Huawei has not been as prolific as its competing Chinese brands with new releases this season. Its sub-brand Honor, even more so. And this trend is likely to continue as Honor releases the Honor 10i from last year in Pakistan. Since it’s a pre-ban 2019 phone, it comes with native Google support (but at a higher price tag than you’d expect.)
Unlike the recently released Huawei 9a, the Honor 10 does run the Google services but both the hardware and software are the previous-generation. Huawei’s entry-level Kirin 710 chip from 2018 powers the Honor 10i, combined with an equally underpowered 3400 mAh battery that charges over micro USB with no fast charging support. Needless to say, it won’t be outperforming the recent budget phones with their 5000-6000 mAh batteries and modern processors.
You get plenty of storage and memory, however — 6GB of RAM for multitasking and 128GB of storage. In a similar vein, while the phone does offer Google’s ecosystem and apps, there is a trade-off. The Honor 10i runs the EMUI 9, based on the last-gen Android 9 with no promise for future OS upgrades.
The display of Honor 10i is a compact 6.21”, featuring a notch on top for the front camera. The latest addition to the Huawei price list produces a full HD+ resolution, filling a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 90% screen-to-body ratio. You can pick from two different gradients: Phantom Blue and Phantom Black.
We have a triple-camera on the back of Honor 10i, housed inside the classic tictac-shaped bump, and a 32MP selfie lens on the front. Honor 10i uses a 24MP f1.8 standard camera, an ultra-wide 120° sensor, and a 2MP depth lens for a software-generated bokeh.
The optics are serviceable on paper, but once again, it’s far from the results you’d get from the latest image-processing software. Case in point, the front-facing camera lacks the night mode feature.
It’s secured with a capacitive rear fingerprint scanner. Plus, 2D face recognition. The Honor 10i starts from a not-so-competitive Rs. 36,999.