPhone while on the move,” says Björn Fahlström, Vice President, Product Management, Scania Trucks. “Apple CarPlay support is being introduced in June 2017, and earlier devices can be updated, provided that they have voice recognition. By introducing this functionality, we will offer even more driver comfort and increased safety. For truck drivers, who spend a lot of time behind the wheel, everything that makes life on the road easier, simpler and safer is very much appreciated.”
Moving forward, the company said that it plans to continue to introduce CarPlay support into more of its trucks “in the near future.” For the list of currently available CarPlay vehicles, check out Apple.com.
Related Roundup: CarPlay
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Western Union Debuts Apple Pay Support Inside iOS App for Mobile Money Transfers
Payment services company Western Union today announced that United States users can now pay with Apple Pay within its iOS app when sending out money transfers from the U.S. to domestic recipients, or to over 200 countries worldwide. The company said that Apple Pay will allow for easier-than-ever domestic bill payments within its iOS app, with users able to access their stored bank card information with a tap of their finger using Touch ID.
The same functionality is planned for users in the United Kingdom later this year.
“Today, 60 percent of all Western Union digital money transfer transactions globally are initiated via a mobile device,” said Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager, Western Union Digital. “By bringing Apple Pay as a payment method in the US and later to the UK, Western Union is delivering an exceptional experience across our mobile platform, allowing our customers to conveniently and reliably move money, whenever they please.”
In its physical locations, Western Union has been one of the earlier adopters of Apple Pay, dating back to early 2015 when the company began rolling out support for Apple’s mobile wallet at its agent locations across the United States.
The Western Union Money Transfer app is available to download from the App Store for free [Direct Link], and users should begin seeing the Apple Pay update today.
Tag: Western Union
Discuss this article in our forums
‘Apple Watch Series 3’ Models Expected in Second Half of 2017 With September Launch Likely
The next-generation Apple Watch is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2017, according to supply chain newspaper DigiTimes.
The timeline matches a Chinese-language Economic Daily News report that claimed new Apple Watch models will be unveiled in the third quarter of 2017, aka fall, with battery life and performance improvements.
Apple Watch Series 2 models and slightly upgraded Series 1 models launched in September alongside the iPhone 7, so it is reasonable to assume that Series 3 models could launch in September as well. The original Apple Watch, now dubbed Series 0, launched in April 2015.
In addition to a faster processor and longer battery life, cellular connectivity has been a long-rumored addition to the Apple Watch, and SIG analyst Christopher Rolland believes LTE capabilities could be included in Series 3 models. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also said LTE could be added as early as 2017.
With a cellular connection, Apple Watch owners would not need a paired iPhone nearby to do things like make phone calls or stream Apple Music content, but a separate data plan from a carrier would likely be needed.
Apple is also expected to switch to a glass-film touchscreen this year in place of the current touch-on-lens solution, but it is unclear if this change would have any obvious consumer-facing benefits.
The overall design of the Apple Watch has not changed since the original models launched in April 2015, but one report yet to be substantiated claims Series 3 models will have few if any significant hardware changes. Apple has instead introduced new bands each season to offer a fresh look and feel.
Few other details are known about the next Apple Watch at this point, and no parts have leaked from the supply chain yet.
Apple has filed patents for a number of ideas that could eventually be included in an Apple Watch, such as a heart rate identification system, modular bands, haptic feedback band, and a band with a built-in charger. More significant health and fitness features could be added pending further FDA approvals.
Quanta Computer is expected to remain the primary manufacturer of the Apple Watch, with some production reportedly shifting to Compal Electronics.
Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tag: digitimes.com
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Surprise: Galaxy S8 has the ‘best smartphone display’
Improved color gamut, smarter always-on display and extremely high peak brightness are among the highlights, according to DisplayMate.
I got some face time with the Galaxy S8 and S8+’s screens last week, and I can tell you they look good. What I can’t tell you is exactly how good, and that’s where DisplayMate, a longstanding expert in display technologies, comes in.
The publication has gotten its hands on early Galaxy S8 samples, putting the them through a rigorous suite of tests covering just about every aspect of the displays. As you’d expect, there are significant improvements across the board, but there are also a few surprises along the way. Highlights include:
- Contrary to pre-announcement rumblings, the GS8 uses a diamond subpixel pattern (as opposed to an RGB stripe, as was rumored.)
- The GS8 supports subpixel rendering, where each (red, green or blue) subpixel can be addressed and rendered to, improving perceived sharpness.
- Viewing angles have been improved, with a smaller reduction in brightness when viewed at 30 degrees.
- The display supports 100% of DCI-P3, bringing its color gamut in line with current 4K TVs.
- Peak brightness is a whopping 1,000 nits in high ambient light mode. (610 nits when the level is manually adjusted.)
- As well as being certified for Mobile HDR Premium, there’s also an Expanded Dynamic Range mode to upscale non-HDR content on the phone.
- There’s an ambient light sensor on the back of the GS8, to give a more accurate reading of environmental light levels.
- The core functionality of the Always-On Display mode is reportedly now handled by hardware, as opposed to the app itself. This won’t affect the user experience, but should save power.
- Display power consumption is comparable to that of the Galaxy S7, only with a wider color gamut, this making it more efficient overall.
The verdict?
The Galaxy S8 is the first in a new generation of OLED Smartphones that have a Full Screen Display design. It has many major and important state-of-the-art display performance enhancements, features and functions, with mobile OLED display technology now advancing faster than ever. The Galaxy S8 is the most innovative and high performance Smartphone display that we have ever lab tested. So the Galaxy S8 becomes the Best Performing Smartphone Display, earning DisplayMate’s highest ever A+ grade.
DisplayMate’s write-up goes into great detail on all aspects of the Galaxy S8 and S8+’s displays, so be sure to take a look if you want to pour through all the technical details.
Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
- Galaxy S8 and S8+ hands-on preview!
- Galaxy S8 and S8+ specs
- Everything you need to know about the Galaxy S8’s cameras
- Get to know Samsung Bixby
- Join our Galaxy S8 forums
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Honor 8 Pro specs
High-end Honor handset has hearty Huawei hardware.
Honor has just announced its latest flagship-tier handset for Europe, the Honor 8 Pro. We’ve got a full review ready for you right now. But if you’d prefer to take a quick glance down the spec sheet so you know what you’re in for, look no further than the table below.
Behold! Numbers, acronyms and more!
| Operating System | Android 7.0EMUI 5.1 |
| CPU | Huawei Kirin 960 |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Display | 2560×1440 (Quad HD) IPS LCD |
| Speaker | Single bottom-firing |
| Storage | 64GB + microSD (uses SIM slot 2) |
| Dual-SIM | Yes |
| Rear camera | 12MP + 12MP, 1.25-micron pixels, f/2.24K video |
| Front camera | 8MP f/2.0 |
| Battery | 4,000mAh non-removable |
| Charging | USB Type-C, 9V/2A quick charging |
| Dimensions | 157 x 77.5 x 6.97 mm |
| Weight | 184 grams |
More: Honor 8 Pro review
Honor 8 Pro is official: 5.7-inch display, giant-ass battery, Kirin 960
Honor’s latest phone for Europe is a beast, and it’ll cost £475 in the UK.
Huawei’s Honor brand has taken the wraps off its latest high-end handset, which just happens to be the biggest, highest-specced Honor phone to date. The Honor 8 Pro breaks cover today, running the latest Huawei hardware and software — and the overall package looks to be competitive with the likes of OnePlus at its launch price of £475. (If it looks familiar, that’s because the Honor 8 Pro landed in China a few weeks back as the Honor V9.)
The Honor 8 Pro’s internals are in the same league as the Mate 9 and P10.
For your money, you’ll get a slim, stylish metal exterior and a 5.7-inch Quad HD display, powered by the latest Kirin 960 CPU — previously seen in the Mate 9 and P10. That’s backed up by a whopping 6GB of RAM and 64GB of base storage, plus expansion via a hybrid slot, which can hold a second SIM or a microSD card. The Honor 8 Pro packs a big screen, but it’s also the slimmest handset we’ve seen with a 4,000mAh battery, which promises top-notch longevity. When it comes time to charge, the 8 Pro supports Huawei’s 9V/2A quick charging (but not the newer, speedier Super Charging tech.)
The camera setup will be familiar to owners of the Honor 8 — on paper, the hardware appears identical to that phone’s dual-lens 12MP setup, however Honor is leveraging the improved ISP (image signal processor) and general number-crunching abilities of the Kirin 960 to step image quality up a notch compared to the 8 Pro’s predecessor, particularly in low light.
This is also the first Honor phone to ship with EMUI 5.1, the latest version of Huawei’s software layer, based on Android 7.0 Nougat. That’s the version that first debuted on the P10, with improved touch responsiveness, low-level tweaks for extra performance, and video-wrangling features in the Gallery app, thanks to the “Highlights” feature developed in partnership with GoPro.
The Honor 8 Pro’s leading color in the UK is the “navy blue” you see above, and it goes up for pre-order today on Huawei and Honor’s vMall store. Regular sales begin on other outlets, including Amazon.co.uk, from April 20. There’s no word on any U.S. release plans for the Honor 8 Pro at present — today’s announcement only covers European markets.
Tempted? Check out our full review for more on the Honor 8 Pro!
More: Honor 8 Pro review
Honor 8 Pro review: Killer flagship
The quick take
Honor’s biggest, highest-end handset is a supersized, supercharged version of one of our favorite affordable flagships of the past year, offering a gorgeous design, speedy performance and legendary battery life for less money than you’d expect to pay.
The Good
- Speedy performance
- Slim, stylish metal chassis
- Epic battery life
- Good value at £475 price point
The Bad
- EMUI will still be too customized for some
- No on-contract buying options
Honor 8 Pro Full Review
The €400/$400 price point is where we’ve seen some of the most exciting phones of recent times, bringing about the rise of brands like OnePlus and Honor. These two in particular have promised — and often delivered — powerful hardware and eye-catching designs for half of the cost of top-tier devices. Last year the Honor 8 emerged as a decent bet for anyone wanting a lot of phone for not a lot of money — but in many ways it was still a mid-range phone.
So what would happen if you took the DNA of the Honor 8 and applied it to a larger, flagship tier product. Well, you’d get this: the Honor 8 Pro.
It’s a bigger, higher-specced, metal-clad version of the Honor 8, with an enormous battery and new software based on EMUI 5.1 and Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s going on sale at a SIM-free launch price of £475 — higher than previous Honor phones, but still comfortably within that “affordable flagship” ballpark.
And you know what? It’s actually really good.
About this review
We’re publishing this review after six days with a dual-SIM European-spec Honor 8 Pro (model DUK-L09) in “navy blue” on the Vodafone UK network, in London and Manchester. Our review unit was running firmware version B120, based on EMUI 5.1 and Android 7.0, with the 1 March 2017 Android security patch.
Honor 8 Pro Video Review
Big and blue
Honor 8 Pro Hardware
After the Honor 8 flirted with a glass-backed design, the 8 Pro brings us back to a more traditional aluminum unibody — mostly a welcome change considering how slippery and scratch-prone that model was. True, an anodized paint job isn’t quite as eye-catching as a reflective glass panel. But on the other hand you don’t need to worry about it slowly sliding its way across flat surfaces — a notorious “feature” of the Honor 8.
While the front of the Honor 8 Pro has the appearance of a blown-up Honor 8 — right down to the branding, the shade of blue used the tapered glass edges and minimal side bezels — the back has seen a major redesign.
Honor’s heftiest phone yet is big, but not unmanageable.
The new look is a little iPhoney, thanks to the placement of the camera module and antenna bands. However the in-hand feel is much less slippery than Apple’s phone, thanks to subtly angled side walls that help with one-handed use. Admittedly, I’m used to wrangling big phones like the Mate 9 and HTC U Ultra, but I never had any difficulty using or pocketing the Honor 8 Pro. It’s big, but not unmanageable.
The chassis isn’t aggressively decorated, with just a few subtle chamfers around the fingerprint scanner and camera lenses, which sit flush with the back of the phone. The design is stylish and uncomplicated, and so most of the personality of this phone comes from its color — a deep blue that’s tough to bring out in photos and video, but which looks fantastic in the flesh.
The 8 Pro benefits from a stylish, uncomplicated look and an eye-catching deep blue finish.
Back around the front, the Honor 8 Pro boasts a Quad HD (2560×1440) IPS LCD display, the biggest we’ve seen in an Honor phone to date — a panel which I guess technically makes it a phablet, if you insist on using that word. The display is bright and vivid, beating the OnePlus 3T in daylight visibility as well as pixel density. And colors are vibrant, without appearing over-saturated, with no noticeable ghosting or overtly unbalanced hues. (Should you want to tweak things further, there’s a white balance option available.)
Overall, it’s comparable to the slightly smaller Quad HD panel Huawei uses in the P10 Plus, a handset which sells for around £200 more. (Only — and I have to mention this — unlike that phone, Honor actually gives you an oleophobic coating on the display.)
When it comes to audio, there’s a headphone jack down below (lookin’ at you, HTC), supported by a single bottom-firing speaker, which gets the job done in terms of volume, but is prone to distortion at higher volume levels.
Other internals? You’re looking at Huawei’s latest and greatest SoC, the Kirin 960, with a whopping 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage plus microSD — handled via the hybrid slot, which can take either a second SIM or an SD card. Almost everything about the Honor 8 has been stepped up a notch or two, and nowhere is that more evident than in the battery, which is an enormous 4,000mAh cell. That’s an impressive capacity for a phone measuring a hair under 7mm, with relatively slim bezels.
Sure, there’s no water resistance, and we’ll talk about cameras later… but basically everything else on the spec sheet is as high-end as you’ll find in any Android flagship right now.
Honor 8 Pro specs
| Operating System | Android 7.0EMUI 5.1 |
| CPU | Huawei Kirin 9604X Cortex-A73 + 4X Cortex-A53, Mali-G71 GPU |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Display | 2560×1440 (Quad HD) IPS LCD |
| Speaker | Single bottom-firing |
| Storage | 64GB + microSD (uses SIM slot 2) |
| Dual-SIM | Yes |
| Rear camera | 12MP + 12MP, 1.25-micron pixels, f/2.24K video |
| Front camera | 8MP f/2.0 |
| Battery | 4,000mAh non-removable |
| Charging | USB Type-C, 9V/2A quick charging |
| Dimensions | 157 x 77.5 x 6.97 mm |
| Weight | 184 grams |
Considering the spec sheet, it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that this thing absolutely flies — partly thanks to some of the optimizations in Huawei’s new EMUI 5.1.
EMUI 5.1
Honor 8 Pro Software
In the last round of Honor phone launches we were still bemoaning the old EMUI 4.1, based on Marshmallow, which was the last vestige of the truly bad Huawei software. Since then we’ve been treated to the significantly improved EMUI 5, with the Honor 8 having received an update to that version in recent weeks.
EMUI 5.1 builds on that foundation, mainly adding low-level optimizations to what was already a stable and fast software setup. The new point release is still based on Android 7.0, not the newer 7.1.x, which is a little disappointing, but in reality you’re not missing out on much in the way of user-facing features.
EMUI actually looks okay these days, and version 5.1 tunes up performance even further.
In any case, when you combine that with a proven CPU and 6 gigs of RAM, you’ve got a phone that’s lightning fast. I don’t think I saw a single app being unexpectedly bumped out of memory throughout my entire time with the phone, and everything from browsing desktop sites to multitasking and fast app-switching was handled without any noticeable slowdown whatsoever. While OnePlus’s OxygenOS may be a better fit for fans of stock Android, you can’t argue that the Honor 8 Pro isn’t every bit as fast in day-to-day use.
The new version of EMUI also benefits from the complete facelift that came in EMUI 5 — more details in our Mate 9 review —making it much easier on the eyes than older phones running version 4 of the software. The notification area now works the way Google intended, and EMUI isn’t as aggressive at customizing your app icons anymore. There are still plenty of iOS influences here, mostly in the launcher, but elsewhere Huawei has settled into a cool blue-and-white color palette, and it works pretty well.
And finally, finally, it’s possible to add an app drawer to the stock EMUI launcher, instead of viewing all your apps on your home screens — another change first introduced in EMUI 5.
The features that were useful back in the days of the Honor 7 and Honor 8 have stuck around, including the wealth of theming options — dig around in the Themes app to find wallpapers and icons from other Huawei phones — and power controls to help you eke even more out of the 8 Pro’s massive cell. And if you use different profiles across WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook, you’ll appreciate the twin app feature, which lets you use multiple instances of those apps.
While Huawei has trimmed the fat, the useful parts of EMUI have been left intact.
One of the few user-facing features in EMUI 5.1 is video highlights in the Gallery app, developed in conjunction with GoPro. First seen on the Huawei P10, this lets you assemble your own short highlight reels and match them, beat-for-beat, with your own music, or a selection of built-in tracks. It’s a feature we’ve been seeing in various forms since the days of the HTC One M7, and while it’s hardly unique (Google Photos offers a similar video-maker), the fact that it’s built into the stock Gallery app is an added convenience.
The 8 Pro is the first Honor phone of the EMUI 5 era, and that’s hugely important, making the out-of-box experience the most polished of any of the brand’s phones to date. It’s an important milestone for Honor, and one that does away with many of the pain points we’ve criticised in earlier models.
Epic longevity
Honor 8 Pro Battery Life
Honor has somehow crammed a 4,000mAh cell into a relatively compact handset, and as the numbers would suggest, that makes the 8 Pro an extremely dependable performer, even with heavy use.
The Honor 8 Pro matches the Huawei Mate 9’s strong battery life.
With my normal usage patterns, hopping between Wi-Fi and LTE throughout the day, with continuous web and social app use, the Honor 8 Pro routinely had me finishing the day with more than 50 percent in the tank. That’s on par with what I’ve gotten out of the Huawei Mate 9 in the past, so it seems the increased screen resolution balances out the slight reduction in screen size.
Either way, you’re going to need to push this thing hard in order to kill it off in less than a full day.
Unfortunately, the Honor 8 Pro doesn’t support Huawei’s latest Super Charging tech, for ludicrously fast top-ups — connecting a SuperCharger to the phone just charges at normal speeds. But you do at least get 9V/2A fast charging from the bundled charging brick, which is still reasonably quick.
The same, but different
Honor 8 Pro Cameras
The camera hardware hasn’t changed a whole lot since the Honor 8, with dual 12MP cameras around the back, behind f/2.2 lenses with a laser autofocus module — now hidden off to the left. As before, the phone combines one full color (RGB) sensor with another monochrome sensor for improved contrast and detail in challenging lighting conditions.
But don’t let those hardware similarities fool you — the Honor 8 Pro absolutely takes better photos than the 8, particularly in low light.
If there was ever an example of how processing is just as important as optics in a phone camera, this is it.
It does that thanks to the beefier CPU and ISP (image signal processor), and new image processing software to take advantage of it. If there was ever an example of how processing is just as important as optics in a phone camera, this is it. The Honor 8 Pro has the same excellent dynamic range as many other Huawei-built cameras, along with fun extras like low-depth-of-field effects that we’ve seen before. There’s also a highly capable manual shooting mode which, with a little stabilization, can produce excellent long exposures in darker conditions.
Daylight shots come close to the quality we’ve seen from higher-end Huawei cameras like the Mate 9 and P10, though with slightly reduced shadow details and more susceptibility to blurring from hand motion. The latter’s not surprising given the lack of OIS — optical image stabilization — in the Honor 8 Pro’s cameras. Similarly, there’s a pronounced graininess to many night-time shots that you won’t notice on optically stabilized competitors.
Meanwhile, around the front, the 8-megapixel front camera of the Honor 8 gets a low-light boost with a brighter f/2.0 lens — though don’t expect to see a huge improvement in image quality from night-time selfies.
It’s easy to point to the cameras as an area where the inevitable compromises of the Honor 8 Pro’s £475 start to creep in. And sure, low-light performance doesn’t reach the dizzy heights of the Pixel or the G6. But for a phone at this price point, the Honor 8 Pro does a fantastic job.
The Bottom Line
Should you buy the Honor 8 Pro? Yes
Past Honor phones have been pretty good for the money. When we reviewed the Honor 8 last year, there were major caveats around the software, which inherited some of the bugs and general weirdness of EMUI at the time.
Previous Honor phones were great for the money; the 8 Pro is just a great phone, period.
The difference with the Honor 8 Pro is that it’s just a great phone, without the need for any qualifiers. Between the fantastic performance and battery life, the surprisingly good camera and the maturity of EMUI 5.1, this is a phone that I can absolutely recommend.
The £100 premium you’ll pay over the Honor 8 delivers upgrades across the spec sheet, bringing you up to speed with other high-end Android phones of 2017.
The comparison with the OnePlus 3T is less cut-and-dry. For many, OnePlus’s clean, stock Android-ish software may seal the deal. Or they may simply prefer the smaller size of the 3T. In this case, it’s more a question of priorities, with Honor taking the lead on display quality and battery life.
The affordable flagship segment is more diverse and exciting than ever, and the Honor 8 Pro is a fantastic option for anyone looking for a premium phone without dropping a ridiculous amount of cash.
The Honor 8 Pro goes up for pre-order April 5, ahead of general availability on April 20. The UK price is £475, however there’s no word on any U.S. release plans at present.
AIVAnet 