Huawei's affordable brand, Honor has announced a brand new phone in China. The Honor 8 is a premium-looking Android phone with a stunning glass finish on the front and back, as well as a dual camera system (no Leica branding anywhere to be seen, unsurprisingly).

Looking at the spec sheet, you could be forgiven for thinking this is just a slightly cheaper version of the Huawei P9 that was launched earlier this year. Like the P9 it has a 5.2-inch 1080p full HD display and the 12MP f/2.2 fual camera system on the back. One sensor is colour (RGB) the other is monochrome (B&W), just like the P9. 

It also has the same 8MP front facing camera, and the same hybrid microSD card reader which can hold either two nano SIMs or one nano SIM and a microSD card. It's the same EMUI 4.1 software running on Android 6.0 too. 

Even looking at the processors, there's very little difference. The Kirin 950 octa-core chip inside the Honor 8 is essentially a slightly less powerful version of the Kirin 955 processor inside Huawei's latest all-metal flagship phone. That's saying, it should be just as fast and fluid as the more expensive Huawei P9. It even has the fingerprint sensor on the back. 

Looking at the two phones, it's clear the only significant differences are the design and price. While the Huawei P9 has an all-metal body, the Honor 8 has 2.5D curved glass on the front and back.

This might make the phone more slippery than its high-end cousin, but it should still feel like a well-made device. As a side note, it also happens to be around 0.4mm thicker and 0.5mm taller than a P9, which is to say, they're virtually the same size too. 

There are several different memory combinations of the Honor smartphone, with the base model featuring 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage, and two higher-specced phones with either 4GB RAM and 32GB Storage or 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. As far as the Honor product lineup goes, it's almost a "mini" version of the metal Honor V8 we got our hands on in May

Price-wise, the Honor 8 has launched in China with a reasonable 1,999 Yuan starting price-point which translates to roughly £230. While it's unlikely to translate to exactly that price in the UK if (or when) it launches here, it should still be noticeably cheaper than the £430 Huawei.