Honor 10 review

The Competition

Being part of Huawei has allowed Honor to borrow everything that made the P20 great, and then leave a few things out for a more competitive price tag. And just like the Honor 8 and 9, the 10 is shaping to be one of the best bang for the buck offers in its segment right now.

Honor is making in the mid-range what Xiaomi does for the budget segment - flagship phones on bargain prices. And the Honor 10 specs sheet and price can easily make OnePlus execs feel quite Unsettled.

And speaking of OnePlus, the OnePlus 6 is now out with a similar notched screen but with an OLED panel. It has a stunning glass body, too, and packs a more powerful Snapdragon 845 chipset in it. The new OnePlus camera benefits from OIS and EIS but lacks native monochrome sensor and advanced skills as variable aperture. The new flagship killer is more expensive than the 5 and 5T at launch - it now costs €520, which is €130 over the Honor 10. You should decide if an OLED, better GPU, and OIS are worth the extra cash.

Moving on to another BBK phone - the Oppo R15 Pro - the choice becomes even tougher. The R15 has stunning looks, similar performance and screen, but less capable camera. It costs the same as the Honor 10, but it seems this time around Huawei has the upper hand.

Then there is the Nokia 7 Plus. With the latest HMD offer you'll get a perfectly rectangular 6" screen, similar performance with its Snapdragon 660 chip, and one very clean Android OS thanks to Android One program. The Nokia 7 Plus has better-specked camera, with 2x optical zoom, dual-pixel AF, and EIS for the videos. There is also the larger battery. The Nokia somehow lacks the coolness of the Honor 10, especially in looks, so it's either the notch and glass body with the Honor 10, or the ruggedly-handsome Nokia 7 Plus and its Zeiss lenses.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) has a curved AMOLED at the front, a capable Exynos chip, a great main camera and an impressive dual selfie setup at the front. The A8 is not cheap, but sure looks interesting, especially for selfie-conscious fans. Then again, the Honor 10 does brilliantly with just one camera at the front, it offers better performance, a trendier screen, and it's cheaper.

And before we call it a day, there is one more phone worth considering - the Huawei P10. It's a very similar device to the Honor 10, but offers different (read better) camera sensors, optically stabilized at that. If stabilization and lossless zoom are of utmost importance and you don't mind the smaller screen, you should give the P10 a try.

OnePlus 6 • Oppo R15 Pro • Nokia 7 plus • Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) • Huawei P10

The Verdict

The Honor 10 borrows the best of the Huawei P20 features and leaves just enough to keep the phone out of the flagship territory. There are no premium camera sensors with stabilization and no waterproofing. But that's about it. Everything else is... well, top-notch... and the Honor manages to make up for the change in camera with better image processing.

And it works great. The Honor 10 easily matches some of the best phones on the market in terms of looks, performance, camera, and yet it costs half of their price tags. And that's what the definition for bang for the buck looks like.

Pros

• Nicely looking body, seems sturdy enough
• Great screen with superb contrast, and you can hide the notch
• Very capable main camera, color or monochrome, lots of artsy options
• Dependable performance
• Loud speaker
• Feature-rich software
• Hard to match bang for buck ratio

Cons

• No IP67 rating, don't dunk it in water
• Mediocre screen contrast in bright light
• Ultrasonic fingerprint reader is slower/fiddlier than we're used to
• The low-light photos not as good as on P20, nor is the 2x zoom
• Something is wrong with the 1080p at 60fps clips as they come out blurry

For €390 launch price, we are willing to forgive a lot of those shortcomings. We'd recommend the Honor 10 wholeheartedly - it's a great all-rounder with few flaws and some extra-large claws.