**A Comparison of Two Affordable Flagships: ZTE Axon 7 vs Honor 8**

The smartphone market is filled with a plethora of options, but two devices that caught our attention are the ZTE Axon 7 and the Honor 8. Both phones offer impressive features at affordable prices, making them great alternatives to more expensive flagships. In this article, we'll take a closer look at both devices, comparing their features, performance, cameras, software experiences, and value for money.

**Performance and Charging**

The ZTE Axon 7 is powered by a 2.0 GHz octa-core processor, paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, with a user interface known as ZT ESB Favor UI 4.0. On the other hand, the Honor 8 is powered by a 2.3 GHz octa-core processor, paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage (64GB option available for $50 extra). It also runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but with Huawei's Emotion UI 4.1.

In terms of charging, the Honor 8 offers a faster charging experience, with about a 42% charge in just 30 minutes using a 9V to Amp fast charger. However, this charger is only compatible with the device itself, which may limit its use. The ZTE Axon 7 also supports quick charging, but it's not as fast as the Honor 8.

**Cameras**

The camera of both devices has been a topic of discussion. The ZTE Axon 7 features a 20-megapixel F/1.8 rear camera with optical image stabilization, which looks impressive on paper. However, its performance may not match up to expectations. On the other hand, the Honor 8 boasts a dual-lens setup consisting of 12 megapixels in each lens, both F/2.2 aperture lenses that provide better dynamic range and crispier details.

In low-light conditions, the Honor 8 performs better due to its larger pixels, allowing for more light per pixel. The camera also captures better colors and has more accurate exposure. However, it's not without its limitations, as the images can sometimes appear muted or lack saturation. The ZTE Axon 7's camera, on the other hand, struggles in low-light conditions, with noticeable digital noise.

**Video Recording**

One area where the Honor 8 shines is in video recording. It can record 4K videos at 60 frames per second, while the ZTE Axon 7 tops out at 1080p at 60fps. This is a significant difference, and it's clear that both manufacturers prioritized video quality in their respective devices.

**Audio Experience**

The audio experience of both phones has been a point of contention for some users. The Honor 8 features Hi-Fi audio technology, which provides a more immersive listening experience. On the other hand, the ZTE Axon 7 has a slightly better sound quality, with deeper bass and clearer highs.

**Software Experience**

The software experience of both devices is an area that requires improvement. Both phones run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but the Honor 8's Emotion UI 4.1 feels more like stock Android than its ZTE counterpart, which has a user interface known as ZT ESB Favor UI 4.0.

The Honor 8's software experience is smoother and more polished compared to the ZTE Axon 7. However, it also has some quirks, such as an entirely different scrolling mechanic that can feel gimmicky at times. The ZTE Axon 7's software experience, on the other hand, may require a bit more time to get used to.

**Value for Money**

Both devices offer commendable value for money, but there are some key areas where they diverge. The Honor 8 is slightly smaller in size and weight compared to the ZTE Axon 7, making it easier to carry around. It also features an IR blaster, which can be a useful feature for those who use it often.

However, if you're more concerned with audio quality and battery life, the ZTE Axon 7 may be a better option for you. Additionally, the Honor 8 has some software updates planned for the future, including new features every three months for the first year.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, both the ZTE Axon 7 and the Honor 8 offer impressive features at affordable prices. The Honor 8 excels in terms of camera performance and audio experience, but falls short in terms of software updates. On the other hand, the ZTE Axon 7 offers a larger display, better battery life, and a more polished software experience.

Ultimately, the choice between these two devices will depend on your individual preferences and priorities. If you value a smaller form factor, IR blaster, and faster charging, the Honor 8 may be the better option for you. However, if you prioritize audio quality and battery life, the ZTE Axon 7 is worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is up guys this is Bailey Stein with Android Authority and ZTE and Huawei there are two Chinese companies that have been in the telecommunications business for decades but which one has created a better affordable flagship let's dig deeper with ZTE axon 7 verse honor 8 right off the bat there's some pretty significant differences with design ZTE goes for a large aluminum unibody free of any edges while Huawei has implemented a more compact dual glass panel design held together by an aluminum band the nr8 is also a bit thinner and lighter than the axon 7 and is also free of any camera bumps the on rate is a bit more comfortable in the hand thanks to its smaller size the xn7 shape is notably ergonomic both xn7 and on rate can be pretty slippery although I must say I'm impressed with the build quality of both phones is they've held up quite nicely to numerous accidental drops you should still probably find a case and with the xn7 you're covered out of the box a case for the an r8 would also eliminate the need to constantly clean the phone's glass panels of smudges and fingerprints which collect like you wouldn't believe unlike the exon 7 the honor 8 includes an IR blaster for controlling televisions and other household appliances it's definitely a nice touch but I'll let you be the judge of its utility I prefer the uh narrates on-screen navigation keys to the accent sevens capacitive keys since the accent sevens keys are not illuminated nor are they easy to press because of their close proximity I was happy to see that both phones give you the option to change the key layout in the software settings the Exxon 7s 5.5 inch quad HD display looks a bit better than the honor rates 5.2 inch 1080p display mostly because of the slightly greater contrast and more accurate color reproduction they're both AMOLED panels so you can expect some saturated and punchy colors on both devices sunlight readability is about average on both phones as well just something to know the honor eights auto brightness feature is currently very buggy send my unit and we'll actually reset itself to the minimum value after the phone remains idle for a few minutes this is very annoying so I ultimately decided just to disable the feature completely so the axon 7 is being powered by a Snapdragon 820 while the ANA includes one of Huawei's own in-house high silicon Kirin 950 processors there's also four gigabytes of RAM in each and there's nothing really to complain about with either phone every day performance is some of the best we've seen now for gaming the X and 7 is the more future-proofed choice as it employs a much more powerful adrenal 5:30 compared to the utter eight-mile 8880 and p4 GPU but gaming performance today is overall very similar so you shouldn't have to worry about this too much both of these affordable flagships are unlocked and dual sim and in the US you can use each phone with either AT&T t-mobile or one of their respective MVNOs and yes both phones offer expandable storage up to 128 gigabytes if you're willing to give up the second SIM card slot both fingerprint readers can be found in each devices back and I found them both fast and accurate the honor eights also doubles as a tactile button so you can program different shortcuts including flashlight screenshot or voice recording to tap DoubleTap and holds you can also have it open an app instead if you'd like it's a pretty clever addition and great once you get it set up how you like if you're looking for a great audio experience the exon 7 is the clear choice with dual independent type I audio chips for both listening and recording audio sounds noticeably better with a good pair of headphones the on rates single side firing speaker also pales in comparison to the exon sevens dual stereo front-facing speakers which offer louder fuller more immersive and less distorted sound they are truly incredible when you hear them in person especially once you consider the phone's price so for the batteries we're looking at 3,250 milliamp hours on the exon 7 and 3000 milliamp hours on the honor 8 in my testing battery life was about 50% better on the exon 7 with 5 and a half hours of screen on time compared to the on rates three and a half hours I should note however that I had to change the honor eights power profile to performance as I was missing notifications from apps like slack snapchat and Twitter in balance mode I didn't have this issue with the accent sevens smart power mode so I didn't make the same change although the honor eight offers about a 42% charge in 30 minutes with nine volt to amp fast charging it's only compatible with the charger included in the box the axon seven on the other hand supports quick charge 3.0 so it doesn't really have this problem you can also get a slightly larger 50% charge in 30 minutes although the Exxon 7s 20 megapixel F 1.8 rear camera with optical image stabilization looks impressive on paper it's not as compelling as the honor eights dual lens 12 megapixel F 2.2 setup with hybrid autofocus the honor 8 is using a single colored lens as well as a monochrome lens which Huawei says helps deliver better crispier looking photos I'm not sure how much the dual lens setup actually helps the on rates images definitely appear better than the axon 7s in a blind a be test a chose the UH narrates daytime images about 65 percent of the time the other 35% can be accounted for varying scenarios objectively speaking the honor rates images generally had better dynamic range crispier details and more accurate color reproduction well I did prefer the X on sevens more saturated and punchy colors in some cases how much you do will depend entirely on your personal preferences in low-light the honor its camera does even better thanks to its larger pixels allowing for more light per pixel despite the accents heavens wider F 1.8 aperture images taken with the xn7 well sometimes sharper generally displayed muted colors and noticeable than getting the excessive amount of noise reduction also doesn't look great although the honor AIT's low-light performance isn't the best we've seen due to soft details and digital noise it's one of the best in this price category for video recording the exon 7 does 4k whereas the NR 8 maxes out at 1080p at 60 frames per second this is the single area where they honor rates camera disappoints with poor colors and inaccurate exposure the XM sevens camera app also feels more polished compared to the honor aides both offer comprehensive manual modes and a number of other modes but the honor eights app can definitely seem overwhelming at times both handsets are running Android 6.0 marshmallow out of the box and the axon seven runs ZT ESB favor UI 4.0 well the honoré includes huawei's emotion UI 4.1 me favor UI feels much more like stock android but with a few tweaks compared to emotions UI iOS like feel and many tweaks look the xn7 software experience it's not perfect there's definitely still areas that could use some polish but emotion UI is worse than comparison it feels half-baked and clearly not tailored for the u.s. it's not that Huawei's iOS like approach is inherently bad but rather that Huawei has executed in a way that feels ill-prepared and gimmicky for example there's an entirely different scrolling mechanic compared to stock Android which is smoother but slower this is problematic as you have to wait for the inertia scrolling to completely stop in order to select something that gets frustrating very quickly and drove me absolutely crazy during the honourees review period the axon 7 does have a few quirks of its own however for example you have to press the notification bell each and every time you want to view notifications on your lock screen its software support is the priority however you will be happy to know that honor recently committed to software updates for at least two years they'll even provide new features every three months for the first year hopefully these updates will gradually improve the software experience you can purchase the ZTE axon 7 with 64 gigabytes of storage and either gray or gold for $400 for the same price you can get the honor 8 with 32 gigabytes of storage either black white or blue if you'd like the 64 gigabyte model instead you'll need to pay an extra $50 honor is offering 3 months of non-deductible protection against cracks in addition to a standard one-year warranty that's pretty good but ZTE s 2 year axon passport 2.0 warranty seems a bit superior despite requiring a deductive you can't go wrong with either one of these affordable flagships as they both offer commendable amounts of value with that said you want to consider the honor rate for its smaller form factor better camera and IR blaster if those features aren't as important to you and you'd rather have a better audio experience better battery life and a better software experience you want to take a closer look at the ZTE axon 7 thank you so much for watching this video please be sure to like it if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage as we are your source for all things Androidhey what is up guys this is Bailey Stein with Android Authority and ZTE and Huawei there are two Chinese companies that have been in the telecommunications business for decades but which one has created a better affordable flagship let's dig deeper with ZTE axon 7 verse honor 8 right off the bat there's some pretty significant differences with design ZTE goes for a large aluminum unibody free of any edges while Huawei has implemented a more compact dual glass panel design held together by an aluminum band the nr8 is also a bit thinner and lighter than the axon 7 and is also free of any camera bumps the on rate is a bit more comfortable in the hand thanks to its smaller size the xn7 shape is notably ergonomic both xn7 and on rate can be pretty slippery although I must say I'm impressed with the build quality of both phones is they've held up quite nicely to numerous accidental drops you should still probably find a case and with the xn7 you're covered out of the box a case for the an r8 would also eliminate the need to constantly clean the phone's glass panels of smudges and fingerprints which collect like you wouldn't believe unlike the exon 7 the honor 8 includes an IR blaster for controlling televisions and other household appliances it's definitely a nice touch but I'll let you be the judge of its utility I prefer the uh narrates on-screen navigation keys to the accent sevens capacitive keys since the accent sevens keys are not illuminated nor are they easy to press because of their close proximity I was happy to see that both phones give you the option to change the key layout in the software settings the Exxon 7s 5.5 inch quad HD display looks a bit better than the honor rates 5.2 inch 1080p display mostly because of the slightly greater contrast and more accurate color reproduction they're both AMOLED panels so you can expect some saturated and punchy colors on both devices sunlight readability is about average on both phones as well just something to know the honor eights auto brightness feature is currently very buggy send my unit and we'll actually reset itself to the minimum value after the phone remains idle for a few minutes this is very annoying so I ultimately decided just to disable the feature completely so the axon 7 is being powered by a Snapdragon 820 while the ANA includes one of Huawei's own in-house high silicon Kirin 950 processors there's also four gigabytes of RAM in each and there's nothing really to complain about with either phone every day performance is some of the best we've seen now for gaming the X and 7 is the more future-proofed choice as it employs a much more powerful adrenal 5:30 compared to the utter eight-mile 8880 and p4 GPU but gaming performance today is overall very similar so you shouldn't have to worry about this too much both of these affordable flagships are unlocked and dual sim and in the US you can use each phone with either AT&T t-mobile or one of their respective MVNOs and yes both phones offer expandable storage up to 128 gigabytes if you're willing to give up the second SIM card slot both fingerprint readers can be found in each devices back and I found them both fast and accurate the honor eights also doubles as a tactile button so you can program different shortcuts including flashlight screenshot or voice recording to tap DoubleTap and holds you can also have it open an app instead if you'd like it's a pretty clever addition and great once you get it set up how you like if you're looking for a great audio experience the exon 7 is the clear choice with dual independent type I audio chips for both listening and recording audio sounds noticeably better with a good pair of headphones the on rates single side firing speaker also pales in comparison to the exon sevens dual stereo front-facing speakers which offer louder fuller more immersive and less distorted sound they are truly incredible when you hear them in person especially once you consider the phone's price so for the batteries we're looking at 3,250 milliamp hours on the exon 7 and 3000 milliamp hours on the honor 8 in my testing battery life was about 50% better on the exon 7 with 5 and a half hours of screen on time compared to the on rates three and a half hours I should note however that I had to change the honor eights power profile to performance as I was missing notifications from apps like slack snapchat and Twitter in balance mode I didn't have this issue with the accent sevens smart power mode so I didn't make the same change although the honor eight offers about a 42% charge in 30 minutes with nine volt to amp fast charging it's only compatible with the charger included in the box the axon seven on the other hand supports quick charge 3.0 so it doesn't really have this problem you can also get a slightly larger 50% charge in 30 minutes although the Exxon 7s 20 megapixel F 1.8 rear camera with optical image stabilization looks impressive on paper it's not as compelling as the honor eights dual lens 12 megapixel F 2.2 setup with hybrid autofocus the honor 8 is using a single colored lens as well as a monochrome lens which Huawei says helps deliver better crispier looking photos I'm not sure how much the dual lens setup actually helps the on rates images definitely appear better than the axon 7s in a blind a be test a chose the UH narrates daytime images about 65 percent of the time the other 35% can be accounted for varying scenarios objectively speaking the honor rates images generally had better dynamic range crispier details and more accurate color reproduction well I did prefer the X on sevens more saturated and punchy colors in some cases how much you do will depend entirely on your personal preferences in low-light the honor its camera does even better thanks to its larger pixels allowing for more light per pixel despite the accents heavens wider F 1.8 aperture images taken with the xn7 well sometimes sharper generally displayed muted colors and noticeable than getting the excessive amount of noise reduction also doesn't look great although the honor AIT's low-light performance isn't the best we've seen due to soft details and digital noise it's one of the best in this price category for video recording the exon 7 does 4k whereas the NR 8 maxes out at 1080p at 60 frames per second this is the single area where they honor rates camera disappoints with poor colors and inaccurate exposure the XM sevens camera app also feels more polished compared to the honor aides both offer comprehensive manual modes and a number of other modes but the honor eights app can definitely seem overwhelming at times both handsets are running Android 6.0 marshmallow out of the box and the axon seven runs ZT ESB favor UI 4.0 well the honoré includes huawei's emotion UI 4.1 me favor UI feels much more like stock android but with a few tweaks compared to emotions UI iOS like feel and many tweaks look the xn7 software experience it's not perfect there's definitely still areas that could use some polish but emotion UI is worse than comparison it feels half-baked and clearly not tailored for the u.s. it's not that Huawei's iOS like approach is inherently bad but rather that Huawei has executed in a way that feels ill-prepared and gimmicky for example there's an entirely different scrolling mechanic compared to stock Android which is smoother but slower this is problematic as you have to wait for the inertia scrolling to completely stop in order to select something that gets frustrating very quickly and drove me absolutely crazy during the honourees review period the axon 7 does have a few quirks of its own however for example you have to press the notification bell each and every time you want to view notifications on your lock screen its software support is the priority however you will be happy to know that honor recently committed to software updates for at least two years they'll even provide new features every three months for the first year hopefully these updates will gradually improve the software experience you can purchase the ZTE axon 7 with 64 gigabytes of storage and either gray or gold for $400 for the same price you can get the honor 8 with 32 gigabytes of storage either black white or blue if you'd like the 64 gigabyte model instead you'll need to pay an extra $50 honor is offering 3 months of non-deductible protection against cracks in addition to a standard one-year warranty that's pretty good but ZTE s 2 year axon passport 2.0 warranty seems a bit superior despite requiring a deductive you can't go wrong with either one of these affordable flagships as they both offer commendable amounts of value with that said you want to consider the honor rate for its smaller form factor better camera and IR blaster if those features aren't as important to you and you'd rather have a better audio experience better battery life and a better software experience you want to take a closer look at the ZTE axon 7 thank you so much for watching this video please be sure to like it if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage as we are your source for all things Android\n"