Honor takes the wraps off the Honor 10 in London

Honor today launched this year’s flagship Honor 10 at a packed event in London, giving people a taste of the high life at a fraction of the cost of rival flagships.

The £399 phone packs an almighty punch, using Huawei’s top performing chipset, 4GB of RAM, Google’s latest public OS (Android Oreo, V8.1), and a 3,400mAh battery.

On the front is a large 5.84-inch, 19:9 ratio, Full HD+ display, complete with the now almost de facto notch. Given the jury is still out on whether notches are good or not, the Honor 10 features the same hidden notch function as the recently launched Huawei P20 Pro (and other P20 series phones). This allows you to place a black bar along the top, effectively making the bezels look perfectly symmetrical.

So, whatever camp you sit in regarding notches, you’ll have an option to suit your taste.

The Honor 10 display, like the similarly-specced Huawei P20, has an LCD display over OLED, but with that comes a bright and punchy display that shouldn’t disappoint.

At the bottom of the phone is a new bit of tech, namely an ultrasonic in-glass fingerprint sensor. It still sits below the display itself, but means the fingerprint sensor is completely smooth to the touch. Like other Huawei and Honor phones, you can use the sensor for multiple purposes, like a short tap to go back, a long hold to go home, and a swipe to bring up the recent apps.

Camera

As ever, a quality camera is often regarded as the key feature that consumers demand is up to scratch. This is where the sub-£400 Honor 10 hopes to deliver, with its 24+16MP dual camera combination on the rear, and an equally impressive 24MP camera up front.

Artificial Intelligence is all the rage these days, and the Honor 10 utilises the power of the Kirin 970’s Neural Processing Unit to detect a huge number of different scenes, objects and environments (over 500 combinations in all).

Image Segmentation technology is a first here too, allowing the phone to identify multple objects in a single image. On the selfie-side, the phone also has a range of 3D lighting modes and bokeh effects, including group selfie detection to further enhance the overall image.

All of this is designed to help you get the most from the cameras. It’s all part of what Honor is calling ‘Beauty in AI’.

Of course, you shouldn’t just take Honor’s word for it, and in the coming days I will be testing the camera out to see if it’s as good as claimed.

The video is also capable of recording 4K video.

Design

As with the Honor 9 and the Honor 8, the phone itself also has a stunning finish that continues the tradition for bold, striking, design.

With a 3D glass back, utilising 15 layers of colour, the Honor 10 is every bit as exciting to look at as Honor will hope consumers will find the phone to use.

The Honor 10 will be available in a choice of colours, but the one pictured here is Phantom Blue.

One additional exciting addition, which probably shouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for Apple, is the 3.5mm headphone socket.

The phones’s 3,400mAh battery can also be topped up at speed with Huawei’s SuperCharge technology.

Software

In addition to Android 8.1 and Honor’s Emotion UI 8.1, the Honor 10 also supports face unlock and pretty much all of the same functionality as the significantly more expensive Huawei P20.

Availability

The Honor 10 is another exclusive to Three’s network, with availability on contract and pay as you go, with stock on sale from May 17th.

To buy SIM-free, the Honor 10 can be obtained from Carphone Warehouse, Argos, Honor’s own online store (at hihonor.com), Amazon, AO, Very.co.uk, and John Lewis. The phone will be available from today, May 15th.