OnePlus 6 vs. Honor 10: Middleweight Champs Face Off

Last week, we saw two new phones, the OnePlus 6 and the Honor 10, both of which occupy a similar place in the market, and offer great performance and features for prices that won't break the bank.

Let's compare and contrast these two middleweight champions, taking into consideration key specs, design, availability, and price.

Design and Physical Features

Aside from both being cuboids, like every phone released in 2018 except the Nokia 4G 8110, the OnePlus 6 and Honor 10 feature quite different designs.

The OnePlus 6 is available in three different finishes: a pearly white (apparently made with real pearls—vegans, take note); a reflective, glossy black; and a more-traditional matte black (like our review sample).

The matte black version features a curious scoliotic curve on the back, something that's visible when the light hits it at a certain angle. The "s" shape doesn't mean anything (it's not called the OnePlus S), but it's a nice quirk that shows off the skill of OnePlus's designers.

The Honor 10, by contrast, is sheathed in a glitzy metallic jacket that amps up the shimmer of previous versions. As well as the expected shiny black model, there's "Phantom Green" and "Phantom Blue," iridescent chameleons, which subtly change color depending on how the light hits them. Not unlike the "Twilight" hues used by parent company Huawei for the P20 range.

In fact, both the OnePlus 6 and Honor 10 have a premium look and feel, though it doesn't take long for the Honor 10's luster to be ruined by fingerprints.

The sebaceous smearfest is not helped by the fact that there are no official Honor 10 cases available, and there's not even a cheapy plastic one included in the box. OnePlus is kind enough to include a basic case with the 6, and there are plenty more to buy separately.

Speaking of fingerprints, both phones feature scanners for fast unlocking, with the OnePlus 6's scanner sitting on the back and the Honor 10's on the front, directly south of the screen.

Putting the scanner on the back means the OnePlus 6 can really push up against the bezel; this arguably makes for a nicer-looking phone. Some will also appreciate the one-handed unlocking ability of the OnePlus 6, though folks with big hands will note that the scanner is perilously close to the camera module, meaning you run the risk of accidentally smearing one of the lens coverings. The Honor 10's scanner is very cleverly hidden, virtually flush with the black glass surrounding it.

Portwise, there's a Type-C USB port for charging and data and a 3.5mm port for old-school headphones. On that note, we should mention that OnePlus and Honor both launched new Bluetooth headphones; more on that later.

For our money, the OnePlus 6 is the more aesthetically pleasing of the two phones. Despite the Honor 10's technicolor dreamcoat, we prefer both the way the various color options of the OnePlus 6 look and, if you're the kind of person who immediately puts their phone in a case, there are more options available to you.

Displays

Both phones feature big, high-resolution displays that hover around the 6-inch mark. There's not a great deal of difference between them, to be honest. Here's how the basic specs stack up, with our own SQUID (Square Inches of Display) metric, next to the more familiar PPI (pixels per inch):

OnePlus 6

• Screen type: AMOLED
• Screen size: 6.28 inches
• Resolution: 2,280 by 1,080
• Aspect ratio: 19:9
• PPI: 401.73
• SQUID: 15.25

Honor 10

• Screen type: TFT LCD with IPS
• Screen size: 5.84 inches
• Resolution: 2,240 by 1,080
• Aspect ratio: 19:9
• PPI: 425.82
• SQUID: 13.19

Both of the notches are more or less identical in size and features—a light sensor, selfie camera, and the receiver. As with the Huawei P20 range, if notches are like kryptonite to you, you can fill the wings with black pixels, ensuring that you'll never see it.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

OnePlus made a big deal at its recent launch event about how it only uses Qualcomm CPUs for its phones, so it should be no surprise to learn that the Snapdragon 845 processor is present here.

In PCMag's tests, we found that the OnePlus 6's PCMark Work score of 8484 is the highest we've seen so far—only the Sony Xperia XZ2, which combines a similar screen resolution and processor, comes close (8306).

Graphics benchmarks tell the same story, with 33fps on the GFXBench Car Chase benchmark, matching the Sony and outpacing everyone else. You may lose a little screen sharpness here over devices like the Galaxy S9, but you gain performance.

HiSilicon's Kirin 970 runs the show on the Honor 10. This is the same chip in all of Huawei's flagship phones to date, but now it's available on the (much) cheaper Honor 10 range.

In terms of performance, everything feels smooth. While we've yet to fully benchmark this, past experience with Kirin 970 phones lead us to believe that this will be somewhere around the low 7000s on PC Mark Work. In other words, a little behind the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+, which, for a midrange phone, is pretty incredible.

In terms of battery, the OnePlus 6's 3,300mAh cell is slightly smaller than that of the Honor 10 (3,400mAh) and the screen is slightly bigger too, which means it might not have as much in the tank after a full day's use. The OnePlus 6 lasted for 5 hours, 49 minutes of LTE video playback in our battery rundown test; we'll keep you posted about the Honor 10.

The main talking point about the Honor 10's Kirin 970 octo-core chip is that it's got a processor dedicated solely to mobile AI processes. To whit, the Honor 10's camera is an "AI Camera," which in practical terms means, when you're about to take a picture of a flower, it'll recognize "flower" from its library of data points and fine-tune the settings so natural colors look more vibrant. You also get a faster shutter speed and continuous autofocus to compensate for a sudden breeze swaying the subject at the last minute.

This is something Huawei's talked up to high heaven with the Mate 10 and more recently the P20 series; nothing new, but nice to see a high-end feature make its way to the midrange.

The OnePlus 6 features a 20+16-megapixel camera, while the Honor 10 comes with a 24+16-megapixel unit. OnePlus's larger secondary lens is included for bokeh post-processing effects instead of 2x lossless zoom, which the Honor 10 promises.

On the front, the OnePlus 6 has a 16-megapixel Sony IMX 371, while the Honor 10 has a bigger 24-megapixel camera. Why phone makers are adding selfie cams with such big sensors is beyond us, but they both feature bokeh modes that blur the backgrounds, making your mugshots look more dramatic.

In a shootout with the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and the LG G7, the OnePlus 6 delivered solid results, often outshining the G7 and comparing favorably with the S9+ in certain circumstances.

Software and Features

Both the OnePlus 6 and Honor 10 run Android 8.1 out of the box, and feature neat-looking and very Spartan custom UIs—Oxygen OS and EMUI, respectively.

Contrary to a lot of custom skins, which are either gaudy or—in the case of Samsung's rightly pilloried TouchWiz—different for the sake of being different, both of these are easy on the eye and come with some neat, practical additions.

OnePlus's trump card is Gaming Mode, which is something of an extension of the App Priority setting we saw on the OnePlus 5T ($499.00 at OnePlus CA) .

Gaming Mode essentially puts your phone into DND mode, ensuring you won't be interrupted while playing a game. Toggling Gaming 2.0 in the settings means you can choose to give key games a performance boost, at the cost of sacrificing some battery power. Though we've yet to fully put this feature through its paces, so how much of a boon this is remains to be seen.

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Like App Priority, the Honor 10's EMUI actively keeps track of which apps and games you launch and at what time of day, ensuring there's enough RAM set aside for you to be able to launch stuff quickly. In addition to that, certain apps, like Prisma and Android Messages—which replaces the default SMS tool—also benefit from a performance boost.

We now live in a post Android One-world, with Nokia in particularly making big gains in Europe from its ability to deliver on updates in a timely manner. Custom UIs, no matter how lean, are an obstacle to OTAs. How big, of course, depends on the level of customization, and the ability of manufacturers to work with silicon vendors (not to mention Google) on getting the goods over to the users ASAP.

The fact that the Android P beta is already available for the OnePlus 6 suggests we may not have to wait long.

It's not confirmed when (or even if) Android P will hit the Honor 10, but given that HiSilicon is wholly owned by Huawei, it's reasonable to expect a timely turnaround.

Headphones

Both OnePlus and Honor are flogging sets of Bluetooth headphones to go with their latest phones.

OnePlus has the very snazzy looking Bullets Wireless, while Honor is selling the Sport headphones.

While both boast long battery life—8 hours versus 11 hours, more than enough for anyone's workout or train journey—the OnePlus Bullets Wireless buds feature a very cool party trick. They're magnetic, meaning they'll clip together easily, making them less prone to becoming tangled up in your bag.

Additionally, if you're listening to music, taking the buds out of your ears and clipping them together will see music and calls automatically paused or muted.

Both sell for $69 or $49.99 in the US, respectively; on the other side of the pond, they'll go for either £69 in the UK or €69 in most European countries. While buyers in Europe lose out thanks to exchange rates anyway, we can't see why Honor decided to stiff Brits and their continental cousins with a higher price for this accessory.

Price and Availability

The OnePlus 6 will hit shelves on Tuesday, May 22, while the Honor 10 is out now—in the UK and across Europe. Interested parties in the US will have to go out of their way to import one.

Unlocked, the various versions of the OnePlus 6 will cost you $529 (64GB), $579 (128GB), and $629 (256GB).

European RRPs for the Honor 10 are €399 for the 64GB version or €499 for the 128GB edition.

Oddly, only the 128GB Honor 10 is going on sale in the UK and, despite the current exchange rates, that will set you back £399—or about £40 less than it would if you bought one in Europe.

Contract-wise, both phones are exclusive to one network in the UK—O2 and Thre,e respectively. If you're not a customer of those, or coverage where you live and work isn't great, you're going to have to cough up and get a SIM-only plan.