Nokia 7 Plus vs Honor 10: Overall Comparison

Various phone manufacturers, nowadays, are vying to deliver as much value for money through their smartphones as it is possible. Largely, it is the lower mid-range to upper mid-range segment that provides the best of it. And it is not hard to figure out why.

With continuous improvements in technology, companies have become more capable to deliver overall satisfying products to a much wider audience than ever before. For instance, premium design, build quality, impressive display and especially camera units are no longer restricted to high-end smartphones.

On that note, we are bringing you an extensive comparison between two of the highly sought after smartphones in the mid-range segment – Honor 10 and Nokia 7 Plus.

HONOR 10 – Specifications

Body – Aluminium frame, glass back

Display – 5.84-inch IPS LCD with notch, 1080p x 2280p resolution (19:9 aspect ratio), 432 ppi

Processor & RAM – HiSilicon Kirin 970 octa-core (4 x 2.4 GHz & 4 x 1.8 GHz), Mali-G72 MP12 GPU, 6 GB RAM, 64 GB storage

OS – Android Oreo 8.1 with EMUI 8.1

Camera – Dual camera with 16 MP (f1.8) + 24 MP (black/white), PDAD, AI, HDR, Portrait, Aperture, Night mode. Front 24 MP (f2.0)

Battery – 3,400 mAh with SuperCharge

Security – Fingerprint sensor, Face unlock

NOKIA 7 PLUS – Specifications

Body – Aluminium body with ceramic-like coating

Display – 6-inch IPS LCD, 1080p x 2160p resolution (18:9 aspect ratio), Gorila Glass 3

Processor & RAM – Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 octa-core (4 x 2.2 GHz & 4 x 1.8 GHz), Adreno 512 GPU, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB storage

OS – Android Oreo 8.1

Camera – Dual camera with 12 MP (f1.75) + 13 MP (f2.6 telephoto lens), Zeiss optics, HDR, Portrait. Front 16 MP (f2.0).

Battery – 3,800 mAh with quick charge

Security – Fingerprint sensor, Face unlock

DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY

Nokia 7 Plus:

– Beautifully finished aluminium body with ceramic coating.

– Entire Frame area (including volume/power buttons & SIM tray), main camera housing, Nokia label & the fingerprint sensor ring are done in rich copper finish.

– Front has a contemporary big-screen display without notch. Looks classy.

– Not really slipper to hold, provides decent grip

– Overall a beautiful and sturdy looking phone.

Honor 10:

– Aluminium frame housing the flashy glass back.

– The back reflects multiple colors when looked at through different angles. The back is reflective but doesn’t have a mirror finish.

– With 5.84-inch display, the phone is smaller to hold, provides a more secure grip in hand and its more or less equally non-slippery.

– Yet, it feels delicate in appearance and is more vulnerable especially with the glass back.

– Also, the reflective back is prone to finger prints unlike the Nokia 7 Plus

– The notched display at the front appears more up market but not necessarily better.

Special Notes:

Both the Honor 10 and the Nokia 7 Plus are beautiful handsets, but the Nokia is more sturdy, appears more solid and looks more classy overall.

DISPLAY, SOFTWARE & UI

Nokia 7 Plus:

– 6-inch IPS LCD display delivering Full HD+ resolution, no notch.

– Color reproduction is good with balanced saturation, but the accuracy may not very impressive. White Balance is neutral.

– There are no color modes on offer. Personally, this is not a problem for me as long as the display is good in general.

– The no-notch display keeps things on the simpler side with how the apps are presented on-screen.

– Pure Android Oreo 8.1 with promised OS and security updates for the next 2 years at least since all Nokia 3 and above handsets come under Android One program.

– UI is clean and simple and keeps the functionality largely straightforward.

Honor 10:

– 5.84-inch IPS LCD with notch (can be hidden).

– Two color modes (Normal, Vivid) and three temperature modes (Default, Warm & Cold) on offer.

– Keeping the Normal-Default combo delivers a slight mix of warm+pink/red tone to the White Balance while the Vivid-Default combo takes the WB to the slightly bluish tone. In our experience, we found the Vivid-Warm combination to be the most balanced of the lot.

– Still, the Nokia 7 Plus feels a tad better to look at overall.

– Android Oreo 8.1 topped with EMUI 8.1 custom UI of Huawei. Personally, I am not a fan of custom UIs, although, they provide a unique appearance to the whole user interface in general.

– Certain icons like Settings are made to look like the ones in iOS. A bit unoriginal.

– Swiping down from the notch invokes the Search screen while swiping from left or right side of the notch brings up the Notifications list.

PERFORMANCE including Gaming

– In performance, we experienced expected and surprise both especially with respect to the Honor 10.

– Normally, both phones are generally good in terms of response time to the user input.

– However, Nokia 7 Plus feels a bit more response and smoother especially when running social media apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – some of the most used apps in smartphones.

– The Honor 10 feels to run such social media apps a bit heavy in comparison. Scrolling a page on either of these apps is accompanied by continuous momentary lags or stutters.

– It’s not that the Nokia 7 Plus is entirely smooth in this regard, but it is clearly better than the Honor 10.

– Also, while these stutters are a regular occurrence in Honor 10, such situations are random in Nokia 7 Plus but they do occur quite frequently and can be irritating.

– In gaming, we expected the Honor 10 to be better than the Nokia 7 Plus given its more power chipset (Kirin 970/Mali-G72 MP12 vs Snapdragon 660/Adreno 512), however, we found it to be marginally less impressive.

– Running a number of graphic-heavy games (like Asphalt 8) showed that the Nokia 7 Plus was a touch smoother than the Honor 10 in terms of framerate which is critical in gaming.

– On the graphics front, both are equally good more or less with no major differences.

CAMERA PERFORMANCE

Honor 10: Dual camera with 16 MP (f1.8) + 24 MP (black/white), PDAD, AI, HDR, Portrait, Aperture, Night mode. Front 24 MP (f2.0)

Nokia 7 Plus: Dual camera with 12 MP (f1.75) + 13 MP (f2.6 telephoto lens), Zeiss optics, HDR, Portrait. Front 16 MP (f2.0).

Our Camera Observations:

– Honor 10 keeps the sky color closer to the reality in the daytime/good light conditions while the Nokia 7 Plus tends to overexpose a bit especially in the ‘Building’ samples.

– In Night time pictures, Nokia 7 Plus produces more colorful images that look nicer but the Honor 10 maintains the realism in the colors.

– In Night time HDR samples, Honor 10 keeps the noise or grain under control while the Nokia 7 Plus tends to show more noise.

– Honor 10’s Night mode is impressive and seems to control the exposure (as it is kind of a long exposure shot). Nokia 7 Plus doesn’t have such a feature.

– 2x zoom samples from both cameras are more or less equally good or bad. Nokia 7 Plus tends to show some noise or appears over-sharpen images a bit while the detail is quite similar from both cameras.

– Regarding Selfies, Nokia 7 Plus keeps the exposure under control and it helps in producing better detail. On the other hand, Honor 10 overexposes the background in case it is lighter or is the source of some light which eventually effects overall detail in the image.

BATTERY LIFE

Nokia 7 Plus:

– 3,800 mAh delivers very impressive runtime up to nearly 2 days in normal usage (regular tasks including social media and some internet browsing, light camera use while avoiding video recording and zero to negligible gaming).

– With heavy usage depending on person to person, the runtime will be reduced accordingly.

– With fast charging feature, Nokia 7 Plus can be charged up to 45% in 30 minutes time while full charge takes slightly over 2 hours.

Honor 10:

– 3,400 mAh battery delivers a respectable runtime of around 1 and a half days with normal (conditions mentioned as above).

– Huawei’s SuperCharge tech is great – it takes 30 minutes to charge the phone up to 65% while the 100% charge comes up in a little over 1 hour.

CONCLUSION

Nokia 7 Plus over Honor 10:

– Sturdy build, less vulnerable, appears classy with ceramic and copper finish.

– Pure Android Oreo with promised updates up to next years, thanks to Android One program.

– Well balanced overall White Balance in the Display.

– No complications of the notch.

– Overall smoother performance with slightly better response time especially while using social media apps.

– Similarly smoother gaming experience although not by much.

– Longer runtime by the 3,800 battery.

– Available at a price of Rs 25,999 for 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage.

Honor 10 over Nokia 7 Plus:

– Flashy looks due to the reflective-glass back (but more vulnerable to breakage in case of a fall).

– Several display setting options (although not better overall against Nokia 7 Plus).

– Trendy notch display with an option to hide the same.

– Slightly better camera overall but it mostly depends on the situation.

– Shorter charge time thanks to the SuperCharge feature.

– Available at a price of Rs 32,999 for 6 GB and 128 storage variant. This is the only variant currently available on the Honor India website.

Overall, Gadget2Buy’s preference is Nokia 7 Plus as it is a better phone in its entirety compared to the Honor 10 especially since this Nokia handset comes under the Android One program.

Let us know in the comment section below which smartphone, out of Nokia 7 Plus and Honor 10, would you pick and why.