Review of Honor View 10 – Flagship specifications and features at mainstream price

Huawei has been very aggressive in the Singapore market
recently, and their launch of the new Mate 10 series last year, and more recently
the P20 series has created much hype in the smartphone market. In fact, these
flagship smartphones were considered one of the biggest threats to brands such
as Apple and Samsung here in the local market.

Honor, which is a sub-brand from
Huawei, aims to ride the wave from Huawei and decided to launch more affordable
versions of these smartphones. We’ve understood that Honor has already been a
success in many emerging markets in the region, but how will it fair in
Singapore? We had the opportunity to get our hands on the latest Honor View 10
to find out.

The Honor View 10 can be seen as a direct variant of the
Mate 10 series. In fact, both devices seemed to have very similar specifications
and design. The main difference? Price. Not to mention, as we spent more time with the
Honor View 10, we also realized more distinct features that sets the
two phones apart. Regardless, is the View 10 worth its price? Let’s take a
closer look.

First and foremost, I have to clearly state that I am a user
of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and am quite familiar with the EMUI operating system.
In my personal opinion, performance was not an issue at all, as the Kirin 970 was
able to handle all the day-to-day tasks that I’ve thrown at it. Moreover, with
a huge 6GB RAM on the smartphone (which could be somewhat excessive), the Mate
10 Pro could literally run multiple apps in the background without you feeling
any kind of sluggishness. That’s where the Honor View 10 has got it right. It
has its base specifications identical to the Huawei Mate 10 Pro in order to
match the user experience that a flagship smartphone can provide. That is why we will expect the same kind of performance on a Huawei flagship phone as on the
Honor View 10 (and the latest P20), despite it costing almost half the price.

Since that is the case, what exactly are the main
differences between the two phones? If there is such a huge difference in terms
of the price, who in the right mind would purchase a Huawei Mate 10 Pro?

Even though the Honor View 10 has the same display
resolution and aspect ration as compared to the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, it is
slightly longer. This is due to the placement of the fingerprint sensor at the
front of the phone, rather than the rear. Huawei probably realised that the
more conventional 16:9 aspect ratio is starting to lose its traction, as the an
18:9 screen not only provides more screen real estate, but also generally a easier grip for
users.

The Honor View 10 uses the LTPS LCD. In terms of brightness,
and contrast levels, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro’s AMOLED display beats the Honor
View 10 hands down. However, we still have to give credits to the Honor View 10’s
display. Unlike other kinds of LCD, LTPS supports higher resolution and lower
power consumption. This is also why Honor managed to squeeze a 2160 x 1080 resolution
display to a small 6-inch size. Generally, the phone continues to perform very
well for entertainment purposes. This could probably be due to the color calibration
done by the engineers at Huawei.

Unlike the Mate 10 Pro, the Honor View 10 still accepts an
additional MicroSD card for storage expansion. However, this will use up the
2nd SIM Card slot for the phone. Nonetheless, we felt that the
MicroSD card expansion slot is good to have, but probably not necessary as the Honor
View 10 already comes with a huge 128GB of built-in storage.

We did not expect much from the Honor View 10 as
compared to the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, as the Mate 10 Pro is dubbed to be one of
the best smartphone cameras in the industry. However, the Honor View 10 did
surprise us as the images produced looked great! Additionally, the same AI
image recognition technology that was exclusive to the Mate 10 and P20 series
can also be found on the Honor View 10. This allows specific settings to be set
on the camera, depending on the image scenario. The optimization of the camera
could probably be the reason why the images looked this good. Here are some
samples to prove my point.

The Honor View 10 almost got everything right. Sadly, the
only down side of it is that it only features a single mono loudspeaker. This is
the only key feature that really sets it apart from the costlier Mate 10
series. We have to say that the lack of stereo speakers really makes a big
difference when it comes to watching videos and listening to songs on the
phone. Regardless, the speaker spotted on the Honor View 10 performs better
than average. This is mainly due to the ability to produce balanced sound different frequencies, which is lacking in many other smartphones. Thankfully, the Honor
View 10 also comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, allowing users to plug in their
good old headphones for the best possible audio experience they can imagine, without
the need to rely on the built-in speakers.

The Honor View 10 will be available through selected Challenger outlets, authorized retail partners and e-tailers at a SRP of SGD599.