One of the best budget Fitbit alternatives is about to get a new upgrade

• Honor Band 10 has been released in China
• The design looks very similar to the Band 9
• We don’t yet know when it’ll be released in other regions

If you like the idea of the band-style fitness tracker format popularised by Fitbit, but you want a cheaper model, we’ve got great news for you: the Honor Band 10 has appeared on Honor’s Chinese website, indicating it could soon be sold in other countries.

An alternative to the best Fitbit, the Honor Band series frequently appears on our list of the best cheap fitness trackers (although Huawei and Xiaomi have usurped its position for now) as perfectly good, functional fitness trackers with great battery life and deceptively large AMOLED displays.

The Honor Band 10 hasn’t reinvented the wheel, based on these initial listings: it retains the large 1.57-inch screen and buttonless design of its predecessor, the Honor Band 9.

Like its predecessor, it’s unlikely to be available in the US, but it’s on sale in China starting at 229 yuan, the equivalent of £23.50 / AU$49. It’s likely to be a little more expensive in other regions, to account for shipping costs, and a more premium version capable of NFC payments seems to be an option on the Honor website.

NFC questions

However, Honor watches struggle to use their NFC capabilities due to incompatibility with Google Wallet and Apple Pay, even though Honor phones support Google Wallet.

It remains to be seen whether Honor Band 10 suffers the same fate, but it’s very likely, leaving the NFC version to be virtually unusable outside of China, unless you use an Honor phone’s proprietary digital wallet service.

Nevertheless, expect heart rate, steps, sleep tracking, workout tracking, stress management, notification functionalities, and more, all wrapped up in an attractive-looking (and even more attractively-priced) total package.

It won’t have some of the advanced features we see on Fitbits and the best Garmin watches, but for a cheap-and-cheerful fitness tracker, it looks great. Stay tuned for a full review when it hits shelves outside of China.

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