The year 2018 is almost upon us, and the phrase "artificial intelligence for your smartphone" will only be heard more often. The hype around AI's potential for smartphones will only grow louder this year. While Apple, Google tend to grab the limelight on AI when it comes to mobiles, Huawei’s Honor brand is also trying to highlight this aspect of their phones. Honor View 10 is the new device from the company, and it will officially go on sale in India from January 8, 2018. The flagship phone, which will be Honor’s first device for India in 2018 comes with the promise of AI and is powered by the company's own Kirin 970 processor with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). We have had the chance to use the Honor View 10 ahead of the launch and here’s our first impression of the phone. Honor View 10 Design, Display Honor View 10 is the global name for the Honor V10 that was launched in China. The biggest design change is the display, which now comes with the customary 18:9 aspect ratio. Honor View 10 sports a 5.99-inch Full HD+ display with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels, which is actually lower than the Honor 8 Pro, that had a 2K resolution. So yes, with Honor View 10 one is getting a wider, taller display even though the company has limited the resolution to 1080p. For a flagship phone launching in 2018, Honor could have gone for a higher resolution. Still the display by itself is very bright and colour reproduction is accurate for most part. Honor 10 View’s overall design is similar to the Honor 8 Pro, if one ignores the taller display on the front. Honor has managed to squeeze in the fingerprint scanner on the front as well, making the pill-shaped home button a lot slimmer. On the back, the antenna bands are closer to the top and bottom part of the phone, though not entirely muted. The dual rear camera setup is tucked away in one corner. However, both cameras jut out quite prominently and might require some extra care from the user. The blue colour version of the Honor View 10 looks stylish, but the metal body is prone to picking up smudges quite quickly. A cover is a must to protect this display and the overall body from minor dents. Still for a 6-inch phone, this is fairly light and easy to use with one-hand. Honor View 10 Performance, Specification, Software Coming to the specifications of Honor View 10, it is powered by the company’s own Kirin 970 processor with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). In simple terms, this means Kirin 970 has a dedicated unit to carry out the more complex, computing heavy tasks related to artificial intelligence that the phone claims to offer. For starters, Honor has tied up with Microsoft to allow instant translation for text by pointing the camera at it. This feature will appear on the phone after an OTA update, but this is supposed to be AI driven and works offline as well. The camera also comes with AR feature for adding live stickers to a person’s face and will remind one of Snapchat or Instagram. Of course, players like Google, Samsung etc. are all adding such ‘AR’ elements to the camera apps on their phone. Huawei has also added a Facial Recognition feature, which interestingly does not unlock the phone yet. All it does is hide the content of your notifications, which are only shown once your face is detected. For unlocking, the phone will prompt you to use the fingerprint scanner. This Facial ID is also supposedly driven by AI and the company also plans to add something similar to Animoji on the iPhone X. I’m yet to find this feature on the Honor View 10. AI element aside, Honor View 10 has 6GB RAM and 128GB storage (expandable to 256GB) coupled with Android Oreo 8.0 on EMUI 8.0 from the company. Once again, Honor has packed this with some games apps, tool apps, which I feel are entirely unnecessary, especially on a flagship level phone. Honor View 10 Camera, Battery Coming to the camera, Honor View 10 has a 16MP+20MP sensor combination with the option to shoot in RAW mode, wide aperture, portrait mode, etc. Honor is one of the first companies to have showcased devices with dual rear cameras across price points and they have done a considerably better job than other players in implementing this technology. The Honor View 10’s camera seems at par with the previous flagship devices from the company. Pictures taken inside are bright with enough detail. However, the portrait mode is tricky and in some situations I feel the background is still in focus and the camera's software is struggling with edges around the object We will have more on the camera’s low-light performance, etc in our full review. On the battery front, Honor View 10 gets a 3,750mAh one. We are yet to run the full PCMark test, etc, but with just video consumption it has been lasting for day on average. Again this is with limited usage, so more on this in our full review. Honor View 10: Early conclusion Honor View 10 is another ‘flagship’ level phone from the company, which is still struggling to climb up the list of top vendors in the Indian market. However, in the global market, Huawei and Honor have managed to establish themselves, and the company is among the top five smartphone vendors, just below Samsung and Apple. The Honor View 10 is the first flagship for 2018 and we are likely to see a lot more phones from the company for the coming year, especially if it wants to improve the market share in India. Honor View 10 has a price of 499 Euros, which means in India it could be around Rs 37,000 plus, though the company has not announced this yet. If this is priced under Rs 35,000, it could prove to be a serious challenger to options like OnePlus 5T, Mi Mix 2 and others.
