“The Honor 8 Lite is a looker for sure, but is it worth a buy?”
As the successor to one of the sexiest phones of 2016, the Honor 8 Lite has a lot riding on its slender shoulders. The older model we’re referring to is the gorgeous Honor 8 (review) of course, and that was a phone which was truly a beauty with brains. Apart from its stylish looks, it boasted a dual camera setup that proved to be extremely capable in terms of shooting capabilities. As a stripped-down version, the new Honor 8 Lite (first impressions) doesn’t have the same claim to fame however. And that makes us wonder if can really live up to the legacy of its predecessor.
Table of Contents
Summary
If you’re looking for the short answer, it’s yes. For starters, the phone carries on with the good looks one would expect from the Honor 8’s successor. Next, despite the lack of dual cameras, the photographic prowess of the Lite isn’t half bad, though it tends to miss the mark sometimes. The performance and battery life is quite decent too. As for the bad, well, we’d count the lack of fast charging among one of the gripes we have with it. Now that you have the lowdown on the phone in a nutshell, let’s take a slightly more detailed look.
The lowdown
The combination of a compact 5.2-inch 2.5D display slapped on a sleek glass sandwich design gives the Honor 8 Lite a classy, elegant look. The primary camera at the rear sits flush with the body, and there are no unruly protrusions anywhere on its svelte bod. The phone probably won’t overshadow its accomplished predecessor in the design department, but suffice it to say that the 8 Lite is one of the best-looking phones south of Rs 20k. The fingerprint scanner is placed at the rear, and works quite well for recognising your prints and unlocking the phone in a jiffy. It even offers a few gestures – such as bringing down the notifications panel with a downward swipe, letting you browse through pictures in the gallery and so on.
At the fascia, things remain minimalistic. The home and navigation keys are available as part of software, and thanks to that, you can customise the layout and sequence of the buttons as per your preferences. The full HD display is crisp and vibrant, but looks a tad washed out under sunlight. Maybe it’s just us, but the touchscreen doesn’t seem very responsive. Do note that unlike the Honor 8 which rocked a USB Type-C Port, the 8 Lite sticks to the older micro-USB interface for charging and data transfers. 
As far as the shooting prowess is concerned, the Honor 8 Lite offers a bunch of modes, including pro, light painting, time lapse, slow-mo, document scan, watermark etc. A whole range of colour filters with live previews are in the offing too. The camera features object tracking, but 4K video is not part of its repertoire. The 12MP shooter captures good stills for the most part – daylight shots usually look very good and rich in detail, night shots with ambient lighting keep noise under control, and the HDR mode subtly improves your captures. Daylight shots sometimes come out slightly washed out though, and since there’s no OIS, you’ll have to have a steady hand to avoid blur while shooting after the sun goes down. The 8MP selfie snapper does a fair job of shooting selfies.
Software-wise, things remains as expected. Honor’s EMUI is on board, standing on the Android Nougat platform. As usual, there are a bunch of features, and customisation options. Despite all this, EMUI doesn’t come across as cluttered though. 
There’s even a Flipboard-powered news aggregator that gets its own dedicated pane on the left of the main home screen. The features of note include the ability of enabling a dedicated app drawer if you prefer that instead of all apps being laid out on home screens, a simple mode, and a slew of battery saving modes.
Courtesy the octa-core Kirin 655 chip working in tandem with 4GB RAM, the performance is smooth for the most part, with a stutter or two cropping up on rare occasions. The phone keeps it cool when stressed too. You get about 50 gigs to use out of the built in 64GB storage… and the ability to add more via the hybrid slot. The 3,000mAh battery lasts the full working day with ease – our video loop test ran for about 15 hours before the phone ran out of juice. On the negative side though, there’s no fast charging, a feature which has quickly become the norm and is quite useful to have too.
Verdict
There’s no doubt that the Honor 8 Lite has a lot going in its favour, and comes across as stylish-looking, decent all rounder. Launched for a sticker price of Rs 17,999, the device is now available online in the region of Rs 15-16k. Unfortunately for it though, it fails to stand out in any single aspect, which means that some others in its segment, especially the Moto G5 Plus (review), come across as better buys. The G5 Plus shines with its superb camera, not to mention its near-stock interface. More importantly though, the dual-camera toting Honor 8 (review) is now available in the region of Rs 18-19k, making it a more compelling buy as compared to its Lite sibling.
Editor’s rating: 3.5 / 5
Pros
- Stylish looks and compact size
- Good camera
- Decent performance
Cons
- Lacks fast charging
- Fingerprint magnet
- Screen looks washed out in daylight
