Huawei Honor 10 hands-on review

Huawei Honor 10 hands-on

To make sure you don't mistake the Honor 10 for an Honor View 10, instead of going for a more meaningful naming scheme, Honor (cough, Huawei) made the new phone out of glass as opposed to metal. It's Gorilla Glass of some sort on the back, though Huawei's mum on the exact version - don't quote us on it, but in such cases, it's usually GG3.

We're not saying the blue View 10 we had for review wasn't pretty, on the contrary. But Huawei really knows what it's doing with its color schemes on its glass phones - look at the gorgeous P20s - and you'd be getting some of that flair with the Honor 10.

A lot of it, actually, particularly if you opt for one of the Phantom colors - Blue or Green. They're equally as spectacular as the ones on the P20, and we'd struggle to understand why someone would get Boring Glacier Grey or Incognito Midnight Black (the one we've got). The options are there, though, if you're that person.

No escaping the notch • We got (un)lucky with black • 'AI Camera, seriously?'

We're not entirely sure about the AI CAMERA lettering on the back. Yes, we know that 'Beauty in AI' is the Honor 10's tagline, and yes, AI has a been a mandatory buzzword this past year. That said, we wouldn't object if it stays in promo materials instead of being sprinkled on the devices themselves. Anyway, the P20's back was a different kind of offender with all sorts of text stamped on the back, so the Honor 10 might actually be better in this respect.

In the top left corner you'll find the camera combo, in a slightly raised common assembly, flanked by the flash. We dare say that it looks slightly better than the View 10's minion goggles of a setup. Other than that, the back of the handset is pretty clean with just the Honor logo in the bottom third.

Flip over to the front and you're greeted by a notch. Okay, maybe we should have stopped with the notch hate by now - everyone and their subbrand's got one. The Honor 10 has a perfectly alright almost-6-inch FullHD+ display (5.84", 2280x1080px). The aspect ratio works out to 19:9, with the extra 1:9 on top to accommodate the notch.

Inside said notch, Huawei's found just enough room for the earpiece, front-facing camera, and the ambient light/proximity sensors - so just like the P20 bunch.

The fingerprint reader down on the bottom is trying to make a case for the existence of the bottom bezel. There's a bit more chin than on the company's flagships, indeed, but only marginally so - no big deal. Of course, our principal gripe with having a screen notch and a thick bottom bezel at the same time remains - Apple did it out of necessity, the others are doing it because it's fashionable.

The frame is made of aluminum - not all of the View 10's metal is lost. There's a power button on the right, just slightly above the midpoint, and the volume rocker is above that. Both controls are conveniently located and shouldn't pose issues in usability. The card tray is on the opposite side and it takes two nanoSIMs and zero microSD cards - the built-in storage is all the storage you get.

The USB-C port is on the bottom, in a classic central position. It only adheres to the USB 2.0 spec for data transfer, but it also supports Huawei's Super Charge fast charging at up to 5V/4.5A. There's a bundled fast charger too, so you won't have to purchase one separately from other companies with notched display phones would have you do.

To the one side of the USB port is the 3.5mm jack - one area where getting a midranger comes with benefits, as Huawei flagships have started ditching the headphone jack (vanilla Mate 10 was the last to have it). On the other side is the loudspeaker and the microphone, and the different sized hole for the mic is really making us uneasy. But hey, Huawei designers said so - so be it.