Honor unveils your first AI smartphone, the View 10

Taking selfies with a gesture, automatically augmenting male and female faces in photos and the ability to match over 30 faces a second are just some of the claims made by George Zhao, President of Honor – a brand of Huawei that specialises in low to mid-range smartphones. KitGuru was at the launch of the brand new View 10 (V10) in London and Zhao also believes that his company will lead the world in the use of artificial intelligence within handsets – through the neural processing unit integrated into the Kirin 970 chip that powers his flagship. Bold claims, let's get into the details.

Right off the bat, we can announce that the View 10 will be available to purchase come January, and it will cost UK buyers £449. This puts it in competitive mid-range territory, but based on what we saw at the event, the View 10 should offer excellent value considering the hardware on offer.

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To get us started, how about that Kirin 970 processor – it is actually the same chip used in Huawei's flagship Mate 10 Pro, despite the latter phone costing £250 more. A key part of the processor, aside from its octa-core design and beefy performance, is the integrated neural processing unit (NPU) which gives the View 10 its AI functionality.

This gives the View 10 the ability to do things like live translation of foreign languages, automatically detect different subjects in the camera app and also intelligently unlock the phone when it recognises your face. It will be interesting to see how this AI aspect will affect a user's day-to-day life, so look out for that in our review.

Completing the spec is 6GB of RAM, 128GB internal storage (with a MicroSD slot) and that 5.99-inch 2160 x 1080 display – an 18:9 aspect ratio. The battery is also pretty heft at 3750mAh, while the dual-camera setup is also impressive with both 20MP and 16MP shooters included. There is also a 13MP selfie camera on the front of the phone. While we don't want to jump to any conclusions before using the phone, at £449 the View 10 looks like it could seriously disrupt the smartphone market.

All of that hardware is packed into a very slim device, with the View 10 measuring 157 x 75 x 7 mm. This makes it 1.4mm shorter, and 3.1mm narrower than the iPhone 8 Plus, despite the View 10 having almost half an inch more screen real estate. At 172g, it is also pretty light for a phone of its size. The View 10 also has a new ‘4-points air bag system’ which should help protect the phone from drops. George Zhao actually threw the phone on the floor – twice! – and it emerged unscathed, so the View 10 looks both slim and durable.

In terms of software, the View 10 will ship with EMUI 8.0, which is Honor's custom version of Android. It will run on top of Android Oreo (8.0), making it actually one of the few phones to have Oreo included out of the box.

Slated for release on January the 8th, the View 10 will cost £449. Stay tuned for our full review.

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KitGuru says: Blimey! The View 10 certainly packs of lot of hardware into a relatively small package. Does the concept of an ‘AI phone' appeal to you? Let us know in the comments.

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