Huawei Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5

OnePlus took the market by storm when it announced the dual-camera toting OnePlus 5 last month. However, the handset isn’t without competition in the mobile industry. A few months prior to its arrival, Huawei unveiled the Honor 8 Pro in the markets, also featuring a dual-camera setup on the back. However, OnePlus and Huawei are using slightly different technologies with their cameras, so the results will not be the same. We will have a brief look at the cameras, and more in this comparison.

Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5 design

Customers can easily distinguish between the OnePlus 5 and the Honor 8 Pro, despite featuring an identical looking rear camera sensor. Huawei is using a rear-facing fingerprint scanner here, whereas the OnePlus 5 comes with a front-facing fingerprint scanner. Both phones are made using almost the same materials, although the Honor 8 Pro stands out thanks to the company’s unique color choices. The OnePlus 5, on the other hand, can be easily confused for the Apple iPhone 7 Plus or the Oppo R11.

The Honor 8 Pro weighs 184 grams and comes with dimensions of 157 x 77.5 x 7mm. The OnePlus 5 features dimensions of 154.2 x 74.1 x 7.3mm, while being much lighter at 153 grams. The Honor 8 Pro, despite featuring dual-cameras is significantly thinner than the OnePlus 5. It is also important to note that the Huawei handset features a bigger display and battery compared to the OnePlus 5, so the added bulk is understandable.

Both phones have a near identical screen-to-body ratio, although the Honor 8 Pro has a slight advantage here since it doesn’t have to accommodate the fingerprint scanner below the display.

Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5 display

OnePlus is using its tried and tested 5.5-inch Full HD (1920x1080) Optic AMOLED display on board, with a pixel density of 401ppi. Clearly, the company wasn’t swayed by the competition into using a Quad HD display.

Huawei’s Honor 8 Pro, on the other hand, comes with a larger 5.7-inch Quad HD (2560x1440) IPS LCD panel. Owing to the higher display resolution, the handset comes with a pixel density of 515ppi.

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Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5 OS and power

The Honor 8 Pro features the HiSilicon Kirin 960 octa-core processor by default with the Mali-G71 MP8 GPU on board. OnePlus is using the Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor with the Adreno 540 GPU.

OnePlus is packing raw power with its handset, as is evident from the RAM capacity offered by the company. The entry level variant comes with 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM, while the top of the line model packs 128GB of storage and a whopping 8GB of RAM. The Honor 8 Pro is available in 4/6GB of RAM variants with 64GB of storage. Huawei is also offering a microSD card slot with its handset, while OnePlus isn’t. Both phones are using the UFS 2.1 storage for faster data transfer and read/write speeds.

Since the Huawei Honor 8 Pro was launched slightly earlier, it comes with Android 7.0 on board accompanied by the company’s proprietary Emotion UI 5.1. The OnePlus 5, however, features Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box with OxygenOS.

The Honor 8 Pro also comes with an infrared port, which is lacking on modern day smartphones, including the OnePlus 5.

Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5 camera and battery

One would assume that since both phones use a dual-camera sensor, the results ought to be more or less the same. Well, that’s not true in this case since the tech used by OnePlus and Huawei are completely different. OnePlus is taking cues from companies like Apple by focusing heavily on depth-of-field or bokeh effects on its camera along with some other handy features like optical zooming. This is possible thanks to the telephoto lens used by the company. OnePlus is using a standard 16MP sensor along with the 20MP telephoto lens on the back. This makes for an amazing camera experience for the shutterbugs.

As for the Honor 8 Pro, the company is using an RGB sensor along with a monochrome sensor for added contrast, color, and texture. It might not sound as fancy as the dual-cameras from the OnePlus 5, but it’s surely one of the better cameras going around right now. The camera is also capable of offering amazing low-light photos, which cannot be said about every mobile camera in existence today.

Since Huawei is using a bigger display with a higher resolution, the company has wisely decided to go with a 4,000mAh unit. The OnePlus 5, however, comes with a paltry 3,300mAh battery, which might not last even a day with heavy usage. However, the stock battery saving features offered by the company should help the customers greatly.

Honor 8 Pro vs OnePlus 5 price

The Huawei Honor 8 Pro was only recently announced for the Indian markets carrying a price tag of Rs 29,999. The handset will arrive on the 10th of July at 6 PM exclusively via Amazon India. The retailer is also hosting Prime Day on the same day, offering discounts on a large variety of products.

The OnePlus 5 is available with a starting price of Rs 32,999, while the top of the line variant is priced at Rs 37,999. The handset can be purchased via Amazon India, the OnePlus online store, and a handful of OnePlus Experience Stores across the country.

Takeaway

While both phones are no doubt the flag bearers of the high-end mobile market, they both cater to a different audience. Given the similarity in hardware, however, the two handsets are always going to be compared, both in terms of hardware and performance. Given what we’ve learnt about the two devices, it’s pretty evident that Huawei has done its homework.

Despite featuring a better display, a bigger battery, and an impressive design, the phone is significantly cheaper than the OnePlus 5 in the country. Going by this factor alone, we feel the Honor 8 Pro is a better offering overall, although you can’t really go wrong with either handset.