Honor View 10 vs. Xiaomi Mi Mix 2: Battle of the beauties

The Honor View 10 and Mi Mix 2 are two of the best-looking affordable flagships around.

These days, you can pick up a phone for around $500 that offers a feature-set similar to that of traditional flagships like the Galaxy Note 8 or the more recent Galaxy S9. Xiaomi has excelled at doing this over the years with its Mi flagships, and Honor has caught onto the trend as well.

With the Honor View 10, you're getting a phone with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit, 18:9 display, dual rear cameras, and a 3750mAh battery. Meanwhile, the Mi Mix 2 is one of the most evocative phones available today, thanks to its ultra-thin bezels and ceramic chassis. With both devices available for around that $500 price point, it's time to find out which phone delivers the most bang for your buck.

Honor View 10 vs. Xiaomi Mi Mix 2: Specs

Category	Honor View 10	Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
Operating System	EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo	MIUI 9 based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Display	5.99-inch 18:9 IPS LCD 2160 x 1080 403ppi pixel density	5.99-inch 18:9 IPS LCD 2160 x 1080 Gorilla Glass 4 403ppi pixel density
Chipset	Octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 970 with Neural Processing Unit Four Cortex A73 cores at 2.44GHz Four Cortex A53 cores at 1.80GHz 10nm	Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Four Kryo 280 cores at 2.45GHz Four Kryo 280 cores at 1.90GHz 10nm
GPU	Mali-G72 MP12	Adreno 540
RAM	4GB/6GB	6GB LPDDR4X (8GB LPDDR4X special edition)
Storage	64/128GB	64GB/128GB/256GB UFS 2.1 (128GB special edition)
Expandable	Yes, microSD slot up to 256GB	No
Battery	3750mAh	3400mAh
Charging	USB-C Fast charge 5V/4.5A	USB-C Quick Charge 3.0 (9V/2A)
Water resistance	No	No
Rear Camera	16MP + 20MP 2x lossless zoom Dual LED flash, 4K 30 fps	12MP (Sony IMX 386) f/2.0, 1.25-micron pixels 4-axis OIS, two-tone flash, PDAF, 4K@30fps, 720p@120fps
Front Camera	16MP	5MP
Connectivity	LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, dual band, 2x2 MIMO Bluetooth 4.2, NFC USB 2.0, USB OTG	Wi-Fi 802.11 ac MU MIMO, 2x2 MIMO LTE with VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.0 GPS/AGPS/GLONASS/BeiDou
Security	One-touch fingerprint sensor (front)	One-touch fingerprint sensor (back)
SIM	Dual Nano SIM	Dual Nano SIM
Network	LTE: Band 1/3/5/7/8/20/38/40/41	LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/18/19/20/25/26/27/28/29/30/34/38/39/40/41
Dimensions	157 x 75 x 7mm	151.8 x 75.5 x 7.7mm
Weight	172g	185g
Colors	Midnight Black, Navy Blue, Beach Gold, Charm Red, Aurora Blue	Black, White

What the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 does better

When it comes to design, there are few phones that come close to the Mi Mix 2. The ceramic back coupled with the thin bezels up front make the device stand out, and Xiaomi's build quality and attention to detail is right up there with the best that Samsung has to offer.

The first-gen Mi Mix featured a piezoelectric transceiver for making calls, but the Mi Mix 2 comes with a standard (and more user friendly) earpiece. Xiaomi carried out similar changes to the rest of the design as well — the Mi Mix 2 doesn't have the same screen-to-body ratio as its predecessor, but the 5.9-inch panel makes it more conducive to one-handed usage.

The Mi Mix 2 has a gorgeous ceramic body with razor-thin bezels at the front and global LTE bands.

Under the hood, the Mi Mix 2 is running the Snapdragon 835 chipset along with 6GB of RAM, which makes it one of the fastest phones in the market today. There isn't much to separate the Mi Mix 2 from the Honor View 10 when it comes to raw hardware, as the latter is powered by Huawei's Kirin 970, its latest and greatest mobile SoC.

But one area where the Mi Mix 2 wins out is LTE connectivity. Although the phone isn't officially sold in most Western markets, it comes with global LTE bands (over 40 in total). That means you'll be able to use the Mi Mix 2 on most carriers around the world without any problems, and that's a big deal.

See at GearBest

What the Honor View 10 does better

Both EMUI and MIUI are primarily aimed at a Chinese audience, and as a result they're heavily customized to make them stand out in both brands' home market. MIUI, in particular, has become bloated and laden down with features over the years, and while Xiaomi optimized the UI to speed up animations and generally improve the user experience with MIUI 9, it still feels cumbersome.

Meanwhile, Huawei has been making a dedicated effort to pare back the amount of customization in EMUI. The interface isn't quite there yet in terms of resembling pure Android, but at least EMUI 8.0 is built on top of Android 8.0 Oreo — Xiaomi is still stuck on Android 7.1.1 Nougat.

EMUI 8.0 comes with Oreo out of the box, while the Mi Mix 2 is still running Nougat.

The Honor View 10 has a hybrid SIM card tray that features a microSD slot, so if you're looking to extend the storage on your phone, you can slot in a 256GB SD card. The Mi Mix 2 has dual SIM card slots as well, but the secondary slot doesn't double up as a microSD slot. Other design wins

With a thickness of 7mm, the Honor View 10 is also thinner and lighter at 172g than the Mi Mix 2 in spite of packing a larger battery. Coming to battery life, you'll easily get a day's worth of charge from both devices, but the 3750mAh battery edges out the 3400mAh unit on the Mi Mix 2. Both MIUI and EMUI offer battery saving features that maximize battery efficiency, and overall the Honor View 10 has marginally better battery life.

The Honor View 10 also has a Neural Processing Unit that automatically optimizes camera settings based on the scene you're shooting. The AI features are limited right now, but with Huawei increasingly looking to machine learning as the differentiator, we could see a lot of headway in this area later this year.

See at Honor

Which one's right for you?

Both the Mi Mix 2 and Honor View 10 field top-notch hardware combined with features that make them stand out in this space. In the case of the Mi Mix 2, you get a gorgeous ceramic back with slim bezels up front. The Honor View 10 features a more utilitarian aesthetic with antenna lines at the top and bottom and an aluminum frame, but the phone's dual cameras and AI features give it a leg up.

Overall though, you're getting much more value with the Mi Mix 2. The phone comes with global LTE bands, and the design looks much more premium when seen against the Honor View 10.

See at GearBest