Soon after the launch of Honor 7X , which is one of the best smartphones under Rs. 13,000 segment, Huawei’s online brand Honor launched the Honor View 10 in India this year with Artificial Intelligence. Equipped with Neural Processing Unit (NPU) it enables deep learning based on user behavior for a seamless experience. The Honor View 10 comes in Midnight Black and Navy Blue colors and is priced at Rs. 29,999. Let’s check out how good is the phone.
Unboxing
Box Contents
- Honor View 10 smartphone in Navy Blue color
- 2-pin Huawei fast charger (5V-2A / 9V-2A)
- USB Type-C Cable
- SIM Ejector Tool
- User guide
Display, Design, and Hardware
In line with the current trend, Honor launched its latest flagship with 18:9 FullView display as one would expect. As per the spec sheet, the Honor View 10 sports a 5.99-inch (2160 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18:9 FullView display with a pixel density of 403 ppi. It has a 78.6% screen-to-body ratio.
The display is bright and vibrant, the text is sharp and viewing angles are as well. We’ve noticed slight blue tint on the screen, which is evident especially in the white background. As it has an LCD display, the sunlight legibility is excellent and fully readable under outdoor conditions. Considering the price tag of Rs. 30,000, lack of Gorilla Glass for screen protection is a let down from company’s side.
The design of the Honor View 10 hasn’t evolved so much, yet it looks stunning nevertheless. In fact, it looks like a beefed-up version of Honor 7X with those unnecessary camera bumps on the back. The Honor View 10 has a thin border as you can see from the images, but comparatively bigger ones on top and bottom. Just like other Honor flagships, it comes in a metal unibody design with a matte back finish and antenna bands running along the top and bottom without disturbing the matte texture. The Honor View 10 comes in Midnight Black and Navy Blue colors.
Just above the display, you get a 13-megapixel front-facing camera, proximity and ambient light sensors and an earpiece made out of metal. It also has a magnetic sensor and gyroscope. Below the display, you get a fingerprint scanner, which is also one navigation button.
The right side of the device houses the volume rocker and power button and on the left side, you get a Hybrid slot (nano+nano/microSD). The buttons are made out of metal and the feedback is good too.
Moving to the top, we have secondary noise-canceling microphones along with IR blaster. It is at the bottom where it gets busy with 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C port, primary microphones and speaker grille.
Turning it back, we have 16MP (RGB) + 20MP (Monochrome) Dual rear cameras and a dual tone LED flash next to it. In a nutshell, the Honor View 10 in Navy Blue color looks beautiful even though it resembles Honor 8 Pro and 7X.
Software, Storage and Apps
The Honor View 10 is one of the few devices currently operating in Android 8.0 Oreo with Android security update for November 2017. Having said that, it is topped with Honor’s EMUI 8.0 out of the box. This UI gives users an option to choose the home screen style — Standard (shows all apps on the home screen) and Drawer (shows all app on drawer screen).
There is a Full-screen display option, which displays nonfull-screen apps in full screen. In order to do that, users need to turn on the toggle for the selected app. Moreover, users can also adjust the screen resolution on this device as per your convenience — HD+ (1440×720) and FHD+ (2160×1080). Users can also opt for ‘Smart resolution’, where it automatically lowers the resolution depends on the battery to save power.
Under the display option, you also get an “Eye Comfort” option, which filters out the blue light to prevent your eyes from strain. You can also schedule the start time and end time and can adjust the color temperature as well. Moreover, you also get voice control for quick calling using voice commands, and there are voice broadcasts for incoming calls when connected to the headset. Like other smartphones, it also has a one-handed mode. There is also a scheduled power on and off option so you can turn off the phone during the night and turn it on in the morning to save battery.
With Honor View 10, you get to three different options to navigate — off-screen navigation button (uses the button below the display), Virtual navigation bar (uses on-screen navigation button and you also get to select the combination of buttons) and Navigation dock (Uses a single dock to navigate through your system).
Additionally, there is an App twin option, which lets you log into two different accounts for the same app at the same time. However, this option will not be supported on third-party launchers.
Talking about storage, the Honor View 10 comes with 128GB of inbuilt storage besides 6GB RAM. Out of 128GB onboard storage, users get around 118GB storage free and out of 6GB RAM, users generally get 3.5GB free.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps and Google Apps, it comes with Microsoft Translator, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, UC News, Facebook and a few games – Asphalt Nitro, Bubble Bash 3, Danger Dash, Modern Combat 4 Zero Hour and Spider-Man: Ultimate Power. These apps can be uninstalled easily.
Since the phone has an infrared sensor, it comes with Smart Controller app that lets control TV, AC, Set-top box, Camera, DVD player, Projector and more.
Artificial Intelligence
The USP of the Honor View 10 lies in the in-built Artificial Intelligence. Powered by Kirin 970 chipset, it has AI computing capabilities that run on Neural Processing Unit (NPU). In the camera department, it comes with “Real-Time Scene”, which recognizes up to 13 different types of scenes and objects from portraits to leaf to dogs and automatically adjusts the camera settings accordingly in a snap to help you shoot in any environment. However, in our case, out of 5 attempts, it worked only twice.
It also has a face recognition feature, but here it doesn’t work to unlock the phone. Rather, it is used for smart lock screen notifications feature. It is a feature when enabled uncovers the notification content only to those who registered their face. If someone looking at your phone who isn’t you is not going to see the notification at all. This is in fact, a good feature when it comes to privacy. However, the company has promised to roll out the face unlock feature in the future update.
Also, there is a pre-installed Microsoft Translation app, which works decently, even without Internet connection. In case, if you are going offline for translation, make sure you have downloaded that specific language beforehand. One of the notable features in this app is that it also works with our voice.
Camera
The Honor View 10 has a 16MP (RGB) + 20MP (Monochrome) dual rear cameras with f/1.8 aperture, LED flash, PDAF, CAF and 4K video recording. The front side of the device has 13MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture.
The top consists of toggle for flash, wide aperture mode, portrait mode, moving picture mode and camera option. The bottom side has a gallery, shutter button, and video mode. Users need to swipe right to access various modes — Pro photo, Pro Video, HDR, Monochrome, Night shot, Slow-mo, Panorama, Light paint and more.
Talking about the real world usage, the View 10 takes some really good photos under daylight condition resulting in sharp, bit over-saturated images. Those who prefer vibrant and colorful photos will be more inclined towards View 10 camera. At times, during macro shots, the images lack details, which is overpowered by too much exposure. The focus is quick to lock the object. The camera with the help of AI instantly recognizes things like text, food, human faces and changes the settings accordingly to click the perfect picture on any environment. At times, the View 10 lacks a bit of extra bit of detail when shot in HDR mode.
Having said that, the View 10 operates at its best, when it comes Monochrome mode. The outputs are impeccable and give soul to the picture. The portrait mode on both front and back camera works comprehensively as well. When it comes to low light conditions, the output isn’t bad, where half of them came out good with fairly controlled noise. It can record videos at 4K resolution at 30 fps and 1080p at 60fps. Quality is good and the audio is good as well, thanks to the secondary microphone. When you record videos on the go, the shake is evident due to lack of EIS or OIS.
Check out some camera samples (Click the image to view the full resolution sample)
Fingerprint scanner
The Honor View 10 comes equipped with a fingerprint scanner on the front, which I always prefer. The position is indeed comfortable and unlocks the phones quickly too. In this phone, you can add up to 5 fingerprints and not more than that. And then there is a Fingerprint recognition option, which helps users to find out which fingerprint belongs which ID.
Performance
The Honor View 10 comes equipped with Octa-Core Huawei Kirin 970 10nm processor + i7 co-processor with Mali-G72 MP12 taking care of graphics department. As you’d expect, the Honor View 10 passed the test with flying colors. The performance we experienced from the Honor View 10 is no different from any other flagship devices. Both the hardware and software compliments each other which in turn results in efficient performance. The multi-tasking is easier than ever, thanks to 6GB RAM under the hood. With the help of Mali-G72 MP12, graphics intensive games were an absolute breeze on this device, which didn’t leave a small scope for lag or frame drop. Check out the synthetic benchmark for Honor View 10 below.
Music Player
It has a separate music player with support for Huawei Histen sound effects as well as equalizer when you use headphones. Audio through third-party headset is good. The loudspeaker is equally good in the Honor View 10 in reference to other phones including Sony Xperia XZ1 and LG G6. It doesn’t have FM Radio.
Connectivity
The Honor View 10 supports connectivity options including 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS, USB Type-C and NFC on board. The phone has option for call forwarding between SIMs when one SIM is busy. It has Dual 4G and Dual VoLTE option that lets you enable 4G and VoLTE on both the SIMs and switch between them easily. It also has USB OTG support that lets you connect USB drives. Moving on, the call quality is good and we did not face any call drops and earpiece volume was loud as well.
Battery
The Honor View 10 is powered by a generous 3750mAh battery with Super Charge fast charging technology that can charge from 0 to 50% in half an hour. Our casual usage includes streaming videos on YouTube, and songs on music streaming app, WhatsApp, Facebook and calling at times. In this case, the phone managed to go past a day on single charge, which is fairly good. When it comes to intensive usage, that includes graphics demanding gaming, using Google Maps, streaming Netflix, the device managed up to less than a day. You can also turn on the Power Saving mode or Ultra Power Saver mode if you want to save last bit of juices.
In our battery test, the Honor View 10 achieved a One Charge Rating of 16 hours and 27 minutes which is good, thanks to Honor’s power management. Since it comes with support for fast charging, it can charge from 0 to 50% in 32 minutes and from 0 to 100% in 1 hour 22 minutes with the bundled fast charger. Check out the complete set of battery life test results here.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the Honor View 10 is a serious competition to the OnePlus 5T both in terms of features and pricing. Overlooking few shortcomings, this smartphone has all the potential to become an affordable alternative to the flagship smartphones currently present in the market. It has brilliant internals with a blend of Artificial Intelligence, solid camera and smooth performance.
But the only thing I feel that holds the View 10 from getting to the next level is the EMUI experience. At times, too many features feel crowded compared to the simple and minimalistic approach in phones with stock Android experience. Having said that, this topic is purely subjective and depends on users interest. If you are looking for a phone under Rs. 30,000, we recommend the Honor View 10. OnePlus 5T and Nokia 8 are good alternatives in the similar range. The phone is available exclusively from Amazon.in for Rs. 29,999. To summarize, here are the pros and cons of the smartphone.
Pros
- Dual cameras are good with monochrome option
- Good performance
- Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box
- Good build quality
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- EMUI interface might not be preferred by everyone
- Camera bump
No Face unlock yetAvailable via update