Introduction

Ease of Use

Despite costing less than £400, the Honor 10 has a look and feel of something a little more premium - in fact it’s reasonably close in look and feel to the Huawei P20. The 5.84-inch screen has a 1080x2280 resolution, which is very similar to the P20’s 5.8inch, 1080x2240 screen. Another thing the Honor 10 shares in common with its more expensive cousin is that it has a notch in the display. Like with the Huawei devices, the notch is about as minimal as its possible to be, but if it bothers you, you can turn it off in the main menu (essentially creating two black bars alongside the notch to give the illusion of a straight top).

We’ve been using the rather attractive “Phantom Blue” finish - which is best appreciated when moving the device to catch the light. Sometimes it will look blue, while at other times it will have a purple sheen to it. Other colour ways available include “Phantom Green”, “Glacier Grey” and “Midnight Black”.

Front of the Honor 10

You can access the Honor 10’s native camera app directly from the lock screen by swiping up from the bottom right hand corner. Here you’ll be greeted with something which is very similar to the Huawei P20’s interface - with the notable exception of the P20’s fantastic “Night Mode” - another point of difference for which you’ll pay an extra £200 for.

As standard, the camera app opens in “Photo” mode, but along the bottom of the screen you’ll find other options you can jump straight to, including Aperture, Portrait, Video and “More”. Within the “More” section, you’ll find lots of extra options, including Monochrome, Time-Lapse, Panorama and the very useful “Pro” mode.

Rear of the Honor 10

The standard “Photo” mode is pretty self-explanatory, with the option to take a picture either with the on-screen shutter release, or by using one of the physical volume buttons on the side of the phone. Along the top of the screen, there’s a few different icons to take note of. Most interesting, perhaps, is the “AI” icon, which you can use to switch the artificial intelligence on or off. With it on, you’ll notice that the previewed image changes depending on what you point the phone at. You’ll know if it’s recognised a subject by an icon displayed at the bottom of the screen, some examples I’ve seen include dogs, greenery and blue skies. It’s not necessarily always obvious what changes are being made, but for example you might see a boost in saturation when it’s pointed at big swathes of green grass. It’s great to be able to quickly switch it off, though, if you want to keep things a bit more neutral. If you are shooting with AI enabled, you won’t be able to use the flash.

Other icons include “Moving Picture”, which basically creates a short video when taking a video, and the flash icon, which gives you options between auto, off, on, or always on. A cog icon can be tapped to make further changes to settings including image resolution, GPS tag, adding a watermark and so on. This cog icon appears in other different modes, with different options contained within depending on which mode you select. For example, in Video mode, you can choose different video sizes. In Pro mode, you can tap the cog and switch on raw format shooting - which is quite an unusual feature to find in a sub £400 cameraphone.

Front of the Honor 10

Switching to Pro mode gives you the opportunity to alter a number of other different settings. You can adjust ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, AF type, white balance and metering. If you’ve made quite a few changes to a number of different settings, you can return them all quickly to the default setting by tapping an icon which looks a bit like a sun.

Back to the standard modes found in the main camera app screen. “Aperture” is the now increasingly familiar fake shallow depth-of-field effect that is pretty common among many smartphones. In this mode, you can choose an aperture you want to recreate, then tap around the screen to select your subject and take the shot. The good thing about this is that as it’s just a software effect, you can change the focus point, and the selected aperture, which is useful if you’re slightly off with the focus point, or if you’re just not happy with how the result has come out.

Front of the Honor 10

Portrait mode gives you options to apply various “lighting effects”, including “Butterfly lighting”, “Classic lighting”, and “Split Lighting”. You can also choose a “Beauty Level”, via a slider - you can choose between 0 and 10. Basically, the stronger you set this, the more smoothing, teeth whitening and so on will be applied to the portrait subject. If you want to go for the most natural look, leave it on 0, but a low number, up to around 3 or 4 is quite flattering. Any more than that, and the results start to look a little odd or disturbing.

The Honor 10 has a 24 megapixel front facing camera, which you can activate by tapping an icon from the main screen. When you do so, you’ll find there’s a set of different shooting modes here, too. There’s the standard Photo and Video mode, but also Portrait - which gives you the same Lighting and Beauty options as with the rear cameras - and Aperture, but if you tap that, the camera automatically switches back to the rear one - I’m not sure why it’s included as an option on the front-facing camera. In the settings menu for the selfie camera, you’ll find a number of options including Mirror reflection - where by the image will be flipped - and “Perfect Selfie”, which you can use to take a three dimensional photo of yourself, which is edited to result in what the phone thinks is a “perfect selfie”.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 24 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

In good light, the Honor 10 produces excellent images. JPEGs display pleasing colours, with a good level of saturation. The AI assistant does a good job of identifying the scene and adjusting settings accordingly - in fact it’s a little more tempered than what we’ve seen in the Huawei P20 and the P20 Pro, making shots seem a little more natural in appearance. The overall impression of detail in good light is also very good.

As light levels drop, image quality is not quite so good - and with the absence of the P20’s “Night Mode”, don’t expect low-light shots to be quite so good - but again, for a sub £400 phone, what you do get is pretty admirable.

Most of the time, the camera’s all-purpose metering system produces well-balanced exposures, without too much need for intervention. If you’re photographing a high-contrast scene, you may find it beneficial to change the autofocus point to a mid-point in the scene, as metering is drawn from the active AF point.

Aperture mode - the Honor 10’s fake shallow depth of field effect - produces decent results, providing you don’t inspect them too closely. As is often the case, it works best when the subject is well-defined and there isn’t too much of a complicated outline.

Noise

JPEG	RAW
ISO 50 (100% Crop)	ISO 50 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

Optical Zoom - 1x

Flash

Rear Camera - Flash Off

Rear Camera - Flash On

Selfie - Flash On

Rear Camera - Flash Off

Rear Camera - Flash On

Macro

Night

Bokeh

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Honor 10 camera, which were all taken using the 24 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Honor 10 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some OnePlus RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

These days, there’s a good smartphone available for the majority of people, no matter what their budget. The Honor 10, with it’s £399 price tag falls squarely into the “mid-range” segment of the market, but gives you a lot of value considering it’s relatively cheap.

Images directly from the camera are lovely and vibrant, with a good amount of detail. Those from the Huawei P20 are a little better, but you may only notice that if you’re looking at images shot with both of them side by side.

Despite the fact that this is a relatively cheap model, it still feels well constructed, while the finish is also attractive - especially the “Phantom” editions which have a two-tone effect. The screen is also nice and bright, with plenty of detail on display. It’s also a good size, having a large enough screen to display your photos well, without being overwhelmingly large.

The camera app itself takes the lead from Huawei, and features a good range of shooting modes and features. Having both manual control via the Pro mode and the ability to switch on raw format shooting is great news for enthusiasts who want an extra degree of control - and something which is relatively rare at the cheaper end of the market. Meanwhile, for those who want to keep things a little simpler, the standard Auto mode, coupled with AI, is great for everyday shooting.

If you can afford to spend a little more money, the Huawei P20 is available for around £600, and will give you the added benefit of Leica-branded lenses, plus an excellent “Night” mode . In many other ways (including screen, battery life and operating system), the P20 and Honor 10 are remarkably similar - so if you’re not overly bothered about either of those features, then the Honor 10 is probably everything you need.

In this mid-range sector of the market, the main competition is the OnePlus 6 - but that will set you back (at least) an additional £70, making the Honor 10 a superb budget option.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Honor 10.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Honor 10 from around the web.

Specifications

News

Honor has just launched the Honor 10, its flagship smartphone for 2018, priced at £399.99.

Honor Press Release

Honor Launches the Honor 10, its Flagship Model for 2018, at £399.99, Unrivalled Smartphone AI Photography and Exquisite Aurora Glass Design

LONDON, May 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Honor launched the Honor 10, its flagship smartphone for 2018, today in London. The launch will bring to life the concept of "Beauty in AI", and reveal two major ground-breaking and industry leading smartphone technologies to consumers.

The first is the advanced AI 2.0 technology, applied chiefly to the smartphone's dual-lens camera. Second is the Honor 10 CMF1 design, a 3D glass back with a stunning nano-scale optical coating composed of 15 layers of shimmering color. The Honor 10 will be available at £399.99 for purchase at Hihonor from May 15 16:00 BST in select markets including UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, with other markets to follow.

According to George Zhao, President of Honor, before 2016, most phones came in just three colours: black, white and gold. Honor introduced Phantom Blue in 2016, Phantom Grey in 2017, and now the exquisite Aurora, a true breakthrough in smartphone design.

"We believe the recipe of success is simple -  providing consumers with a really good product! That's what we work hard for everyday at honor," said George Zhao, President of Honor. "But we don't just stop at making a good product. We want to co-create a new lifestyle with young people worldwide. We listen to them, bounce ideas around with them, and cheer for them. They are our inspiration."

With the innovative devices and a precise targeting strategy, Honor continues to lead the industry in its home market as the No. 1 smartphone e-brand in China, while expanding rapidly overseas. The brand has achieved 100% growth in overseas markets since its inception. In the UK, the Honor View10 was given 5-star rating by Stuff, The Guardian, T3 and Recombu. The combination of award winning products and extensive partnership in both carrier and open markets has contributed to the growth rate of 200% in the country.  In Russia, it ranks top 3 for 11 consecutive months, head-to-head with Samsung and Apple. In India, it remains the fastest growing smartphone brand which puts the brand among the top 5.

Key Features of the Honor 10

AI 2.0 Camera

24MP + 16MP rear camera

The Honor 10 24MP+16MP dual-lens AI camera was developed and supported by the NPU processor in the Kirin 970 chipset, which means it recognizes 500+ scenarios in 22 categories in real-time. It can pinpoint the outlines of various surrounding objects, like the sky, plants, people or even a waterfall, and identify their locations instantly.

This feature is supported by the industry-first Semantic Image Segmentation technology, which allows the Honor 10 to identify multiple objects in one single image. It is here where the Honor 10 really stands out from the crowd. These industry-first Honor 10 features apply scene-specific parameters to each photo in real-time when taking a picture, making every photo you take a professional shot with just one click.

24MP front camera

Not only is the rear camera supported by AI 2.0 technology, the Honor 10's 24MP front camera is your intelligent selfie companion. It supports 3D face recognition, optimizes facial details and detects over a hundred facial points to pixel-level accuracy.

The Honor 10 front camera also supports studio lighting effects with a range of lighting conditions. The advanced and precise facial recognition ensures an accurate bokeh, and captures subtle features of everyone's face, even in a 'groufie' shot.

Avant-garde design

Aurora glass, radiance from every angle

The process taken to achieve the Honor 10's minimalist finish wasn't simple, it was a result of the world-class industrial techniques and sophisticated engineering processes, which required the utmost precision and delicacy.  The Honor 10 glass design is made with 15 layers of 3D glass on the back, and this design reveals a colorful radiance from every angle, in natural light and shade.

Chic and stylish colors designed by The Paris Aesthetics Center

Immersed in art history and the digital world, the Honor 10 brings a stunning combination of colors to consumers - the Phantom Blue and Phantom Green.2 These two iconic and ground-breaking colors were created at The Paris Aesthetics Center, where the creativity and enthusiasm of Honor engineers and designers came to life.

Trendy characters all-in-one: Honor FullView and Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensor Under the Glass

The Honor 10 embodies the industry-first front-placing ultrasonic fingerprint sensor under the glass, and a 5.84-inch FullView FHD+ screen with a 19:9 bezel-less display and 86% screen-to-body ratio.

Upgraded and Intimate Experience

The Honor 10 is powered by an independently built-in NPU processor. The 4GB RAM and 64GB/128GB ROM storage gives sufficient space to stock all your exciting moments recorded in galleries, apps and files. The Honor 10 also comes with Honor Super Charge3 5V/4.5A with the 3,400 mAh (typical value) battery, it can recharge 50% of power within 25 minutes.

The Honor 10 is based on the latest EMUI 8.1, which represents an overall upgrade in software function and capability, and particularly features the Easy Talk function, it reduces background noise in a windy environment when you're talking handsfree on the road, it also increases the volume of whispering for quiet conversations.

About Honor

Honor is a leading smartphone e-brand under the Huawei Group. In line with its slogan, "For the Brave", the brand was created to meet the needs of digital natives through internet-optimized products that offer superior user experiences, inspire action, foster creativity and empower the young to achieve their dreams. In doing this, Honor has set itself apart by showcasing its own bravery to do things differently and to take the steps needed to usher in the latest technologies and innovations for its customers.

For more information, please visit Honor online at www.hihonor.com or follow us on: 
https://www.facebook.com/honorglobal/ 
https://twitter.com/Honorglobal 
https://www.instagram.com/honorglobal/ 
https://www.youtube.com/honorglobal

Preview Images

Ahead of our full review, here are some sample images taken with the new Honor 10 smartphone.

A gallery of sample images taken with the Honor 10 smartphone.

Honor 10 Sample Images

Sample RAW Images

The Honor 10 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some OnePlus RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

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