MANILA—The Honor 10 is a great looking midrange phone with above average cameras and top-of-the-line hardware specs.

Honor is a sub-brand of Huawei, thus it’s no surprise that Honor smartphones benefit from the same R&D and technology of the Chinese megabrand. Tech pundits have even pointed out that the Honor 10 shares a lot of similar features with Huawei’s P20.

The biggest difference between the two, however, is the price: The Honor 10 sells for P18,299 on Lazada while the P20 is at around P30,000.

Like a lot of current midrange phones, the Honor 10 sports a glass and metal body, and a 19:9 ratio screen with a notch. The phone is solidly built and feels very premium in the hand.

The phone’s design is also easy on the eyes, thanks to its polished finish. Our review unit came in “phantom blue,” which changes to purple depending on how the light strikes it. It’s a beautiful design, but not exactly a standout in the midrange segment as almost every other brand from Asus to Oppo and Xiaomi now also come with backs that shimmer.

The IPS screen is not as bright as AMOLED screens from Samsung, but it’s easily one of the best you can find in this price range. Images and icons are sharp, and colors are vibrant.

On the left of the phone is the dual-nano SIM tray. Sadly, there is no micro SD slot here, but the phone packs 128 GB, which is more than enough storage for everyday needs.

On the right side are the volume and power/lock buttons, and at the bottom is the USB-C port. People who have invested in high-end wired headphones will be happy to know that the Honor 10 has a standard 3.5-mm audio jack, unlike the P20.

It also has a fingerprint scanner at the bottom of the screen, which has been cleverly placed under the glass, giving it a nice seamless look. But this also makes the Honor 10’s “chin” a bit large for a phone with a notch. I’m still not sure why some brands plop at the bottom because putting it at the back makes much more sense when you’re trying to trim the bezels.

If you’ve used phones that have the fingerprint scanner at the rear, fumbling with your thumb to touch the fingerprint scanner at the chin may also seem unwieldy.

But that design choice notwithstanding, the Honor 10 is a standout midrange phone because it doesn’t scrimp on the hardware specs. The phone comes with the Kirin 970 chipset, which is the same chipset that powers the P20 Pro and P20. This is equivalent to a flagship level Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.

It also has 4GB RAM, which is standard for this price range. If Honor had given this 6GB of RAM, it would have blown away the competition in terms of price and specs, but then again you are already getting a very generous 128GB of storage.

The Honor 10 also gets the same Mali G72 GPU of the P20 Pro, which means this gadget can handle any game you throw at it. Battery life though is pretty average. It has a decent 3400 mAh battery, which seems to have become standard for phones in this price range.

Taking care of snapshots is a 24-megapixel f1.8 black and white, and 16-megapixel f1.8 color dual camera system on the rear. Selfies meanwhile are handled by a 24-megapixel f2.0 camera in front.

Photos taken on the Honor 10 are really good, as can be expected from a gadget from the Huawei family. The phone uses AI to recognize scenes such as sunsets, food, flowers, and adjusts colors to make scenes even more vibrant. Colors pop, and details are above average for a midrange shooter.

As with other Huawei phones though, the colors sometimes look overly saturated and unnatural. Users who like their photos very vibrant will probably love this feature.

Huawei pioneered the “bokeh effect,” which every other smartphone brand jumped on immediately. As far as I’m concerned, bokeh effects are still a hit and miss, but you can get good enough results on the Honor 10.

The camera’s HDR also has some quirks. The results don’t seem to be as consistent as with Huawei branded handsets like my year-old Mate 10 Pro. Sometimes you gets shots with really good details, but in other shots the details get washed or blacked out.

But the bottomline is this: if you’re in the market for a well-designed phone that can take good photos but won’t break the bank, you can’t go wrong with the Honor 10.