Honor View 10 Review- An Excellent Flagship Experience for the Price

Honor has been on a launching spree in India with some really good smartphones launched in the last few months starting with Honor 8 Pro. Now the company has launched its latest flagship device, the Honor View 10 with 18:9 display and powerful hardware featuring the world’s first AI enabled processor, the Kirin 659 octa-core processor. The device comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and has 3750mAh battery. So how does the device fare in terms of pricing and competition? Let’s find out in the detailed Honor 10 View review.

Here is the view review of the device.

Design and Build:

In the design department, the Honor view 10 packs the latest trend of 18:9 displays with minimum bezels and taller builds. The device looks good with metal unibody construction which actually feels good. The rear panel has a matte finish with antenna bands place at the top and bottom and neatly integrated with the edges. The dual camera unit is quite similar to the set up we have seen on 7X. There is a LED flash next to it and the Honor logo is below it. The power and volume keys are on the right side while the left side house the hybrid SIM slot. The bottom panel has the USB Type C slot, 3.5mm audio jack and also the speaker unit. The top panel has the IR blaster included.

The front panel comes with the 5.99-inch Full HD+ display and on-screen navigational buttons with the fingerprint scanner below it. The top panel has the front camera, earpiece and the usual set of sensors. Honor offers the View 10 in two colors: Navy Blue and Midnight Black. We had a Navy Blue unit for review and it is definitely an eye-catcher. The sides of the device have been given a curved finish and it makes it easy to hold as well. Overall the Honor View 10 is a good device in terms of build quality.

Display:

Honor View 10 comes with a 5.99 inch Full HD+ (2160 X 1080p) resolution display, going with the current trend of 18:9 aspect ratio displays. We have seen similar displays on Honor 9i and also Honor 7X. The display on the Honor View 10 has 2.5D glass but there is no mention of any protection offered on the display. The display quality is good and colors are vivid and the viewing angles are also great. The phone comes with a pre-installed screen guard and the touch response is smooth. You can also change the color temperature of the display and it allows you to choose between neutral and vivid colors.

Software:

Honor View 10 runs on Android 8.0 with EMUI 8.0. To align with the Android version number, Huawei has bumped up the version from 5.1 to 8.0 in the view 10. We have already covered some of the best features of EMUI. With EMUI 8.0, the company is retaining the option of enabling app drawer. By default, this feature is not enabled, but you can go to Settings-> Home Screen style. The settings panel has also been redesigned to provide a better experience and aligned with Oreo.

Since the navigational keys are on screen, you also get the option to customize the layout from the settings. You also get dual apps feature. With dual apps, you can run two instances of an app, which means you can run two instances of social apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. EMUI 8.0 includes this feature and it is called App Twin.

Other additional features include motion control, floating dock, voice control and also gloves mode. It also features the themes app. The software also comes bundled with some Huawei apps like Torch, sound recorder, phone manager, etc. The fingerprint scanner supports a lot of functions including locking apps and gestures for viewing the gallery. A couple of other interesting options in the UI are Private Space and File Safe which are security options and work with pin and fingerprint.

Overall, the EMUI 8.0 feels polished and vastly improved.

Performance:

Honor View 10 is a flagship device of Honor in India and it comes with a flagship processor, the Kirin 970 which is the world’s first AI enabled chipset. It is an Octa-core processor with 6Gb of RAM. The performance of the device is very smooth and apps open quickly and multitasking is easy and very effectively implemented.

Honor View 10 does an excellent job on the day to day performance and it was responsive to all tasks it was put to and the app performance with EMUI 8.0 was really good. The memory management of the device was also really good and it was able to retain all apps in the memory without having to compromise on performance.

The gaming performance of the device was also good and there were no heating issues while playing heavy graphics-rich games. The call quality of the device was really good and no issues in signal reception and the speaker performance were quite good even though it might not be the loudest.

The phone comes with dual SIM cards and a hybrid SD card slot. The phone offers 128GB of internal storage and can also be expanded using SD card.

Camera:

Honor View 10 packs a dual camera, a 16MP primary camera with RGB sensor and 20MP secondary camera with a monochrome sensor with f/1.8 aperture. There is also a 13MP front camera with f/2.0 for selfies. The camera interface is quite similar to previous Honor devices and packs a lot of modes and options to choose. Additionally, the camera uses the AI abilities to detect the subject and get you the best results with different shooting modes. These modes are selected automatically.

There is also a dedicated monochrome mode using the 20MP sensor. The photos taken with Honor View 10 comes with good detailing in daylight conditions and there is good color reproduction too. The camera is also pretty quick to focus and take captures. The close-up images also came out well with good overall detailing and the wide aperture mode can shoot some really good bokeh shots. The low light ability of the device is also good and it was able to reduce the noise and the captures were quite good for a flagship device in this segment. The selfie camera can also take some good selfies and there is a software-enabled bokeh mode which does a decent job altogether. The phone can record videos in 4k or 1080p at 60fps but there is no OIS or EIS i ded. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.

Battery Life:

Honor View 10 comes with a 3750mAh battery and it supports fast charging out of the box. The bundled charger can charge the device from 1 to 100% in less than 85 minutes which is an impressive feat considering the capacity. Now, coming to the battery performance we got an average screen-on time of around 6 to 6.5 hours with moderate usage which included social apps, camera, gaming, and calls. The battery performance is definitely decent if not stellar.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 29,999, the Honor View 10 is an excellent package with good design, excellent build quality, 18:9 display, Oreo, and latest EMUI along with good camera performance. There is hardly anything to complain in the View 10 other than the lack of EIS in video recording. If you are looking for a true flagship experience at an affordable price segment, the Honor View 10 ticks all the right boxes. The device is available exclusively on Amazon.