As you may have noticed, the mid-range smartphone market has been really competitive recently. While OnePlus 5T is still dominating the mid-range category, honor has sent a strong competitor – honor View 10 to challenge the throne. We are lucky to be able to try out the powerful honor View 10, and here is our honor View 10 review!

What is in the box

Just like most of the honor smartphone package, honor View 10‘s blue box consists of a few basic items – the phone itself, a flexible clear case, eject tool, charger and a USB-C cable. The model we get is in the elegantly-looking Midnight Black.

honor View 10 is having a metal body with a matte finish, the fingerprint is settled just at the bottom of the front display while the honor logo has now moved to the back (which maximized the full-view display). The dual-lens camera at the back somehow looks awful for me, they poke out just like a pair of Minion goggles (I would prefer a dual-lens camera blended into the body). Despite the weird design, honor View 10 is only 6.97mm thick and lightweight (about 172g), it is comfortable to hold too.

honor View 10 specifications

• Size: 157 x 75 x 7 mm
• Weight: 172 g
• Color: Navy Blue, Midnight Black
• Display: 5.99-inch FHD+ LCD display
• Resolution: 2160 x 1080 pixels
• CPU: Kirin 970 Octa-core Processor
• OS: Android 8.0 Oreo
• Memory: 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM (expandable up to 256GB with microSD)
• Camera:
  • 13MP Front Camera
  • 20MP+16MP Dual-lens Rear Camera
• Battery: 3750 mAh
• EMUI: EMUI 8

Display and Camera

Featuring the hottest trend in the smartphone market now – the 18:9 full-view display, honor View 10‘s screen is 5.99 inches big with a bezel-less design. It is having an LCD display instead of an OLED one (which displays sharp images and videos), along with the 2160 x 1080 pixels resolution, watching videos or gaming on the phone is totally a pleasure.

The 20MP+16MP dual-lens camera on the rear is one of the best cameras you can get now. Thanks to the Kirin 970 AI processor that auto-detects the scene and adjust settings for a better shot, you can shoot like an expert easily. Posting on social media such as Facebook and Instagram usually compress image resolutions, it is a good news that the AI-based Vision Engine in honor View 10 helps to enhance image resolution. However, here is a bad news – the rear camera has no OIS, which means your handheld shots might be blurry.

Some photos we took using honor View 10 at Taiwan (click for full-size image):

There is plenty of interesting built-in modes for you to play with. For example, the Artist Mode that makes your shots look like a painting, or the AR lens mode that add filters onto your selfies. Other than changing the background of your selfie to the default backgrounds (on the beach, beside the Big Ben and more), you can even set any of your taken pictures as the background (it is so fun)!

Performance and Battery Life

Powered by the Kirin 970 AI processor and 6GB RAM, you can expect superb performance on gaming and multitasking. So far I didn’t face any lagging on the high-demanding mobile games such as Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition and PUBG: Battlefield (using the best graphics and FPS setting available). There is a built-in app called Gaming Suite that optimizes gaming performance or energy use during gaming too. You can activate it simply by adding the game to the suite. You can also disable all onscreen notifications or lock the off-screen navigation keys using the Gaming Suite.

honor View 10‘s 128GB ROM storage is more than enough to store all the games and apps we need, if that is not enough, don’t worry as you can expand it up to 256 GB with a microSD. Talking about the battery, the 3750 mAh battery is capable for a day of regular use and at least 4 hours of heavy gaming. Using the honor SuperCharge technology, you can charge the battery from 0% to 50% real quick (in 30 minutes). Below is the comparison of battery percentage before and after one hour of non-stop gaming (Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition with best graphics settings):

Conclusion

honor View 10 is a cut-price smartphone with high-end specifications (basically same to Huawei Mate 10’s) that promises great gaming performance and long-lasting battery life. However, it has no water resistance and no OIS on rear camera so if these are your deal-breaker, you might need to consider something else.

Priced at RM 2,099, honor View 10 is available in 2 colours – Navy Blue and Midnight Black. If you are interested, you can visit honor retailer stores or visit their official website for more information.