Category Archives: mobile

android, mobile, tech

Android: a lack of software to take advantage of high-end mobiles?

I’ve got an pre-release version of Oppo’s Find X2 smartphone for review. It’s a great device and with an outstanding camera. I reviewed it for The Register here.

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In preparing the review I asked a few people what they would like in a high-end android mobile. Things like an excellent display, fast performance, strong camera and plenty of storage all get mentioned, but then I see people spending most of their time on social media and wonder if even mid-range mobiles are perfectly good enough for the average user. 5G has huge potential (and the Find X2 is a 5G device), but coverage is limited, you will pay the operator quite a bit more, and arguably it needs to reach a tipping point where enough people have it that we can design new applications to take advantage; until then, it’s nice to have faster internet but not game-changing.

Notably missing from our Find X2 press briefing was any demonstration along the lines of “you should see the amazing performance on application x”, where application x is something familiar rather than a benchmark. Gaming is one area where faster hardware does make a difference, having said which, Android and iOS still tend to be the home for casual games and a mobile platform can never compete with the monster GPUs you can plug into a desktop or even a gaming laptop. Unless you stream the games, and shift the need for intensive compute power into the cloud.

Local storage? Handy for a video library to play on a train or flight, or for audiophiles to store huge files full of arguably inaudible data, but for most of us cloud storage makes a local storage less important once it is enough. What is enough? Probably less than the 512GB on the Find X2. It is nice to have, say for capturing 4K video without anxiety, but a lot of people simply do not need to think about how much storage they have once it is beyond 128GB or so.

Photography remains a key feature and one where local compute power does make a big difference – since mobile cameras are as much about digital processing as about optics. I would argue though that one of the reasons vendors have got carried away with multiple lenses and amazing capabilities in mobile cameras is that it remains an area where useful improvements are attainable – perhaps beyond the importance of these improvements to most users. As with gaming, there is a problem in that actual cameras will always be preferable to the camera in a smartphone, for the best results, though the great thing about smartphones is that they are always in your pocket.

The question then: could there be another wave of software that will make the hardware on a modern high-end smartphone more desirable?

Another way of putting is is that it is software, not hardware, that will radically improve smartphones, which explains the lack of excitement around today’s big releases.

gadgets, mobile, oppo, tech

Just ahead of the launch of Oppo Reno 2, here is a look at Oppo Reno 10x Zoom

Oppo will launch Reno 2 on 16th October, under the heading “Make the world your studio”. Oppo mobiles have been making a an impression as an example of high quality technology at a price a bit less than you would pay for a Samsung or a Sony – similar in that respect to Huawei, though currently without the challenge Huawei faces in trying to market Android devices without Google Play services.

Oppo is a brand of BBK Electronics Corp, a Chinese company based in Chang’an, Dongguan. Other BBK Electronics brands include OnePlus and Vivo. If you combine the market share of all these brands, it is in the top four globally.

My first encounter with the Reno brand was in May this year when I attended the launch of the Reno 10x Zoom and the Reno 5G (essentially the 10x Zoom with 5G support) in London. Unfortunately I was not able to borrow a device for review until recently; however I have been using a 10x Zoom for the last couple of weeks and found it pretty interesting.

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First impression: this is a large device. It measures 7.72 x 16.2 x 0.93cm and weighs about 215g. The AMOLED screen diagonal is 16.9cm and the resolution 2340 x 1080 pixels.

Second impression: it takes amazing pictures. To me, this is not just a matter of specification. I am not a professional photographer, but do take thousands of photos for work. Unfortunately I don’t have an iPhone 11, Samsung Galaxy Note 10 to test against. The mobile I’ve actually been using of late is the Honor 10 AI, a year older and considerably cheaper than the Reno but with a decent camera. I present the below snaps not as a fair comparison but to show how the Reno 10x Zoom compares to a more ordinary smartphone camera.

Here is a random pic of some flowers taken with the Honor 10 AI (left) and the Reno 10x Zoom (right):

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Not too much in it? Try zooming in on some detail (same pic, cropped):

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The Reno 10x Zoom also, believe it not, has a zoom feature. Here is a detail from my snap of an old coin at 4.9x, hand-held, no tripod.

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There is something curious about this. Despite the name, the Reno has 5x optical zoom, with 10x and more (in fact up to 60x) available through digital processing. You soon learn that the quality is best when using the optical zoom alone; there is a noticeable change when you exceed 5x and not a good one.

The image stabilisation seems excellent.

The UI for this is therefore unfortunate. The way it works is that when you open the camera a small 1x button appears in the image. Tap it, and it goes to 2x.Tap again for 6x, and again for 10x. If you want other settings you either use pinch and zoom, or press and hold on the button whereupon a scale appears. Since there is a drop-off in quality after 5x, it would make more sense for the tap to give this setting.

There are four camera lenses on the Reno. On the rear, a 48MP f/1.7 wide, a 13MP f/2.4 telephoto, and an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide. The telephoto lens has a periscope design (like Huawei’s P30 Pro), meaning that the lens extends along with the length of the phone internally, using a prism to bend the light, so that the lens can be longer than a thin smartphone normally allows.

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There is also a small bump (surrounded by green in the pic below) which is a thoughtful feature to protect the lenses if the device is placed on a flat surface.

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On the front is a 16MP f/2.0 sensor which also gives great results, excellent for selfies or video conferencing. The notable feature here is that it is hinged and when not in use, slides into the body of the camera. This avoids having a notch. Nice feature.

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ColorOS and special features

We might wish that vendors just use stock Android but they prefer to customize it, probably in the hope that customers, once having learned a particular flavour of Android, will be reluctant to switch.

The Oppo variant is called ColorOS. One good thing about it is that you can download a manual which is currently 335pp. It is not specific to the Reno 10x Zoom and some things are wrong (it references a non-existent headphone jack, for example), but it helps if you want to understand the details of the system. You might not otherwise know, for example, that there is a setting which lets you open the camera by drawing an O gesture on the lock screen.

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How many customers will find and read this manual? My hunch is relatively few. Most people get a new smartphone, transfer their favourite apps, tap around a bit to work out how to set a few things as they want them, and then do not worry.

If you have a 10x, I particularly recommend reading the section on the camera as you will want to understand each feature and how to operate it.

The Reno 10x does have quite a few smart features. Another worth noting is “Auto answer when phone is near ear”. You can also have it so that it will automatically switch from speaker to receiver when you hold the phone to your ear.

Face unlock is supported but you are not walked through setting this up automatically. You are prompted to enrol a fingerprint though. The fingerprint sensor is under glass on the front – I prefer them on the rear – but there is a nice feature where the fingerprint area glows when you pick up the device. It works but it is not brilliant if conditions are sub-optimal, for example with a damp hand.

The Reno 10x Zoom supports split screen mode via a three-finger gesture. With a large high-resolution screen this may be useful. Here is Microsoft Teams (Left) with a web browser (Right).

Screenshot_2019-10-13-12-20-18-33_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643

Settings – Smart services includes Riding mode, designed for cycling, which will disable all notifications except whitelisted calls.

VOOC (Voltage Open Loop Multistep Constant-current Charging) is Oppo’s fast charging technology.

Dolby Atmos audio is included and there are stereo speakers. Sound from these is nothing special, but sound from the bundled earbuds is excellent.

Quick conclusions

A Reno 10x Zoom is not a cheap smartphone, but it does cost less than the latest flagship devices from Apple or Samsung. If you are like me and need a great camera, it strikes me as a good choice. If you do not care much about the camera, look elsewhere.

Things I especially like:

  • Excellent camera
  • No notch
  • Great audio quality though supplied earbuds
  • Thoughtful design and high quality build

There are a few things against it though:

  • Relatively bulky
  • No wireless charging
  • No headphone jack (less important now that wireless earbuds are common)

Spec summary

OS: Android 9 with ColorOS 6

Screen: AMOLED 6.6″ 2340 x 1080 at 387 ppi

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SM8150 , 8 Core Kryo 485 2.85 GHz

Integrated GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 640

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 256GB

Dual SIM: Yes – 2 x Nano SIM or SIM + Micro SD

NFC: Yes

Sensors: Geomagnetic, Light, Proximity, Accelerometer, Gyro, Laser focus, dual-band GPS

WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz/5GHz, hotspot support

Bluetooth: 5.0

Connections: USB Type-C with OTG support.

Size and weight: 162 mm x 77.2 mm  x 9.3 mm, 215g

Battery: 4065 mAh. No wireless charging.

Fingerprint sensor: Front, under glass

Face unlock: Yes

Rear camera: Rear: 48MP + 8MP + 13MP

Front camera: 16MP

microsoft, mobile, software development, tech

The end of the Edge browser engine. Another pivotal moment in Microsoft’s history

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Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore has announced that future versions of its Edge web browser will be built on Chromium. Chromium is an open source browser project originated by Google, which uses it for Chrome. The browser engine is Blink, which was forked from WebKit in April 2013.

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Belfiore does not specify what will happen to Chakra, the JavaScript engine used by Edge, but it seems likely that future versions of Edge will use the Chrome V8 engine instead.

There is plenty of logic behind the move. The immediate benefit to Microsoft in having its own browser engine is rather small. Chromium-based Edge will still have Microsoft’s branding and can still have unique features. It opens an easy route to cross-platform Edge, not only for Android, but also for MacOS and potentially Linux. It will improve web compatibility because all web developers know their stuff has to run properly in Chrome.

This is still a remarkable moment. The technology behind Edge goes right back to Trident, the Internet Explorer engine introduced in 1997. In the Nineties, winning the browser wars was seen as crucial to the future of the company, as Microsoft feared that users working mostly in the browser would no longer be hooked to Windows.

Today those fears have somewhat come to pass; and Windows does indeed face a threat, especially from Chrome OS for laptops, and of course from iOS and Android on mobile, though it turns out that internet-connected apps are just as important. Since Microsoft is not doing too well with its app store either, there are challenges ahead for Microsoft’s desktop operating system.

The difference is that today Microsoft cares more about its cloud platform. Replacing a Windows-only building block with a cross-platform one is therefore strategically more valuable than the opportunity to make Edge a key attraction of Windows, which was in any case unsuccessful.

The downside though (and it is a big one) is that the disappearance of the Edge engine means there is only Mozilla’s Gecko (used by Firefox), and WebKit, used by Apple’s Safari browser, remaining as mainstream alternatives to Chromium. Browser monoculture is drawing closer then, though the use of open source lessens the risk that any one company (it would be Google in this instance) will be able to take advantage.

Internet Explorer was an unhealthy monoculture during its years of domination, oddly not because of all its hooks to Windows, but because Microsoft stagnated its development in order to promote its Windows-based application platform (at least, that is my interpretation of what happened).

Let me add that this is a sad moment for the Edge team. I like Edge and there was lots of good work done to make it an excellent web browser.

apple, honor, huawei, iphone, mobile, tech

Another good quarter for Apple, but Huawei growth and Samsung decline is the real Smartphone story

Apple has reported its “best June quarter ever” with revenue up 17% year on year. iPhone unit sales were flat, but higher average prices bumped up revenue.

More significant though is the rise of Huawei, now number two in unit sales after Samsung and ahead of Apple. Here are the latest unit sales for the top ten vendors according to preliminary figures from IHS Markit:

Global smartphone shipments by OEM (million units)

Rank

Company

Q2’18

Market Share

YoY

Q1’18

Q2’17

1

Samsung

70.8

20.6%

-10.8%

78.0

79.4

2

Huawei

54.2

15.7%

41.0%

39.3

38.5

3

Apple

41.3

12.0%

0.7%

52.2

41.0

4

Xiaomi

33.7

9.8%

45.6%

28.4

23.2

5

Oppo

31.9

9.3%

4.5%

25.9

30.5

6

Vivo

28.6

8.3%

20.3%

21.2

23.8

7

LG

11.2

3.3%

-15.5%

11.3

13.3

8

Motorola

10.0

2.9%

41.5%

8.7

7.1

Others

62.8

18.1%

-33.3%

80.4

94.2

Total

344.6

100.0%

-1.8%

345.5

350.9

Source: IHS Markit, Smartphone Intelligence Service, 2018.

What is notable is that the number one vendor Samsung suffered a 10% year on year decline, but Huawei grew units by an amazing 41% to become number two ahead of Apple, by volume.

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Huawei P20 Pro

Note that Apple has not declined as such. This is about Huawei winning sales both from Samsung and from other vendors. If the trend continues, Huawei is on track to overtake Samsung in another few quarters.

Samsung remains the premium Android brand though it has struggled to come up with compelling reasons to keep upgrading its high end devices. A new Galaxy Note is on the way and may be the distinctive new model that the company needs.

That said, it will take more than that to disrupt Huawei. In one sense, there is nothing very complicated about Huawei’s success: it has delivered devices both via its Huawei and Honor brands that are well made and which offer the best value proposition on the market. That does not make them the best in absolute terms (I would rather have a Samsung), but that is not the most important thing. Chatting to a Three salesperson in a shop recently confirmed this: they sell more Huawei/Honor than any other brand, because customers look at what they get for their money.

It is logical that as Android devices have become thoroughly commoditised, that Chinese vendors can achieve better value than their competition thanks to the cost-effective manufacturing capacity available in their own country.

Xiaomi, another Chinese company, confirms this trend, with its units up over 45%, growing faster than Huawei.

android, ios, mobile, software development, tech

Gartner on Mobile App Development Platforms: Kony, Mendix, Microsoft, Oracle and Outsystems the winners

Gartner has published a paper and Magic Quadrant on Mobile App Development Platforms (MDAPs), which you can read for free thanks to Progress, pleased to be named as a “Visionary”, and probably from other sources.

According to Gartner, an MDAP has three key characteristics:

  • Cross-platform front-end development tools
  • Back-end services that can be used by diverse clients, not just the vendor’s proprietary tools.
  • Flexibility to support public and internal deployments

Five vendors ranked in the sought-after “Leaders” category. These are:

  • Kony, which offers Kony Visualizer for building clients, Kony Fabric for back-end services, and Kony Nitro Engine, a kind of cross-platform runtime based on Apache Cordova .
  • Mendix, which has visual development and modeling tools and multi-cloud, containerised deployment of back-end services
  • Microsoft, which has Xamarin cross-platform development, Azure cloud services, and PowerApps for low-code development
  • Oracle, which has Oracle Mobile Cloud Enterprise including JavaScript Extension Toolkit and deployment via Apache Cordova
  • Outsystems, a low-code platform which has the Silk UI Framework and a visual modeling language, and hybrid deployment via Apache Cordova

Of course there are plenty of other vendors covered in the report. Further, because this is about end-to-end platforms, some strong cross-platform development tools do not feature at all.

A few observations. One is the prominence of Apache Cordova in these platforms. Personally I have lost enthusiasm for Cordova, now that there are several other options (such as Xamarin or Flutter) for building native code apps, which I feel deliver a better user experience, other things being equal (which they never are).

With regard to Microsoft, Gartner notes the disconnect between PowerApps and Xamarin, different approaches to application development which have little in common other than that both can be used with Azure back-end services.

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Microsoft PowerApps

I found the report helpful for its insight into which MDAP vendors are successfully pitching their platform to enterprise customers. What it lacks is much sense of which platforms offer the best developer experience, or the best technical capability when it comes to solving those unexpected problems that inevitably crop up in the middle of your development effort and take a disproportionate amount of time and effort to solve.

development, mobile, software development, tech, visual studio, windows

RemObjects Elements: mix and match languages and platforms as you like

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The world of software development has changed profoundly in the last decade or so. Once it was a matter of mainly desktop Windows development for the client, mainly Java for server-based applications with web or Windows clients. Then came mobile and cloud – the iPhone SDK was released in March 2008, kicking off a new wave of mobile applications, while Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) came out of beta in October 2008. Microsoft tussled within itself about what to do with Windows Mobile and ended up ceding the entire market to Android and iOS.

The consequence of these changes is that business developers who once happily developed Windows desktop applications have had to diversify, as their customers demand applications for mobile and web as well. The PC market has not gone away, so there has been growing interest in both cross-platform development and in how to port Windows code to other platforms.

Embarcadero took Delphi, a favourite development tool based on an Object Pascal compiler, down a cross-platform path but not to the satisfaction of all Delphi developers, some of whom looked for other ways to transition to the new world.

Founded in 2002, RemObjects had a project called Chrome, which compiled Delphi’s Object Pascal to .NET executables. This product was later rebranded Oxygene. For a while Embarcadero bundled a version of this with Delphi, calling it Prism, after abandoning its own .NET compilation tools.

The partnership with Embarcadero ended, but RemObjects pressed on, adding language features to its flavour of Object Pascal and adding support for Mac OS X, iPhone and Java.

In February 2015 the company was an early adopter of Apple’s Swift language, introducing a Swift compiler called Silver that targets Android, .NET and native Mac OS X executables.

The company now offers a remarkable set of products for developers who want to target new platforms but in a familiar language:

  • Oxygene: Object Pascal
  • Silver: Swift 3 (and most of Swift 4)
  • Hydrogene: C# 7
  • Iodine: Java 8

Each language can import APIs from the others, and compile to all the platforms – well, there are exceptions, but this is the general approach.

More precisely, RemObjects defines four target platforms:

  • Echoes: .NET and .NET Core including ASP.NET and Mono
  • Cooper: Java and Android
  • Toffee: Mac, iOS, tvOS
  • Island: CPU native and WebAssembly

So if you fancy writing a WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) application in Java, you can:

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As you may spot from the above screenshot, the RemObjects tools use Visual Studio as the IDE. This is a limitation for Mac developers, so the company also developed a Mac IDE called Fire, and now a Windows IDE called Water (in preview) for those who dislike the Visual Studio dependency.

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Important to note: RemObjects does not address the problem of cross-platform user interfaces. In this respect it is similar to the approach taken by Xamarin before that company came up with the idea of Xamarin Forms. So this is about sharing non-visual code and libraries, not cross-platform GUI (Graphical User Interface). If you are targeting Cocoa, you can use Apple’s Interface Builder to design your user interface, for example.

Of course WebAssembly and HTML is an interesting option in this respect.

A notable absentee from the list of RemObjects targets is UWP (Universal Windows Platform), a shame given the importance Microsoft still attaches to this.

RemObjects is mainly focused  on languages and compilers rather than libraries and frameworks. The idea is that you use the existing libraries and frameworks that are native to the platform you are targeting. This is a smart approach for a small company that does not wish to reinvent the wheel.

That said, there is a separate product called Data Abstract which is a multi-tier database framework.

These are interesting products, but as a journalist I have struggled to give them much coverage, because of their specialist nature and also the demands on my time as someone who prefers to try things out rather than simply relay news from press releases. I also appreciate that the above information is sketchy and encourage you to check out the website if these tools pique your interest.

android, mobile, software development, tech, xamarin

Using the Xamarin WebView for programmatic display of HTML content

Xamarin Forms is a key framework for C# and .NET developers since it lets you target Android, iOS and to some extent Windows (UWP and therefore Windows 10 only) with maximum code reuse. I have a longstanding interest in embedded web browser controls and was glad to see that Xamarin Forms supports a capable WebView control. The WebView wraps Chrome on Android, Safari on iOS, and Edge on UWP.

I did a quick hands-on. In this example (running in the Android emulator on Hyper-V, of course), the HTML is generated programmatically and the CSS loaded from local storage. I also added some script to show the User Agent string that identifies the browser.

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There are a few things needed to make this work. Some XAML to put the WebView on a page. Then to load content into the WebView you need an HTMLWebViewSource object. If you are loading external files, you must set the BaseUrl property of this object as well as the HTML itself. The BaseUrl tells the control where to look for files that have a relative address. This varies according to the target platform, so you use the Xamarin Forms Dependency Service to set it correctly for each platform.

In Visual Studio, you place the files you want to load in the appropriate folder for each platform. For Android, this is the Assets folder.

That is about all there is to it. As you can see from the above screenshot, I wrote very little code.

The WebView control can also display PDF documents. Finally, there is an EvaluateJavaScriptAsync method that lets you call JavaScript in a WebView and read the results from C#.

This JavaScript bridge is a workaround for the most obvious missing feature, that you cannot directly read the HTML content from the WebView. If this is a full programmatic solution and you generate all the HTML yourself, you can add JavaScript to do what you want. If the user is allowed to navigate anywhere on the web, you cannot easily grab the HTML; but this could be a good thing, in case the user entered a password or is viewing confidential data. You can grab the destination URL from the Navigating event and read it separately if necessary. But the intent of the control is to let you create rich applications that take advantage of the browser’s ability to render content, not to invade a user’s privacy by tracking their web browsing.

android, microsoft, mobile, Notes from the field, tech, windows

Configuring the Android emulator for Hyper-V

Great news that the Android emulator now supports Hyper-V, but how do you enable it?

Pretty simple. First, you have to be running at least Windows 10 1803 (April 2018 update). Then, go into Control Panel – Programs – Turn Windows Features on and off and enabled both Hyper-V and the Windows Hypervisor Platform:

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Note: this is not the same as just enabling Hyper-V. The Windows Hypervisor Platform, or WHPX, is an API for Hyper-V. Read about it here.

Reboot if necessary and run the emulator.

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TroubleshootIng? Try running the emulator from the command line.

emulator -list-avds

will list your AVDs.

emulator @avdname -qemu -enable-whpx

will run the AVD called avdname using WHPX (Windows Hypervisor Platform). If it fails, you may get a helpful error message.

Note: If you get a Qt library not found error, use the full path to the emulator executable. This should be the one in the emulator folder, not the one in the tools folder. The full command is:

[path-to-android-sdk]\emulator\emulator @[avdname] -qemu -enable-whpx

You can also use the emulator from Visual Studio, though you need Visual Studio 2017 version 15.8 Preview 1 or higher with the Xamarin tools installed. That said, I had some success with starting the Hyper-V emulator separately (use the command above), then using it with a Xamarin project in Visual Studio 15.7.5.

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apple, gadgets, honor, microsoft, mobile

On Face Unlock

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Face unlock is a common feature on premium (and even mid-range) devices today. Notable examples are Apple with the iPhone X, Microsoft with Windows Hello (when fully implemented with a depth-sensing camera like Intel RealSense), and on Android phones including Samsung Galaxy S9, OnePlus 6, Huawei P20 and Honor View 10 and Honor 10 AI

I’ve been trying the Honor 10 AI and naturally enabled the Face Unlock, passing warnings that it was less secure than a PIN or password. Why less secure? It is not stated, but a typical issue is being able to log in with a picture of the normal user (this would not work with Microsoft Hello).

Security is an issue, but I was also interested in how desirable this is as a feature. So far I am not convinced. Technically it works reasonably well. It is not 100% effective, especially in either bright sunlight or dim light, but most of the time it successfully unlocks the Honor phone. It is all the more impressive because I sometimes wear glasses, and it works whether or not I am wearing them.

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I enjoyed face unlock at first, since it removes a bit of friction in day to day use. Then I came across annoyances. Sometimes the face recognition takes longer than a PIN, if the lighting conditions are not optimal, and occasionally it fails. It has introduced a touch of uncertainty to the unlock process, whereas the PIN is fully reliable and controllable. I tried the optional “wake on pick up” feature and again had a mixed experience; sometimes the the phone would light up and unlock when I did not need it.

Conclusion? It is something I can easily live without so a low priority when choosing a new phone. Whereas fingerprint unlock, now that the technology has matured to the point of high reliability, is something I still enjoy.

android, gadgets, hardware, honor, mobile, reviews, tech

Honor 10 AI smartphone launched in London, and here are my first impressions

The Honor 10 “AI” has been launched in London, and is on sale now either on contract with Three (exclusively), or unlocked from major retailers. Price is from £31 pay monthly (free handset), or SIM-free at £399.99.

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Why would you buy an Honor 10? Mainly because it is a high-end phone at a competitive price, especially if photography is important to you. As far as I can tell, Honor (which is a brand of Huawei) offers the best value of any major smartphone brand.

How is the Honor brand differentiated from Huawei? When I first came across the brand, it was focused on a cost-conscious, fashion-conscious youth market, and direct selling rather than a big high street presence. It is a consumer brand whereas Huawei is business and consumer. At the London launch, the consumer focus is still evident, but I got the impression that the company is broadening its reach, and the deal with Three and sale through other major retailers shows that Honor does now want to be on the high street.

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What follows is a quick first impression. At the launch, Honor made a big deal of the phone’s multi-layer glass body, which gives a 3D radiant effect as you view the rear of the phone. I quite like the design but in this respect it is not really all that different from the glass body of the (excellent) Honor 8, launched in 2016. I also wonder how often it will end up hidden by a case. The Honor 10 AI is supplied with a transparent gel case, and even this spoils the effect somewhat.

The display is great through, bright and high resolution. Reflectivity is a problem, but that is true of most phones. Notable is that by default there is a notch at the top around the front camera, but that you can disable this in settings. I think the notch (on this or any phone) is an ugly feature and was quick to disable it. Unfortunately screenshots do not show the notch so you will have to make do with my snaps from another phone:

With notch:

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Without notch:

image

The camera specs are outstanding, with dual rear lens 24MP + 16MP, and 24MP front. At the launch at least half the presentation was devoted to the photography, and in particular the “AI” feature. The Honor 10 has an NPU (Neural Processing Unit), which is hardware acceleration for processes involved in image recognition. All smartphone cameras do a ton of work in software to optimize images, but the Honor 10 should be faster and use less power than most rivals thanks to the NPU. The AI works in several ways. If it recognises the photo as one of around 500 “scenarios”, it will optimize for that scenario. At a detail level, image recognition will segment a picture into objects it recognises, such as sky, buildings, people and so on, and optimize accordingly. For example, people get high priority, and especially the person who is the subject of a portrait. It will also segment the image of a person into hair, eyes, mouth and so on, for further optimisation.

What is optimisation? This is the key question. One of the AI effects is bokeh (blurring the background) which can be a nice way to make a portrait. On the other hand, if you take a picture of someone with the Niagara Falls in the background, do you really want it blurred to streaks of grey so that the picture might have been taken anywhere? It is a problem, and sometimes the AI will make your picture worse. I am reserving judgment on this, but will do another post on the subject after more hands-on.

Of course you can disable the AI, and in the Pro camera mode you can capture RAW images, so this is a strong mobile for photography even if you do not like the AI aspect. I have taken a few snaps and been impressed with the clarity and detail.

24MP for the front camera is exceptional so if selfies are your thing this is a good choice.

You have various options for unlocking the device: PIN, password, pattern swipe, fingerprint, proximity of Bluetooth device, or Face Unlock. The fingerprint reader is on the front, which is a negative for me as I prefer a rear fingerprint reader that lets you grab the device with one hand and instantly unlock. But you can do this anyway with Face Unlock, though Honor warns that this is the least secure option as it might work with a similar face (or possibly a picture). I found the Face Unlock effective, even with or without spectacles.

The fingerprint scanner is behind glass which Honor says helps if your finger is wet.

There are a few compromises. A single speaker means sound is OK but not great; it is fine through headphones or an external speaker though. No wireless charging.

Geekbench scores

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PC Mark scores

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So how much has performance improved since the Honor 8 in 2016? On PCMark, Work 2.0 performance was 5799 on the Honor 8, 7069 on the 10 (+21%). Geekbench 4 CPU scores go from 5556 multi-core on the 8 to 6636 on the 10 (+19.4%).  The GPU though is more substantially improved, 4728 on the 8 and 8585 on 10 (+81.5%). These figures take no account of the new NPU.

First impressions

I must confess to some disappointment that the only use Honor seems to have found for its NPU is photo enhancement, important though this is. It does not worry me much though. I will report back on the camera, but first impressions are good, and this strikes me as a strong contender as a high-end phone at a mid-range price. 128GB storage is generous.

Spec summary

OS: Android 8.1 “Oreo” with  EMUI (“Emotion UI”) 8.1 user interface

Screen: 5.84″ 19:9, 2280p x 1080p, 432 PPI, Removeable notch

Chipset: Kirin 970 8-core, 4x A73 @ 2.36 GHz, 4x A53 @ 1.84 GHz

Integrated GPU: ARM Mali-G72MP12 746 MHz

Integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit): Hardware acceleration for machine learning/AI

RAM: 4GB

Storage: 128GB ROM.

Dual SIM: Yes (nano SIM)

NFC: Yes

Sensors: Gravity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope, Compass, Fingerprint sensor, infrared sensor, Hall sensor, GPS

WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz/5GHz

Bluetooth: 4.2

Connections: USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone socket

Frequency bands: 4G LTE TDD: B38/B40/B414G LTE FDD: B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B19/B203G WCDMA: B1/B2/B5/B8/B6/B192G GSM: B2/B3/B5/B8

Size and weight: 149.6 mm x 71.2 mm  x 7.7 mm, 153g

Battery: 3,400 mAh,  50% charge in 25 minutes. No wireless charging.

Fingerprint sensor: Front, under glass

Face unlock: Yes

Rear camera: Rear: 24MP + 16MP Dual Lens Camera，F1.8 Aperture.

Front camera: 24MP