There is always a sense of hyperactivity in the smartphone market. Smartphones are launched, relaunched, discarded at such an alarming rate that at times one feels there is a need to pause and take a stock of things. The breakneck speed at which smartphone makers operate, taking a breather seems out of question. In such a scenario, there comes a device that makes you think and perhaps helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. Honor's latest smartphone, the View 10 is one such device. Packed with latest specifications, an impressive camera and a killer price, the smartphone seems to have it all. Not to forget, the smartphone has the tech buzzword of the moment - AI - sprinkled all over it. We used the Honor View 10 for a considerable amount of time and here's our detailed review of the smartphone:
Design and Display
The first thing that strikes you about the View 10 is its sleek design. With slim side bezels and an almost bezel-less display, the View 10 is a seriously good-looking phone that is aided by its 5.99-inch 1080p display. The smartphone unit we got for review was in metallic navy blue colour. Being a 5.99-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio, it's not easy - in fact impossible - to use the device with one hand. So, if single-handed operations are vital for you, the design of the smartphone might not leave you impressed.
As for the other basics, the speaker grille, USB-C port and the 3.5mm headphone jack are located at the bottom. The dual-SIM tray finds a home on the left side of the smartphone.
Power up the phone and the display looks really impressive and performs admirably -- be it watching videos or playing games -- and the View 10's FHD plus display is a treat for the eyes. For all the gamers out there, the display of the smartphone will catch their fancy as playing games is a whole lot of fun on this smartphone. Honor View 10 comes pre-loaded with a couple of games like Asphalt Nitro, Modern Combat among others.
The only flaw with the display is that perhaps under direct sunlight it could have had better legibility. Compare it to the closest competitor, the OnePlus 5T, the View 10 manages to handsomely hold its own. The brightness levels, however, of the OnePlus 5T are certainly better but then you also have to pay slightly more for it than the View 10.
There are a lot of nifty features that are incorporated in the display of the View 10 as well. For instance, you can use your knuckles to take a screenshot by tapping on the screen. Or you can draw a letter on the screen to open a corresponding app - like draw W and the weather app will immediately open. The knuckles gestures aren't really new as a lot of smartphones boast of similar feature but they are still fun to use.
The fingerprint sensor on the View 10 works smoothly and the smartphone gets unlocked quite easily.
Performance and camera
Unlike many other recently-launched Android smartphones, the View 10 runs Oreo out of the box coupled with Honor's own EMUI 8 user interface. The app layout can be customised as you can have an app drawer or not depending on your preference.
Powering the smartphone is the HiSilicon Kirin 970 - an octa-core processor. Four cores clock at 2.36GHz while the other four clock at 1.8GHz. For all the routine tasks, the V10 delivers smooth performance. Apps open in a flash, there aren't any glitches or 'hang' issues and gaming as we said is a true delight. There isn't a flaw which we could find in the smartphone's performance. Compare the performance of V10 with any other flagship and it manages to hold its own considerably well. Honor View 10 boasts of 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is expandable by up to 256GB using a microSD card.
When Honor had launched this phone, a lot of emphasis was laid on how the View 10 is an AI-enabled smartphone. AI or artificial intelligence has become - or is rather slowly becoming - the buzzword for smartphone brands. But how does it affect the user who has an AI-enabled smartphone like the Honor View 10? To begin with, it was a bit surprising to not see the face recognition feature on the View 10. However, it is expected to come as an OTA update later in the coming months. On View 10, AI dominates the camera where it can recognise a person or a place. The View 10's camera was able to do it successfully on most occasions. Honor claims that its processor has a NPU or Neural Network Processing Unit - basically it's equipped to handled AI functions.
A feature that's a welcome addition to this smartphone is that the display doesn't go to 'sleep' if you're reading an article even if you've set the 'go to sleep' mode. It's not really a new feature nor is it AI-enabled but it does come in extremely handy. Barring the AI influence on the camera, there wasn't too much that can be branded as AI-enabled or at least we didn't notice. AI will continue to dominate smartphones in the future and perhaps View 10 is just the beginning. We ran a couple of benchmarking tests on the View 10 and the results were impressive. On Geekbench, it recorded scores of 1908 and 6575 on single core and multi core respectively whereas on Antutu it scored an impressive. 1,72,236
For those who are paranoid about security of their smartphone, Honor has added 'Private Space' feature where you can create a profile using different fingerprints and passcode. There's also File Safe which encrypts files and can only be decrypted using a fingerprint or passcode.
As we mentioned the camera is where AI plays a pivotal role in the View 10. Before we ge into the details, here is what the View 10 has to offer in terms of camera. On the back, there is a dual rear camera with a 16MP and 20MP RGB and Monochrome set up. On the front, there is a 13MP camera for taking selfies and can be used for Face Unlock feature. How does the camera measure up? Simply put, this is as good a camera you'll find on a smartphone in this price bracket. We took a lot of indoor and outdoor shots and images came out to be extremely impressive. Be it portrait images or images clicked sitting in a roof-top cafe - Honor View 10 delivers what it promises. Even in low-lit conditions, the images were clear. We compared the camera of View 10 with the OnePlus 5T and the images clicked by the Honor device were simply better. The 'bokeh' images shot on View 10 are considerably better than what we have got accustomed to. In most phones, 'bokeh' is frankly a gimmick but on View 10 you can really see the difference.
Even images clicked on the front camera are extremely good - not as good as the premium phones - but much better than most smartphones around. The direct competition to View 10 comes from OnePlus 5T and perhaps the Nokia 8. In terms of camera performance, View 10 has a slight edge over the competition and clearly has the best camera in the category it operates in.
A feature that always matters a lot to most users is battery life and Honor View 10 scores exceptionally in that department. You can throw a lot of usage - multimedia consumption, gaming, social networking - at the View 10 and it handles it with utmost ease. On a good day, the smartphone's 3750mAH battery will easily last you a day and you will still be left with at least 30 per cent before you call it a day. The phone charges also pretty quickly and in terms of battery performance both OnePlus and Honor View 10 are on equal footing.
Verdict
The most vital thing that works in the Honor View 10's favour is its price. At Rs 29,999, one gets a sturdy, sleek smartphone with an impressive battery life. Throw in the good camera and a smooth performer that runs the latest Android OS and you're staring at a winner. The AI features might be hyped up a tad too much but they do make the smartphone better. The View 10 as we said at the beginning makes you realise that perhaps smartphone brands need to take a stock of things and reevaluate most importantly what they can offer at a competitive price. Many good smartphones often suffer from their relatively unreasonable pricing and you hear that 'it's not a phone worthy of the price it commands'. Honor View 10 won't be suffering from this syndrome as Honor has got the pricing and the specifications bang on. Is it a better phone than OnePlus 5T? Considering that it's at least Rs 3000 cheaper, the Honor View 10 gets our nod for being the best phone at this price point.
Design and Display
The first thing that strikes you about the View 10 is its sleek design. With slim side bezels and an almost bezel-less display, the View 10 is a seriously good-looking phone that is aided by its 5.99-inch 1080p display. The smartphone unit we got for review was in metallic navy blue colour. Being a 5.99-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio, it's not easy - in fact impossible - to use the device with one hand. So, if single-handed operations are vital for you, the design of the smartphone might not leave you impressed.
As for the other basics, the speaker grille, USB-C port and the 3.5mm headphone jack are located at the bottom. The dual-SIM tray finds a home on the left side of the smartphone.
Power up the phone and the display looks really impressive and performs admirably -- be it watching videos or playing games -- and the View 10's FHD plus display is a treat for the eyes. For all the gamers out there, the display of the smartphone will catch their fancy as playing games is a whole lot of fun on this smartphone. Honor View 10 comes pre-loaded with a couple of games like Asphalt Nitro, Modern Combat among others.
The only flaw with the display is that perhaps under direct sunlight it could have had better legibility. Compare it to the closest competitor, the OnePlus 5T, the View 10 manages to handsomely hold its own. The brightness levels, however, of the OnePlus 5T are certainly better but then you also have to pay slightly more for it than the View 10.
There are a lot of nifty features that are incorporated in the display of the View 10 as well. For instance, you can use your knuckles to take a screenshot by tapping on the screen. Or you can draw a letter on the screen to open a corresponding app - like draw W and the weather app will immediately open. The knuckles gestures aren't really new as a lot of smartphones boast of similar feature but they are still fun to use.
The fingerprint sensor on the View 10 works smoothly and the smartphone gets unlocked quite easily.
Performance and camera
Unlike many other recently-launched Android smartphones, the View 10 runs Oreo out of the box coupled with Honor's own EMUI 8 user interface. The app layout can be customised as you can have an app drawer or not depending on your preference.
Powering the smartphone is the HiSilicon Kirin 970 - an octa-core processor. Four cores clock at 2.36GHz while the other four clock at 1.8GHz. For all the routine tasks, the V10 delivers smooth performance. Apps open in a flash, there aren't any glitches or 'hang' issues and gaming as we said is a true delight. There isn't a flaw which we could find in the smartphone's performance. Compare the performance of V10 with any other flagship and it manages to hold its own considerably well. Honor View 10 boasts of 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is expandable by up to 256GB using a microSD card.
When Honor had launched this phone, a lot of emphasis was laid on how the View 10 is an AI-enabled smartphone. AI or artificial intelligence has become - or is rather slowly becoming - the buzzword for smartphone brands. But how does it affect the user who has an AI-enabled smartphone like the Honor View 10? To begin with, it was a bit surprising to not see the face recognition feature on the View 10. However, it is expected to come as an OTA update later in the coming months. On View 10, AI dominates the camera where it can recognise a person or a place. The View 10's camera was able to do it successfully on most occasions. Honor claims that its processor has a NPU or Neural Network Processing Unit - basically it's equipped to handled AI functions.
A feature that's a welcome addition to this smartphone is that the display doesn't go to 'sleep' if you're reading an article even if you've set the 'go to sleep' mode. It's not really a new feature nor is it AI-enabled but it does come in extremely handy. Barring the AI influence on the camera, there wasn't too much that can be branded as AI-enabled or at least we didn't notice. AI will continue to dominate smartphones in the future and perhaps View 10 is just the beginning. We ran a couple of benchmarking tests on the View 10 and the results were impressive. On Geekbench, it recorded scores of 1908 and 6575 on single core and multi core respectively whereas on Antutu it scored an impressive. 1,72,236
For those who are paranoid about security of their smartphone, Honor has added 'Private Space' feature where you can create a profile using different fingerprints and passcode. There's also File Safe which encrypts files and can only be decrypted using a fingerprint or passcode.
As we mentioned the camera is where AI plays a pivotal role in the View 10. Before we ge into the details, here is what the View 10 has to offer in terms of camera. On the back, there is a dual rear camera with a 16MP and 20MP RGB and Monochrome set up. On the front, there is a 13MP camera for taking selfies and can be used for Face Unlock feature. How does the camera measure up? Simply put, this is as good a camera you'll find on a smartphone in this price bracket. We took a lot of indoor and outdoor shots and images came out to be extremely impressive. Be it portrait images or images clicked sitting in a roof-top cafe - Honor View 10 delivers what it promises. Even in low-lit conditions, the images were clear. We compared the camera of View 10 with the OnePlus 5T and the images clicked by the Honor device were simply better. The 'bokeh' images shot on View 10 are considerably better than what we have got accustomed to. In most phones, 'bokeh' is frankly a gimmick but on View 10 you can really see the difference.
Even images clicked on the front camera are extremely good - not as good as the premium phones - but much better than most smartphones around. The direct competition to View 10 comes from OnePlus 5T and perhaps the Nokia 8. In terms of camera performance, View 10 has a slight edge over the competition and clearly has the best camera in the category it operates in.
A feature that always matters a lot to most users is battery life and Honor View 10 scores exceptionally in that department. You can throw a lot of usage - multimedia consumption, gaming, social networking - at the View 10 and it handles it with utmost ease. On a good day, the smartphone's 3750mAH battery will easily last you a day and you will still be left with at least 30 per cent before you call it a day. The phone charges also pretty quickly and in terms of battery performance both OnePlus and Honor View 10 are on equal footing.
Verdict
The most vital thing that works in the Honor View 10's favour is its price. At Rs 29,999, one gets a sturdy, sleek smartphone with an impressive battery life. Throw in the good camera and a smooth performer that runs the latest Android OS and you're staring at a winner. The AI features might be hyped up a tad too much but they do make the smartphone better. The View 10 as we said at the beginning makes you realise that perhaps smartphone brands need to take a stock of things and reevaluate most importantly what they can offer at a competitive price. Many good smartphones often suffer from their relatively unreasonable pricing and you hear that 'it's not a phone worthy of the price it commands'. Honor View 10 won't be suffering from this syndrome as Honor has got the pricing and the specifications bang on. Is it a better phone than OnePlus 5T? Considering that it's at least Rs 3000 cheaper, the Honor View 10 gets our nod for being the best phone at this price point.
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