Paul Briden 19/04/2018 - 2:17pm

The Honor 10 is now official

Huawei just launched the latest model in its Honor sub-brand, the hotly rumoured and anticipated Honor 10. Distinct from the brand's lead model, the Honor View 10, the Honor 10 is intended as a (slightly) more affordable edition which implements some of the same technology and features.

The display is a 5.8in IPS LCD setup; one of those "controversial" ones with a notch at the top (because apparently only Apple is allowed to use those) and features a wide 19:9 aspect ratio. It has a 1080 x 2280p resolution at 432ppi and, similar to earlier Huawei edge-to-edge models has managed to squeeze a thin fingerprint scanner in just below the screen.

In terms of internal hardware, we're looking at the same HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor - Huawei's own brand - used in the Huawei P20 and Huawei Mate 10. Here it's coupled with a hefty 6GB of RAM and 64GB of on-board storage, but there's no microSD slot for expansion.

Battery power comes from a 3,400 mAh cell with fast charge support - up to 50% in just shy of half and hour -  and naturally this is charged via USB Type-C. Contrary to some earlier rumours, the Honor 10 does indeed have a 3.5mm headphone jack in the base plate, paired with an AK4376A 32-bit DAC and Huawei Histen audio tech.

The software package is Android 8.1 Oreo with Huawei's Emotion UI, aka EMUI 8.1, on top.

The rear camera is a dual-sensor setup with both a 16MP f/1.8 colour sensor and 23MP monochrome sensor and it's capable of 4K video recording, while the front-facing selfie-cam is a 24MP f/2.0 fixed-focus arrangement with 1080p video. The Honor 10 features Huawei's AI-driven camera capabilities seen on other recent flagships, including scene recognition.

Design-wise the Honor 10 is similar to other Huawei and Honor phones, and Huawei has brought across the irridescent "Twilight" style finish from the Huawei P20 series with a couple of colour shifting options here. These are dubbed Mirage Purple, Mirage Blue, but there are also standard black and grey options if this bling isn't your bag.

The phones are already on pre-order in China. We're awaiting to hear of pricing and availability for Europe, the UK, and the US amongst other markets.