Huawei needs no introduction as far as the company goes. They are the 3rd largest OEM manufacturer for smartphones and the largest phone manufacturer in China. Huawei has its roots set up in many tech segments, but they have been a big player in smartphone markets for a while now. Huawei has had a slew of underwhelming releases since they showed up in the Indian markets, but they have started catching up to the competition finally as evident from the year 2016 and 2017. Huawei really pulled off all the stops between these years and 2017 was especially a great year from them as their new devices were greatly appreciated by the end users for their superb feature set and decent all-round performance and pricing.
Huawei recently revealed their Mate line of smartphones which was Huawei’s flagship for the year 2017, and now they have yet another device called the Huawei V10, which on paper seems like a more affordable Huawei Mate flagship with a smaller price tag. Let’s see what the new device offers, and how will it stack up to the competition, particularly the One Plus 5T considering that they will compete in similar price brackets.
Design and Display:
The Huawei V10 sounds like a car more than a phone when you first hear the name. The device has been already launched in some Asian markets but has yet to see an Indian release. Right out of the box, the Huawei is one hell of a looker. It carries forward the design of the Huawei Honor 8 and the Pro and has an all-Aluminium construction for the body. The device is loosely based on the Huawei Mate 10, and there are subtle design queues that show it. The device isn’t completely bezel-less, but it has really thin bezels that give the, otherwise massive 18:9 form factor, a compact feeling. The device tries to keep everything minimalistic, and you won’t actually feel that it’s a premium phone unless you hold it. The device is available in three colours Red, Black, Blue, and Gold and all of them appear really good no matter how you look at it. It also has a front fingerprint sensor (thank the lord above) which is more ergonomic position than the rear mounted sensor.
The Honor V10 has a 5.9 inch 1080p+ LTPS IPS display, which appears sharp and vibrant. The interesting thing to note here is that while the Mate series is broader, the V10 is taller, but not by a lot. The display is usual Huawei affair, vibrant, crisp and lovely to look at with their cartoonish UI.
Performance:
The Huawei V10 is powered by a Hisilicon Kirin 970 SoC which is an 8 core CPU based on ARM’s Little-big architecture. The SoC is made in-house by Huawei and is a very powerful chip for starters, and it also made an appearance in the Huawei Mate 10. The chip features 4x A73 cores @ 2.4GHz and 4x A53 Cores @ 1.8GHz. This chip is supplemented by an AI chip as a part of the NPU that Huawei has so heavily invested upon. The chip basically learns how you use the device and optimises the device such that you never face any slowdowns whatsoever. It is also supplemented by the Mali G72-MP12 GPU which is a 12 Core graphics chip, and as we already know from the Mate 10, it handles heavy loads like nothing else. The device also has 6GB of RAM to handle multitasking which is more than what you get on the Google Pixel.
Software:
This is one area where the phone needs an improvement. While the EMUI layout is mostly fine, it is very cartoonish in appearance and doesn’t feel as fluid as stock android or some other skins. Sure it has lots of options for customisation, but there are few UI quirks that need ironing out. Also, the UI is love or hate affair altogether. It also has face unlock and animated emoji’s just like the iPhone X (ahem!) all possible with the AI learning chip within the device.
Camera and Storage:
Huawei’s have always had good cameras in their flagship, and this one is no different. Like all current Huawei’s, this has two cameras at the rear, each with a different resolution. One of them is a 20MP shooter and the other is a 16MP shooter, both accompanied with an f/1.8 aperture. I suspect that the 20MP camera is the main shooter and the 16MP shooter is there for capturing the depth of field and so on. It also has a hybrid autofocus system and PDAF. The camera software is also capable of super sampling images, meaning that it can produce images with a much higher Megapixel than the camera is capable.
The front camera too is quite good and works in tandem with the AI chip to improve tasks like face tracking and face unlocking. This new AI implementation for Huawei seems like a step in the right direction after all.
Storage wise, the View 10 or the V10 can be had with either 4/64GB or 6/128GB capacities. And it can be expanded via the Hybrid sim slot if you somehow managed to fill up all that space.
Battery:
The V10 is accompanied by a non-removable Lithium Polymer 3750mAh battery. With a capacity that odd, I think Huawei crammed in all the capacity that they could for its size. It also supports fast charging, with a 4.5 Volt 5A charger included in the bundle which should make for some pretty decent charge up times as per Huawei.
Final Words:
The Huawei V10 is a really impressive device, but I wouldn’t get one. Don’t get me wrong it is a brilliantly priced well-rounded device with an impressive feature set and handsome looks. The thing is that the Huawei Mate 10 can be had for a little more and that is the best looking phone out there currently according to me. It also comes with the added advantage of Leica lenses for its cameras, and I think the Mate 10 is a better buy just for the appeal. But if you want a cheaper Mate 10, this is it. It has identical specifications to the Mate 10 and comes in a more palm-friendly form factor. The Huawei Honor V10 price in India will be around 38-40,000 when it launches which is steep considering its main rival the One Plus 5T can be had for 37,000 and has the best out of the box Android experience after the Pixel devices.
