Introduction

Ease of Use

At a Glance

•     18:9 full screen with 2,160x1080 (FHD+) resolution display
•     5.99in edge-to-edge view
•     Available in two colours: Midnight Black and Navy Blue
•     Tough metal body with rounded edges
•     20MP (with RAW format) and 16MP twin rear cameras with f/1.8 aperture
•     13MP front camera
•     Portrait Mode for both front and rear cameras 
•     4K video up to 30fps
•     FHD 1080p videos at 30, 60 and 120fps (slow motion) 
•     3750 mAh battery gives up to 21 hours of 4G internet time
•     Huawei Kirin 970 AI processor
•     6GB ram 
•     128GB internal memory 
•     Support for 256GB micro SD card 
•     £449/ 499 euros
•     Available now

Ease of Use

Before we get onto the camera side of things, let’s take a quick look around the Honor View 10 phone. 

Design wise, you get a 6in screen in 18:9 format. It’s pretty much the same as the one found in the Honor 7X, with 2,160x1080 (FHD+) resolution. Prepare to be wowed by this wonderfully crisp display.

It’s a tough display too. When we were first shown the phone last year, the Honor team threw it about on the floor to demonstrate its strength. You’d have to be quite intentional to damage this device.

The phone is encased in a premium metal body and is available in two colours; Midnight Black and Navy Blue. At 6.97mm thick, the View 10 is thinner than some competing phones.

The Honor View 10's rear has a smooth texture that is a little slippery. We appreciated a protective case for the phone, not least of which to get a better grip. 

Front

You will struggle to take pictures holding this large phone with a single hand, requiring your other hand to prevent it from tipping. Additionally, holding the phone in both hands to take pictures will reduce shake, which is important because the camera does not feature image stabilisation (more on this later).

To start up the phone, there is dual face recognition ID and embedded fingerprint sensor in the front glass. In one sense we prefer the fingerprint sensor on the cheaper Honor 7X, but it’s a matter of personal taste. 

Otherwise, a swipe of the screen will wake the phone up, while it is also possible to activate additional shortcuts to the camera app. One example is a double tap of the volume control for an ‘Ultra Snapshot’.

Battery life is seriously impressive. The 3,750mAh unit provides up to 21 hours 4G browsing time and can be charged to 50% in around 30 minutes with the super-charge option. It’s entirely possible to take the phone away for the weekend without a charger.

You get dual SIM card slots, with dual 4G & volte support, meaning it is possible to make an internet call while your other functions like web browsing remain at full capacity. 

There is a slot for a micro SD card and the phone will support cards up to 256GB capacity. You may not need an SD card though, because internal storage is a whopping 128GB. Honor isn’t holding anything back here.

Front

Operationally, the Honor View 10 handles smoothly and we did not encounter glitches during our test. With 6GB of ram and the same processor as found in the Huawei Mate Pro 10, it’s little wonder.

If we were covering all the facets of the phone in detail we’d comment more about the technology. For example, we haven’t touched on the AI aspect of the phone yet, which improves much of the phone’s functionality. (Honor bills the View 10 as the first AI phone.)

Of more interest to us is how the camera benefits from AI and we’ll look more into this area shortly.

So, all good so far. Let’s move on to the camera spec. On paper the Honor View 10 possesses one of the most impressive cameras in a any smart phone. 

If there is one feature to get us excited here at Photography Blog, it’s the dual rear camera setup. You get 20MP and 16MP rear-facing cameras, both with 27mm f/1.8 lenses. Those are the sort of specs that only the best phone possess.

That 20MP camera is available in Pro Photo Mode, where RAW format is available. Switch to the other camera with 2x magnification - where the focal length is 54mm - and its the 16MP camera. In addition there is a 13MP front-facing camera. 

Rear

Honor is intent on marketing the AI element of the camera, which offers an ‘unparalleled' fast image recognition of 33 images per second and 13 intelligent scene recognition, all of which are built-on by ‘deep learning’ AI. 

What does that marketing speak mean in reality? The Honor View 10 should select the correct exposure settings in more situations. For example, AI motion detection uses tracking prediction in order to freeze movement rather than let it be blurry. 

Take a picture in the snow like we did during the recent UK blizzards and the snow symbol pops up on the display to tell you exposure is being adjusted accordingly. You get the idea.

Portrait Mode uses segmentation to separate subject from the background in order to then blur the background. Furthermore, the ’segmented’ subject can be extracted and placed onto any background. Clever. This technology should create lovely portraits and is available for selfies, solo and group pictures.

Unlike the mid-range Honor 7X which has a modest video specification, the Honor View 10 boasts a good feature set. This includes 4K video up to 30fps and FHD video at 30, 60 and 120fps.

If there is one thing we’d love to see on the Honor View 10, it is some sort of image stabilisation. Sure the f/1.8 aperture is wider than most and helps to maximise light intake (therefore quicker shutter speeds), but handheld images are susceptible to being soft in low light mainly due to camera shake. 

Dual Lens

So there are some of the specs. How about how the Honor View 10's camera app handles? The app is laid out the same as in the Honor 7X. The large edge-to-edge screen is in 18:9 format, which makes for a clean looking camera app with clean live view display. 

Like in the Honor 7X, swiping to the left brings up the shooting mode menus. There are heaps to choose from, including Photo (auto), Pro Photo, Video (auto), Pro Video, HDR, Panorama, Light Painting, Time-Lapse, Slow-Mo, Filter, Effects, Watermark, Audio Note plus More. 

Again, swipe to the right and the Settings menu appears. Options here depend on the shooting mode, but include access to image Resolution, GPS tag, Priority save to SD card, Mirror Reflection (front camera), Mute, Timer, Audio Control, Touch to Capture, Capture Smiles, Object Tracking, Touch & Hold Shutter, Volume button unction and Ultra snapshot.

On the main camera screen you have quick access to library, photo and video modes, plus direct access to the Flash Mode, Wide Aperture activation, Portrait Mode (where the second rear-facing 16MP camera is accessed), Moving Picture and switching between front and rear cameras. 

When certain shooting modes are selected, a couple of sliders appear at the bottom of the screen, in order to make manual adjustments to the severity of the effect. If you like an effect but not the default settings, then you can dial it up or down a notch. 

All in all, that is a lot of controls and modes on offer, but it is all laid out really well and handles intuitively.

Side

Operationally, the front camera is selfie heaven. The automatic remote capture functions include smile detection, audio detection when you say Cheese, touch shutter, plus gesture where a 3 second timer is activated once your palm is detected.  

According to Honor, the View 10 features phase detection auto focus that can acquire a sharp focus in as little as 0.18 seconds. 

In practice, AF seems very quick when the lighting is bright. Unsurprisingly, find yourself in low contrast light and there is a little more focus hunting. Over time you may find some out-of-focus low light shots in your gallery (which may also be the lack of IS). This is a phone after all. 

There is an option in one of the menus to activate object tracking AF. Tap the screen on your subject and the phone should track it. We’ve not tested this extensively, but in everyday scenarios tracking AF works well enough.

Pro Photo Mode will make experienced photographers feel right at home. In this mode it is possible to manually select shutter speed, exposure compensation, ISO and White Balance. This mode offers the maximum 20MP resolution, plus RAW format. 

Tap the info button when viewing images and there is a wealth of information about it; exposure settings, focal length, file size, GPS and a full histogram. 

Photographers of any level will find plenty to sink their teeth into and to enjoy with the new Honor View 10. 

Image Quality

The rear-facing main camera of the Honor View 10 has a focal length of 27mm and an f/1.8 aperture. It will record 20MP images in JPEG format and RAW (DNG) is available too. That’s a maximum resolution of 5120x3840 pixels, while file sizes are approximately 32MB (RAW) or 4MB (JPEG).

The second rear-facing camera also has an f1.8 aperture which is particularly fast for a ‘portrait’ lens, with a focal length of 54mm. This camera lens is not available in Pro Photo mode, but is available in the automatic Photo Mode, with the maximum resolution of 16MP (JPEG only).

Like all smart phones, the Honor View 10 has a tiny imaging sensor. Therefore, those 20-million-pixels are tiny. You’ll find that image quality is excellent when the lighting is bright (and using ISO 50), yet it declines rapidly as the available light decreases, with an impact on dynamic range and sharpness.

The true f/1.8 aperture is wide for a smartphone, so that’s a great start for shooting in low contrast light. Then of course there are plenty of shooting modes that can address the limited dynamic range, such as HDR and Night Shot.

HDR and Night Shot modes combine multiple images into one with a wide dynamic range, so you’ll need a particularly steady hand to avoid blurry detail. Ideally a support like a tripod would come into use. 

That HDR mode is not active by default. The setup with an iPhone for example is better - with HDR set to auto without any user input. Also, HDR is not additionally available within most other shooting modes, which is a shame.

As we have said before, it is a good practice to tap the part of the picture where the highlights are, in order to avoid missing all that highlight detail. The phone will not be able to capture all those tones in a single image unless a mode like HDR is activated.

The auto focus point affects both metering and colour reproduction. If you take the same picture more than once but focus on different areas in the frame, you are likely to notice differences in colour rendition. 

It’s a matter of personal taste, but we are not big fans of the Wide Aperture mode or the default ‘Beauty’ setting in the Portrait Mode. Both modes are applying fairly aggressive effects that cannot be undone. 

Wide aperture mode recreates a blurred effect in the same way as most of the popular image editing apps. It’s different to Portrait Mode. Beauty setting in Portrait Mode removes blemishes in the skin, to an unnatural degree. We’d rather the Beauty Setting was off by default. 

Portrait Mode on the other hand recreates a shallow depth of field effect and is available for both rear and front cameras. The transition from sharp subject to blurred background areas is often rather good actually. It’s not always perfect, but for sharing images on social media it is perfectly adequate. You’ll get images that look like they have been taken using a ‘proper’ camera. 

Pro Photo Mode provides manual control over most exposure settings (of course save for aperture, this is a phone). With a little know how, you’ll be able to get the most out of the camera.

Without image stabilisation (which most phones do not have), the Honor View 10 is much less useable in low light conditions. However, camera shake appears to affect more images than we would expect. 

Over the course of testing the phone we have become particularly conscious about keeping the phone steady when taking pictures in any scenario.  

Video features are very competitive. The Honor View 10 offers 4K at 30fps and FHD at 30, 60 and 120fps. It’s a big step up from the Honor 7X that we recently reviewed. 

Again, without image stabilisation, handheld videos can look quite shaky even when the phone is held as still as possible. 

Noise

By default the phone is set to Photo mode where all camera settings are controlled automatically and 16MP JPEG images are produced. 

In Pro Photo mode, the Honor View 10 gives manual control over ISO sensitivity, with an ISO 50 to ISO 3200 range, plus Auto ISO. You also get control over shutter speed, with a 1/4000sec to 30 seconds range, plus auto which defaults to 1/33sec when light is less bright. 

We've completed our noise test in the Pro Photo Mode to compare those ISO settings and RAW & JPEG. As we would expect, images at ISO 50 are very crisp and clean. Move up the ISO range and of course there is a steady increase of noise, but the control is actually rather admirable.

Looking at the same image in RAW and JPEG format and we can see how noise reduction and sharpening is applied to make JPEGs. When the light is good and at sensitivity settings up to ISO 400, it’s all done very well. Sharpening and noise reduction both hit the sweet spot. 

Asides from any possible need to recover lost tonal detail or make severe colour corrections, you could get away with shooting in JPEG format only up to ISO 400.

Go higher than ISO 400 and detail in JPEG images is particularly smudgy - that’s the noise reduction being applied to smooth out that grainy look. We prefer the noise in raw images rather than the smoothing in JPEGs.

You can get away with those low light images if they are viewed smaller than 100%, like on social media. But if detail is observed more closely, it will disappoint.

JPG	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)

Lens Distortions

Chromatic aberration, most often in the form of magenta fringing, can be seen in RAW & JPEG images around high contrast edges, like tree branches against a white sky.

Barrel and pincushion distortion are well controlled. Vignetting is quite severe in RAW format images, though it is corrected in JPEG images.

Chromatic Aberrations

Distortion - RAW

Distortion - JPG

Vignetting - RAW

Vignetting - Corrected

Focal Range

The main rear-facing camera has a standard 27mm focal length and the second camera has a 2x focal length magnification, at 54mm. The front camera is 26mm with f/2 aperture.

27mm

54mm

Macro

The Honor View 10 can acquire a sharp focus for objects as close as around 6cm. It’s not that impressive for such a small imaging sensor.

Macro

Flash

Flash options are on / off / auto / always on. The latter activates the torch, which is neat because most other smartphones do not allow the use of the built-in torch in the camera app.

Flash Off

Flash On

Flash Always On

Portrait Mode

Portrait Mode Off

Portrait Mode On

Night

As already mentioned, in the Pro Photo mode, there is manual control over most exposure settings. The maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds, maximum sensitivity is ISO 3200, plus there is exposure compensation up to ±4EV. 

With manual exposure control, getting the right exposure for a night scene is possible. 

Let's not forget the dedicated shooting modes. Night Shot works a little like HDR. It takes multiple images one after the other at different brightness levels and combines them for a crisp night image. Ideally the camera will be completely stationary during capture rather than handheld, or else the final image will be blurry. 

Then there is the Light Painting shooting mode menu, where there is a choice between Car Light Trails, Light Graffiti, Silky Water and Star Track. In these modes, the live view image is displayed in real time so you can stop the capture when the night image looks right. It’s really neat. 

We’re not sure when the timer maxes out for these night capture modes, but it’s certainly long enough for any of these scenarios. Image processing is just as quick as any other capture which is impressive.

In all you’d struggle to find a nighttime scenario or shooting style that the Honor View 10 cannot cover. 

We’ve already said it, but the camera does not feature any sort of image stabilisation. This is more of an issue in low light, whereby you need to be particularly conscious of holding the camera steady (ideally supported rather than handheld). 

Night

HDR

HDR On

Filters and Effects

The Honor View 10 features beginner-friendly picture effects. In the filters menu you’ll find eight styles, including ND, Nostalgia and Valencia. Like other styles, there is a slider to manually control how strong the style is applied. The Artist Mode requires an internet connection and offers 14 more creative effects.

Styles
Artist Modes

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Honor View 10 camera, which were all taken using the 16 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 View 10 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Honor RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

The Honor View 10 is an extremely capable phone in all areas. 

Key features include the 18:9 FHD+ 6in display, tough metal body, 6GB ram and 128GB internal memory, twin rear-facing cameras with f/1.8 apertures, up to 20MP images with RAW format, 4K video at 30fps and FHD videos up to 120fps slow motion. All for £449, which is very competitive. 

This is a phone with a camera and app that users of all skill levels will enjoy. You get a wide range of useful shooting modes, not least of which includes night modes, filter effects and gesture controls. What we love even more at PB is the Pro Photo Mode that offers manual control over key exposure settings, plus easy access to detailed metadata. 

The single most restricting element of the camera is the lack of any kind of image stabilisation. We had more blurry looking photos than we expected, while videos tend to look shaky even when the camera is held still. 

Blur in photos isn’t consistent with the shutter speed too. In short, you need to be more conscious of a steady hand when shooting. Otherwise, the Honor View 10 handles wonderfully. The phone operates quickly in all areas, the camera app is clean and easy to navigate. 

Image quality is very good too, especially when the light is good. Detail in JPEG images taken in low light at ISO 400 and higher looks smudgy. Overall though, this comes close to what we can currently expect from a smartphone. 

Bottom line, there is little else out there for less than £500 that betters the Honor View 10. The ‘affordable’ phone market has well and truly been shaken up. 

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

Main Rivals

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

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Honor View 10 from around the web.

Specifications

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