Honor 10 review power packed alternative to premium flagship smartphones

Honor 10 review: Power-packed alternative to premium flagship smartphones

Honor 10 review: Power-packed alternative to premium flagship smartphones on Business Standard. The Honor 10 lacks an optimised notch screen and stereo speakers, but the sleek look and fast performance, coupled with top-notch innards, make it a winner in the midrange flagship segment

Latest News Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei’s online subsidiary Honor on May 15 announced the artificial intelligence-based Honor 10 Specification in India.

Priced at Rs 32,999, the smartphone boasts some of the premium design elements and features of the recently launched Huawei P20 Pro -- glass-metalglass sandwich design, notch-based screen, AI camera, etc, which -- which make it a cost-effective alternative to premium flagships.

However, being a mid-range device, the Honor 10 cuts down on features like the Leica-tuned camera lenses, vivid AMOLED screen or the dual stereo speakers of the P20 Pro. But, it does sport a 3.5mm audio jack, which is not there in the P20 Pro. Business Standard reviewed the Honor 10 on several parameters to test its overall performance. Here are the observations: Honor 10 design The Honor 10 boasts a glass-metal-glass sandwich design. The front is dominated by a notch-based screen, which leaves negligible bezels on the top and sides. On the bottom, there is a fingerprint sensor placed below the glass, adding to the utility without

compromising on the overall design quotient.

Honor 10 The glass back designseems an improvement over aluminium, especially due to its different colour reflection properties. The glass is curved from the edges, something reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy S-series devices. While everything seems to be in place, the glass design attracts fingerprint impressions which make it dirty, requiring regular cleaning.

Honor 10 display The Honor 10 sports a 5.84-inch fullHD+ 19:9 aspect ratio screen, which is bright enough to stay legible under direct sunlight. The notch is set as enabled by default, but can be disabled from settings.

However, the notch is disabled by default for video playback through apps like YouTube and Netflix or native video player, and there is no option to enable it.

Online video streaming apps also fail to fill the 19:9 aspect ratio screen and show content at 16:9 aspect ratio, leaving blacked out areas on each side when viewed in horizontal mode, therefore it fails to utilise complete screen area.

Honor 10 multimedia capabilities The Honor 10 neither have the HDR compliant

screen nor the dual stereo speakers that the premium P20 Pro offers. The phone also lacks Dolby Atmos support and relies on Huawei’s 3D audio technology to boost the audio output.

Yet, for a midrange smartphone, the Honor 10 fairs well to play multimedia content, thanks to 3.5mm audio jack that makes a lot of difference, especially for people who like to use headphones more than speakers for content playback.

Honor 10 performance The Honor 10 is powered by Kirin 970 system-onchip (SoC), the same processor that powers the premium Huawei P20 Pro. It is paired with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. The phone boots EMUI8, which is an Android Oreo-based customised skin developed in-house by Huawei to utilise the potential of AI across different system settings.

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