During testing, Honor 10 established itself as a top-level device without obvious shortcomings at a reasonable cost. Its design and performance are cool, and the dual camera, powered by artificial intelligence, takes decent photos. Solid, although not phenomenal, is the battery life. The cost, depending on the amount of built-in memory, ranges from 26,990 to 29,990 rubles - this is an attractive price for the quality offered.
Huawei P20 says hello
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: upon external examination, it quickly becomes clear that Honor 10 has adopted some of the design features of the Huawei P20. But this is not too surprising: after all, Honor is a subsidiary of Huawei. The glass body and aluminum frame of Honor 10 look very elegant. For those who like something brighter, the manufacturer came up with Shimmering Green and Shimmering Blue - inspired by the lights of the Northern Lights, Honor reproduces interesting color shifts on the back of the case. Honor 10 is also available in classic black and silver options.
Let's not hide it: Honor 10 is well made - its corners are nicely rounded, and its 154 grams of weight fit well in the hand. The double camera, which protrudes noticeably beyond the dimensions of the case, is somewhat disturbing, since if the device is lying on a table, it is not stable. There is no IP certification here - that is, Honor’s new flagship is not waterproof.
Honor 10 with a glass body looks elegant and boasts excellent workmanship
Honor 10 display follows the Notch trend
Honor 10 has a 5.84-inch display in 19:9 format with a high resolution of 2280x1080 pixels (432 ppi). Honor uses an LC display, which we liked because it displays particularly rich colors. According to our tests, it has 136 percent coverage of the sRGB color space, which is almost on par with OLED displays. But you can't count on the perfect display of blacks that the Huawei P20 offers. However, thanks to a maximum brightness of almost 490 cd/m2, the Honor 10 screen remains highly readable even in bright sunlight.
The screen is almost frameless and, in accordance with modern trends, has a notch at the top, which is called “Notch”. As a result, the display covers 80 percent of the area of the front side of the case with the image, that is, it uses it with virtually no loss. In addition to several sensors, the notch houses an earpiece and a front camera with an extremely high 24-megapixel resolution. By the way, it can also be used to unlock a smartphone through the facial recognition function. Alternatively, you can use the fingerprint scanner, which responds accurately and quickly.
Practical: You can deactivate the Notch display if you wish. In this case, the areas to the left and right of the notch are filled with black.
Honor 10's 5.84-inch display has convincing color saturation
Video reviews
Today, Huawei officially introduced the new Honor 10 smartphone for the international market. The new product will go on sale at the end of May, but we will go over the key characteristics of the phone, which is in many ways similar to the Huawei P20, only a little simpler and cheaper.
Honor 10: hardware characteristics
The Honor 10 smartphone is built on the same Kirin 970 as the main flagships of the Chinese company. Thanks to the good implementation of artificial intelligence functions, the developers were able to optimize the device’s performance with RAM. As tests have shown, even 4 GB of RAM is quite enough for smooth and fast operation of the P20. In the case of Honor 10, you can also purchase a more advanced configuration with 6 gigabytes of RAM.
Choose between 64 and 128 GB of internal memory . When choosing, you should take into account that there is no expansion slot for a microSD card, so perhaps there is a reason to choose the most charged configuration.
Honor 10: battery, screen and cameras
The characteristics of the power supply system are exactly the same as the P20 specifications. The Honor 10 phone has a 3400 mAh , exactly the same as the flagship device. The characteristics of the charging adapter are also repeated: 4.5 amperes and 5 volts give us a total of 22.5 watts of power. Fast charging is implemented using proprietary Huawei Super Charge technology. In half an hour the phone can be charged from zero to 50%.
The Honor 10 screen is not much different from the flagship display. The diagonal is slightly larger - 5.84 inches versus 5.8, aspect ratio 19:9 , resolution 1080 x 2280 pixels. Pixel density 432 ppi. The IPS display covers 80% of the front panel area, with a fingerprint scanner located underneath it. At the top of the screen there is a cutout for the front camera, speaker and proximity sensor.
Decent battery life, excellent performance
The battery has a high capacity of 3400 mAh. With it, the Honor 10 was able to achieve a respectable 9 hours and 25 minutes in our demanding battery life test with the display always on. For comparison, the Huawei P20 has a smaller battery, but almost reached the 10 hour mark. For normal, everyday use this should not be a problem. You will find more durable devices, the battery life of which sometimes reaches 13 hours or more, in our corresponding rating.
During testing, the smartphone charged quickly. More precisely, through the included USB Typ-C power supply for fast charging with a power of 22.5 W, the battery replenished its energy reserves in 116 minutes.
The strength of the Honor 10 is its fast pace. The manufacturer uses Huawei's current best processor, called HiSilicon Kirin 970. It is about as fast as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835. With this development from Huawei, web surfing can truly be a pleasure: even when working with heavy websites and applications, we did not notice any restrictions during our testing tests. Even in Split Screen mode, two applications worked in parallel, maintaining speed and elasticity.
Depending on your choice, Honor 10 can be equipped with 4 or 6 GB of RAM and built-in storage capacity of 64 or 128 GB. Subsequent expansion of the built-in memory, unfortunately, is not possible: although the Honor 10 has a slot for accommodating two Nano-SIM cards, it does not have a slot for a Micro-SD memory card. In the case of the device we tested, we are talking about a 128 GB variant, where approximately 115 GB remain available for free use.
Honor installs the latest Android 8.1 Oreo operating system here, which works in combination with the EMUI 8.1 user interface developed by Huawei.
Surfing the web with Honor 10 is a pleasure: the Kirin 970 processor ensures a fast pace of work
AI camera but not Leica certified
Honor 10 has a dual camera located on the back of the body, but unlike the P20 series, it does not have Leica certification. The photo quality of this camera is not bad, although it cannot compare with top devices in this category, for example, the HTC U11, especially in poor lighting conditions. The camera has two matrices: 16-megapixel color and 24-megapixel black and white. The f/1.8 aperture provides sufficient light flow to the sensors. In daylight, we can consider the Honor 10's images to be convincing, but those taken at dusk seem somewhat noisy. In addition, noise reduction algorithms “eat up” a lot of details and structures. Hair and yarn, for example, merge into one surface.
However, this should not be the case at all: the manufacturer in Honor 10 uses the so-called “AI camera” (with artificial intelligence). AI mode recognizes objects and scenarios, adapting camera settings to the scenes being captured (such as nature, food, portraits) to improve image quality, such as improving color saturation.
The optical image stabilizer will have to be abandoned here, and accordingly, the risk of blurry photographs becomes higher. However, it is possible to take advantage of intelligent image stabilization at the software level. The camera detects moving objects and activates Quick Capture mode to capture the scene as clearly as possible.
Honor 10's AI camera recognizes objects and adapts image settings depending on the scene being captured
Honor 20 Pro cameras - the most delicious
The front camera has a resolution of 32 megapixels with the ability to use artificial intelligence. Everything is the same as in the other, more expensive flagship Huawei P30 Pro, including the ability to use the screen as a flash. Selfie lovers will like the quality of the photos, but one cannot help but notice that the smartphone is doing its best to eliminate any flaws on the face, making it beautiful, but too unrealistic. The influence of enhancements can be reduced, but some of them do not seem to be disabled.
The main camera block is represented by four modules, complemented by laser autofocus and flash. The main lens is distinguished by a high aperture value (f/1.4) and can create 48 megapixel images in normal mode or in the so-called ultra-clear mode using artificial intelligence. Such pictures will differ in size - when shooting the same object, a photo with a resolution of 12 MP will weigh 3.2 MB, a 48 MP photo will “heavier” up to 8.2 MB, and in ultra-clear mode - up to 12.4 MB.
12 megapixel image
48 megapixel image
48 megapixel image in ultra-clear mode
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It can be seen that in the “Ultra Clarity” mode the sky was not as detailed, and in general the objects being photographed were not as illuminated as when using other modes. It takes a few seconds to take an ultra-sharp photo—much longer than you're used to.
So why is this mode needed? All the benefits of ultra-clarity begin to appear when photographs are enlarged.
Fragment of a photo taken with a resolution of 12 megapixels
Fragment of a photo taken with a resolution of 48 megapixels
A fragment of a photo taken with a resolution of 48 megapixels in ultra-clear mode
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It is ultra-clarity that allows you to comfortably see even small details, and this is not in the best lighting. A regular 48 megapixel photo is seriously inferior in this regard.
The photo was taken in 12 megapixel resolution
The photo was taken in 48 megapixel resolution
The photo was taken in 48 megapixel resolution and ultra-clear mode
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You may have noticed that with a huge number of moving people and handheld photography, objects are almost always in focus. This was made possible thanks to optical and digital stabilization, both when taking photos and when shooting video. Unfortunately, taking such detailed photos comes with a limitation in the form of a serious reduction in the number of shooting functions. For example, you will not be able to use the night mode, which is available for selection when shooting with a resolution of 12 megapixels. And since we’re talking about night mode, photos taken with its help become noticeably brighter. When you zoom in on the photos, you can see that the night mode allows you to see some details even in poor lighting.
Photo taken in normal mode
The photo was taken in night mode
Fragment of a photo taken in normal mode
Fragment of a photo taken in night mode
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But it’s time to talk about the capabilities of other camera modules, and let’s start with the wide-angle lens, the resolution of which is 16 megapixels. The viewing angle of this solution is large - 117 degrees, which approximately coincides with human vision and will help fit a huge number of objects into the frame. Cropping photos makes it clear that the quality of photos taken with the wide-angle module is worse than with the main camera, but this is a normal phenomenon observed in all smartphones.
The photo was taken with a regular camera
The photo was taken with a regular camera
Fragment of a photo taken with a regular camera
Fragment of a photo taken with a wide-angle camera
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A 2-megapixel macro lens is responsible for shooting from a distance of about 4 cm, and it honestly fulfills its purpose, focusing on close-up objects. It makes sense to take several photos at a time, because sometimes some details are blurred, perhaps due to the wrong distance to the subject.
Optical zoom is achieved through an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, and the most honest would be a three-fold zoom, despite the ability to select other values, because with other options various algorithms come into force, which do not always cope with the task.
Shot without zoom
Photo taken with 3x (optical) zoom
Photo with 5x (hybrid) zoom
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The maximum is thirty times digital zoom - a large figure, but the result is not at all impressive, which is expected.
Normal photo
Shot with maximum 30x zoom
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The bokeh effect with background blur doesn't look ideal, at least not in all situations. Perhaps in new firmware the developers will improve the operation of this mode.
Video recording occurs at a maximum resolution of 4K at 30 frames per second (virtually without lag, even in the dark). Focusing on objects can occur automatically, without user intervention, and below you can see examples of video indoors and outdoors.
Overall, the cameras left an extremely pleasant impression. In the standard camera application, there is a professional mode with saving images in RAW format (and therefore with the ability to correct color rendition, which sometimes introduces too bright tones), and various entertainment in the form of AR effects, in addition to a huge number of settings.
Good equipment
Fans of cable headphones can rejoice at the presence of a classic audio jack - currently something taken for granted, unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Alternatively, Bluetooth 4.2 is available for use. According to the results of tests, we find the mono speaker of Honor 10 a little weak: Huawei P20 plays noticeably louder. A nice bonus: thanks to the infrared transmitter located on the top side of the housing, you can control, for example, your home TV using your smartphone.
There is also a Dual-SIM slot on board, which allows you to use two mobile networks simultaneously. At the same time, 4G, and with it Voice-over-LTE to improve communication quality, is available on both cards. However, you will have to forget about the wireless charging function. In addition, the USB Typ-C connector transfers data using the slow 2.0 standard.
As already mentioned, sales of Honor 10 in Russia start today, May 22, at 11 a.m., but pre-orders were possible a week ago. When you pre-order, you can receive Honor Monster 2 headphones, an Honor Band 3 fitness tracker, as well as coupons from Delivery Club and IVI as a gift.
Dual-SIM slot allows you to simultaneously log in to two mobile networks
Characteristics and test results of Honor 10 128GB
| Price-quality ratio | 83 |
| OS during testing | Android 8.1 |
| Weight | 154 g. |
| Height x width | 150 x 72 mm; |
| Thickness | 9.2 mm; |
| Screen: diagonal | 5.8 inches |
| Screen: size in mm | 63 x 134 mm; |
| Screen: type | LCD |
| Screen: resolution | 1,080 x 2,280 pixels |
| Screen: Dot Density | 433 ppi |
| Screen: max. brightness | 489.3 cd/m² |
| Screen: staggered contrast in a dark room | 154 :1 |
| Download speed: PDF 5 MB via WLAN | 15.0 s |
| Download speed: chip.de test chart via WLAN | 6.9 s |
| CPU | HiSilicon Kirin 970 |
| CPU frequency | 2.400 MHz |
| Number of CPU cores | 4+4 |
| RAM capacity | 4 GB |
| Battery: capacity | 3.400 mAh |
| Battery: surfing time | 9:24 h:min |
| Battery: charging time | 1:56 h:min |
| Fast charging function | Yes |
| Battery: discharging time/charging time | 4,9 |
| Wireless charging function | — |
| WLAN | 802.11n, ac |
| VoLTE | Yes |
| LTE: frequencies | 800, 1.800, 2.600 MHz |
| LTE: speed | up to 400 Mbit/s |
| Camera: resolution | 15.9 megapixels |
| Camera: measured resolution | 1,822 line pairs |
| Camera: expert assessment of image quality | Fine |
| Camera: VN1 noise | 2.0 VN1 |
| Camera: Optical Image Stabilizer | — |
| Camera: autofocus | Yes |
| Video resolution | 3.840 x 2.160 pixels |
| Front camera: resolution | 23.8 megapixels |
| LED indicator | multicolor |
| SIM card type | Nano-SIM |
| Dual SIM | Yes |
| Protection against dust and moisture (IP certificate) | — |
| Biometric unlocking | fingerprint sensor, face recognition |
| User accessible memory | 128 GB |
| Free memory | 113.0 GB |
| Memory card slot | — |
| USB connector | Type-C-USB 2.0 |
| Bluetooth | 4.2 |
| NFC | Yes |
| Headphone output | 3.5mm socket |
| SAR | 0.79 W/kg |
| Firmware version during testing | 8.1.0.101 |
| Test date | 2018-05-14 |
Photo: CHIP, manufacturing company
Review of the Honor View 10 smartphone.
Design
Flagships really “love” glass – with such a case, wireless charging is easier, but practicality suffers. In this regard, the View 10 is not trendy - it has a durable matte aluminum body. The protruding camera lenses and excessive soiling of the back cover stand out a little from the overall noble style of the device. The smartphone is released in two colors: black and blue.
The build quality is excellent - all body parts fit tightly together.
The front panel of the View 10 is covered with 2.5D glass.
The connectors include a hybrid card slot on the left side, a microphone and an infrared port for controlling equipment on the top, a multimedia speaker, a USB Type-C connector, a 3.5 mm audio jack and a second microphone on the bottom.
The smartphone is quite large in size, but it is comfortable to hold in your hand due to its smooth shapes, beveled corners and non-slip body material.
The fingerprint scanner is located on the front panel of the smartphone under the screen. The fingerprint scanner is fantastically fast and accurate - the View 10 has one of the best scanners on the market. In some cases, the scanner replaces on-screen buttons - a short tap on it performs the “back” action, a long tap on it performs the “home” action, a swipe left or right brings up a list of tasks.
Display
The display of View 10 has all the flagship characteristics: 6-inch diagonal, IPS display matrix, FHD+ resolution (2160x1080), pixel density 407 ppi, minimal frames, protective Corning Gorilla Glass and factory film (both with a good oleophobic coating). Multi-touch for 10 touches is supported.
All this together gives maximum viewing angles and good contrast, natural color reproduction and a good reserve of maximum screen brightness. Automatic brightness adjustment is fast and accurate. There is a blue light filter that reduces eye strain in the dark and twilight.
The color temperature can be adjusted manually - there is an RGB circle in the settings for this.
There is also a full-screen mode that adjusts non-adapted applications to a 2:1 aspect ratio.
Features of Honor View 10
View 10 is a smart, albeit rather compact machine. Hidden under the smartphone’s body is the neural processing unit (abbreviated as NPU), which is a coprocessor tasked with machine learning and artificial intelligence.
This processor can already do a lot, although it can potentially do even more. It analyzes smartphone usage scenarios and optimizes the operation of applications, intelligently distributing energy resources between them. At the same time, the system is constantly learning.
The neural network also analyzes the sound quality during calls, suppressing background noise. The NPU is also involved in the camera’s operation - the processor determines the subject of the photograph and selects the necessary shooting parameters, and is also used to artistic blur the background.
Camera
The dual camera of Honor View 10 is represented by 16-megapixel color and 20-megapixel monochrome modules.
Above the camera application, filling it to the brim with different functions and modes. There are advanced manual settings and support for the RAW format, which allows for fine processing of images.
The smartphone can combine data from both modules into one snapshot. This produces color photos with a resolution of 20 megapixels, a wide dynamic range and less noise. Also, the dual camera can blur the background, has a 2x hybrid zoom and a monochrome mode.
The View 10's photos turn out as expectedly good: daytime photos are natural in color, clear and with accurate exposure.
Using the wide aperture mode, you can achieve dramatic background blur. Processing accuracy is high in most scenarios. In the Gallery you can adjust the intensity or remove the effect on the photograph taken.
When zooming twice, pictures lose little quality.
The 13 MP front camera works well in daylight, taking detailed pictures. Indoor shots without obvious noise and with correct color rendition.
Night shots from the View 10 are also quite good thanks to the f/1.8 aperture and effective noise reduction.
The smartphone records 4K video at a frame rate of 30 FPS and stereo sound, FHD video runs at 60 frames per second. The h.265 codec is used, which significantly reduces the size of such videos.
Performance
Honor View 10 is powered by an 8-core flagship HiSilicon Kirin 970 chipset and a 12-core Mali-G72 MP12 graphics accelerator. The smartphone has 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal built-in memory. 128 GB may not be enough for some, in which case, instead of the second SIM card, you can install a microSD memory card with a capacity of up to 256 GB.
This kind of hardware is more than enough for lightning-fast work with all applications. At the same time, the device, without unloading, keeps in memory a couple of heavy games (WoT and Injustice 2), Chrome with a dozen tabs and several more instant messengers and social networks. Web surfing and video streaming are booming.
View 10 is definitely a gaming smartphone - most popular games here run at maximum graphics quality and with a stable frame rate. At maximum settings in World of Tanks, the average is 59 frames per second. The frame rate hardly drops. At minimum graphics settings, the game produces the same 59 frames per second, but the load on the processor is much less.
The set of wireless interfaces includes LTE, GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou, Bluetooth 4.2 and NFC. Everything works correctly and quickly
The device also received an infrared sensor for controlling home appliances.
Autonomy
The 3750 mAh battery allows you to fully and actively use the smartphone throughout the day: after several hours of web surfing, social networks and YouTube, an hour of playing WoT: Blitz and hundreds of pictures on the camera, about 10% of the charge remains. Full HD video at maximum brightness drains the battery in 13 hours.
Naturally, Honor View 10 also has SuperCharge wireless charging, which charges the smartphone’s battery by 50% in half an hour. It takes about 3 hours to fully charge from the included adapter.
conclusions
The Honor brand tried to break into the premium segment and succeeded. The View 10 has everything as it should: it has a frameless screen and a dual camera. Moreover, the smartphone has its own “trick” - a constantly learning neuroprocessor NPU. And what’s very nice is that, with all its advantages, the gadget costs significantly less than its competitors. Perhaps it has only one drawback - the lack of moisture protection.
