The Honor v10: The Huawei Mate 10 Pro in small?
6.12.2017
Translation: machine translated
Video: Manuel Wenk
The Honor v10, or View 10, has attracted the attention of the smartphone scene this week. The specs are a dead ringer for the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. But not the price. So what's going on at Honor?
London is no longer an insider tip for travellers. For smartphone fans, the city was part of a big surprise this week: Chinese company Honor unexpectedly unveiled two phones in the English capital yesterday. The Honor 7x and the new flagship phone that has astonished the industry, the Honor v10.
Why is the Honor v10, or View 10, so amazing? Essentially, it's a Huawei Mate 10 Pro. Just cheaper. Significantly cheaper.
Time to take a closer look at the new device.
The odd one out on the market
Honor has a somewhat strange position on the market. As a subsidiary and or sister of the Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Huawei, the brand has one thing written on its banner: A lot of phone for little money. This works very well. So well, in fact, that the company gets by with only minimal marketing and essentially limits itself to press events and some sponsorship of sporting events, especially in the extreme sports sector. Honor also describes itself as an e-brand, a brand that lives primarily online.
Honour has lived well online so far and has only ventured into the real world this year. In major cities around the globe, Honor has opened shops that focus on experiences and not necessarily sales. I was unable to find out what this means before the editorial deadline. Something should certainly be sold there, otherwise I don't see the point of such a store. But I can't yet say whether Honor will offer a supporting programme there - presentations in London suggest art and music.
In short: Honor is breaking new ground. It remains very exciting and if you are interested in the world of smartphones, you should keep Honor on your radar. Or my articles. Because Honor will probably be mentioned a few more times.
The little brother that isn't small
So now the v10. How does it fit in? The v10 is part of the View series. That's what the v stands for. It's a phone that surprises. Because according to the motto "A lot of phone, little money", Honor has announced a device that is a dead ringer for the Huawei Mate 10 Pro.
In a comparison of the specs, the v10 is only inferior to the Mate 10 Pro in a few respects and even has the edge in some areas. Before the launch, rumours on the internet spoke of the Mate 10 Pro's "little brother". There is no question of a "little brother". "Equal partner" sounds better.
- The chipset of the two devices is identical: both have a Kirin 970 installed
- The graphics chip, a Mali-G72 MP12, is also identical
- Both devices have 6 GB of RAM installed
- Both devices are delivered with Android 8.0 Oreo with the Emui user interface in the new Emui 8.0 version
- The Mate 10 Pro has a slightly larger screen - 6 inches versus 5.99 inches on the v10
- The Mate 10 Pro is IP67 water resistant. The v10 has no IP certification known at the time of going to press
- The View 10 can be expanded with memory cards of up to 256 GB capacity. The Mate 10 Pro does not have a memory card slot
- The View 10 has two cameras at the back: one 16 megapixel, one 20 megapixel. The Mate 10 Pro is left behind with 12 and 20 megapixels
- The View 10 has a 3.5 millimetre headphone jack. The Mate 10 Pro does without it
- The 4000 mAh battery of the Mate 10 Pro is slightly larger than the 3750 of the View 10
The remaining differences lie in the details
If you're thinking about buying a Mate 10 Pro but aren't in a hurry, then it's worth taking a serious look at Honor. Because the many-phones-for-little-money strategy is also applied here. This is of course exciting for the market situation: Is Honor attacking the parent company? Is Huawei increasingly focussing on its subsidiary?
But above all: Why is the Honor counterpart coming just a few weeks after the Huawei flagship? All of this probably makes the View 10 the most exciting phone of the year in terms of market technology.
The expected grip
With this knowledge, video producer Manuel Wenk and I head into the demo hall after the press conference, which has caused quite a stir. Because not only does the Honor View 10 cost about half as much internationally as the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. We will see this on the Swiss market at the beginning of 2018. I'd love to give you more information, but all we know at the moment is that the phone will be available from January.
In the demo hall, I reach for the phone: it feels exactly as I expected. Like a Mate 10 Pro without a fingerprint scanner at the back and without stripes. The screen, the user interface, the feel. Everything just like the Mate 10 Pro. Like an old friend in blue, because Honor is proud of the blue colour.
In addition, Honor CEO George Zhao has promised a lot of software improvements. Testing these is difficult, however, as it requires a little more time than we are given in London.
A test in Zurich will follow.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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