Honor View 10 review

A high-end, mid-price phone to take on the OnePlus 5T

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Verdict

Phones like the Honor View 10 are more important than ever, now the most expensive top-end alternatives can cost hundreds of pounds/dollars more. 

If you'd told us we'd be spending £899/AU$1,599 (around$1,150) on a Huawei phone like the Mate 20 Pro three or four years ago, we might not have believed you.

The View 10's much lower price makes it a great choice for those after high-end power and design for less money.

You don't quite get as good a camera as the OnePlus 5T (let alone the newer OnePlus 6T) or the £700/$800-plus crowd, but it too is good and fun to use, and just about every other aspect of the phone is good or great.

Watch our video verdict below!

Who's this for?

The Honor View 10 is for those after a phone with high-end hardware but not the kind of price top-end phones from Samsung and Apple land at these days. Like the OnePlus 6T, it's a great deal.

Should you buy it?

There are just a couple of reasons to steer away from the Honor View 10: the even more affordable Honor 9 and the excellent OnePlus 6T.

OnePlus's phone offers a slightly better camera and clever tricks like an in-screen fingerprint scanner. However, the View 10 is a fair bit cheaper. So pick your priorities and check out the deals at your favorite network.

Great as the Honor View 10 is there are also a number of impressive alternatives, such as the following.

OnePlus 6T

The OnePlus 5T was the Honor View 10's main rival at launch, but we've now had the OnePlus 6T, which is a substantial upgrade yet still very affordable compared to most flagships.

It is, admittedly, more expensive than the View 10, but for the money you get a newer, faster chipset, an in-screen fingerprint scanner and a very powerful dual-lens camera. If you can stretch to it it's the better choice.

Read our in-depth OnePlus 6T review

Honor 10

Launched a few months after the Honor View 10, the Honor 10 takes a similar approach, packing in flagship specs and features at a mid-range price.

The two phones have the same chipset and storage, a similar screen resolution and similarly capable dual-lens cameras. They're also a similar price, though you might be able to find the Honor 10 for ever so slightly less than the Honor View 10.

The main differences are that the View 10 has a slightly larger screen, a microSD card slot and a bigger battery, while the Honor 10 has a snazzier design.

Read our in-depth Honor 10 review

Huawei Mate 10

Honor is essentially part of Huawei, but the Mate 10 is the closest phone with Huawei branding, and it has a sharper screen and stabilized camera. It also has less storage and costs more.

Is it worth it? Not if you care how much phone you get per pound/dollar above most other concerns.

Read our in-depth Huawei Mate 10 review

HTC U Play

Proving just how special the Honor View 10 is, the HTC U Play is slightly cheaper than the Honor but isn’t close in terms of specs. It has a more mid-range CPU and a less dynamic screen design. It’s smaller, so will have its fans. But the Honor is the clear value winner.

Read our in-depth HTC U Play review

First reviewed: January 2018

Andrew Williams

Andrew is a freelance journalist and has been writing and editing for some of the UK's top tech and lifestyle publications including TrustedReviews, Stuff, T3, TechRadar, Lifehacker and others.