Honor 10 review

Iridescent, incredible, imperfect Design and display Last year's Honor 9 featured a reflective pattern at the back that was made up of 15 layers of glass, and the Honor 10 outmatches that with its Aurora Glass design. The phone comes with a “nano-scale optical coating” with the Phantom Blue and Phantom Green color options that consists of 15 layers of shimmering color, and the result is breathtaking. The design alternates between various hues of blue and purple depending on how light strikes the back panel, and the iridescent pattern makes the Honor 10 stand out. If you're not a fan of the shimmering effect, the Honor 10 is also available in black and grey color options. The Honor 10 is perfectly proportioned, with curving sides that extend out to meet the mid-frame. It fits comfortably in-hand, and the rounded edges and curved back make it more ergonomic. The downside of a glass back — particularly one this glossy — is that it is prone to smudges, and the device is also very slippery. You'll find a 3.5mm jack, USB-C port, and a single speaker at the bottom, power and volume buttons on the right, and an IR blaster up top. Honor has switched to on-screen keys, but you do get an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor on the bottom bezel.

The sensor is housed underneath the glass, and while it's not quite as fast as some of the other, more traditional ones I've used this year, it does a great job authenticating your fingerprints when they're wet. The phone itself isn't rated for water resistance, however — more on that later. You won't find many phones that look better than the Honor 10. The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor itself doesn't pose any problems, but its placement is less than ideal. It's unclear if, as with the P20 series, Huawei required such a large chin below the display to accommodate electronics underneath, adding a front fingerprint sensor in the process, or if the fingerprint sensor was the cause of the chin. Either way, its presence nullifies the effect of the notch — which is designed to maximize screen space. Therefore, the notch doesn't add any value to the device, and it's easy to see that Honor included it just because everyone else is doing the same. It's the one aspect of the Honor 10 that I don't find myself onboard with, but it looks like Android manufacturers will continue to offer the notch for a few generations. Like the P20 Pro, there is an option to disable it in the software settings, which merely blacks the display parallel to the cutoff. As for the display itself, the 5.84-inch IPS LCD Full HD+ (2280x1080) panel is one of the best in this category. Colors are punchy, contrast levels are great, and it gets sufficiently bright that it wasn't an issue reading the contents of the screen under direct sunlight. Honor offers a wealth of customization options for the display: you can tweak the color mode (it's set to Vivid by default), and adjust the color temperature to warmer or cooler colors. Like most devices, the Honor 10 comes with a blue light filter, and you can set the intensity and schedule it to kick in from sunset to sunrise. You can also change the display scaling and font size options, and lower the screen resolution to HD+ (1520x720) to conserve battery life.