Huawei Honor has launched two new smartphones in London (Global launch). The most affordable premium mid-tier Honor 7x and a more powerful premium flagship smartphone, the Honor View 10. The Huawei Honor 7x was made available imminently, however, for the Huawei Honor view 10, one has to wait for few more weeks and your waiting time might also save some money.
Though the Huawei Honor View 10 immediately attracts your attention, it will make you turn your head to look at the device once in while. It almost has all the right ingredients to be a great flagship smartphone. Like always, it is not a perfect smartphone as well.
The device retails in China for CNY 2,699 and CNY 3,499 for the 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage and 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage respectively. So, in India, the company is likely to launch these devices for ₹26,999 and ₹34,999. At this price tag, this specific device is a true flagship killer (though the company has made no claim regarding that). Let’s look at the different aspect of the Huawei Honor View 10 and why it is being touted as the AI smartphone?
To begin with the design, the company has a bit of different approach here. Usually, the smartphones with new 18:9 aspect ratio with narrow bezels will have a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner or no fingerprint scanner at all (Apple iPhone X). However, for the first time in the recent times, the Honor View 10 offers a front-mounted fingerprint scanner, which visually looks very appealing compared to the other premium flagship smartphones.
After the rightly placed fingerprint scanner, the next thing that caught our attention was the massive 6.0-inch display embarked into a smaller form factor. Yes, the device has a form factor of a typical 5.5-inch smartphone, but due to the taller 18:9 aspect ratio, the phone manufacturer was able to use a 6.0-inch screen without altering the overall size of the smartphone. In fact, the device has a smaller width, which helps the device to hold on a single hand. The 2.5D curved display lamination has two purposes. Firstly, it protects the display from pocket scratches and it has given an overall premium look and it will be a lot easier to reach the corners due to that 2.5D curves.
The only downside of the display is the fact that, the smartphone maker has opted for an IPS LCD screen. As most of the premium flagship smartphones are moving towards OLED technology, we do miss the pitch black colors on the Huawei Honor View 10.
Under the hood, the smartphone has an AI-powered flagship class HiSilicon Kirin 970 Octa-core processor based on 10 nm FinFET architecture. This chipset is on par with the premium Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in terms of benchmark performance. The combination of the 4 GB or 6 GB with this processor will make sure that all of your running apps will be in the background all the time. Be it while gaming or editing a video, the device should offer best mobile experience.
The connectivity on the device is also nothing less. In fact, this is the first smartphone to offer dual LTE support on both the SIM card slots, which means, one can use 2 Jio SIM cards at a time. Obviously, the device does offer WiFi, NFC, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
However, we do think it misses out on the most important features like the wireless charging and IP rating against water and dust resistance. However, the fast 22-watt charging should be able to compensate the missing wireless charging. According to Honor, the device will charge from nothing to everything in 60 minutes of time.
On to the camera, the device has a lot of guts and glory. On the paper, the cameras look like the one found on the Huawei P9. However, these cameras as completely newer. These are the first set of cameras enhanced by Artificial intelligence. So, each time you take a photo via 16 MP RGB shooter + 20 MP monochrome shooter, you will always get a picture perfect. These cameras are optically stabilized and offer 4k video recording capability. For the selfie camera, the device uses a 13 MP shooter with face unlock. This is something similar to the Apple iPhone X’s Face ID but in a primitive way. This does not work when your eyes are closed or if you are looking at something, however, this feature does require light to work and does not work in complete darkness.
The company has backed latest Android Oreo 8.0 operating system with its own layer of dessert on the top. The EMUI 8.0 is fast responsive and feels fluid. As this is a flagship smartphone, the device will receive Android P update in the near future. Except for the China, the device will have a complete set of Google services, including Google Play store. Finally, this powerhouse is powered by a Li-ion 3750 mAh sealed battery. The smartphone does offer fast charging capability via USB type C with USB OTG support as well.
Let’s look at the advantages and the disadvantage for the Honor View 10:
Advantages:
- Pricing will the major advantage, for a flagship smartphone this will cost a lot less than OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T (hopefully).
- Kirin 970 flagship processor.
- Futuristic design with 18:9 aspect ratio FHD+ screen.
- Dual camera with AI power.
- Latest Android OS.
- Dual LTE support.
Disadvantages:
- Everyone will not like the custom EMUI.
- No wireless charging.
- No IP certification.
- Still uses IPS LCD panel.
- No HDR support.
So, what do you think about the Huawei Honor View 10? Share your views in the comment box.