Enhanced Navigation Bar
Here, you can use navigation bar in three ways. Since there is no physical navigation bar, it is interesting to see how well they had been implemented to cater a wide audience.
Using Fingerprint Sensor
The Honor View 10 houses a fingerprint sensor on the front. You can double down to use it as a navigation bar. You will have to swipe left or right to bring up the multi-tasking window, one single press to go back, and a long press to go to home screen. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but it’s worth. This mode is enabled by default on the phone. The biggest advantage is that you get rid of the accidental taps on the visible navigation bar. It also helps you get a full display of the phone. There is one small disadvantage using this. You will not be able to use the Split Window or the Multiple Window gesture when using this. That’s possible only with Visual or the Virtual navigation bar which stays on the screen.
Using Navigation Dock or Virtual Button
If using Fingerprint sensor is not your choice, you can use the Navigation Dock. It’s a circular button which floats around and can be adjusted to anywhere you are comfortable. You will have to hold, and slide to the left or right to bring up the multi-tasking window, one single touch to go back, and a hold, and long press to go to home screen. It has the same drawback as the Fingerprint sensor, and it also takes part of your screen.
Using Virtual / Visual Navigation Bar
This doesn’t need an introduction and has its own advantages if you are ok to sacrifice a bit of your screen. You can use Split Screen for apps, customize buttons as per your wish, add an extra button to pull down / up notification drawer.
Read Notifications on Lock Screen with your Face
Just like on iPhone X, you can read notifications on lock screen, the content of which is usually hidden, by looking at it. You can turn on “Smart lock screen notifications” under “Face recognition”. (Settings > Security and Privacy) When a notification shows up, you only need to look at the screen, and the phone will recognize your face. You can read the content of the notification without unlocking the phone.
Private Space
If you always wanted a dedicated secondary account on your Honor phone which can separate your work, and home things on your phone, EMUI 8 gets you Private Space. The concept first showed up in MIUI as secondary space, and its almost the same, but has implemented in a better way. The reason I said the implementation was better was that you could completely remove the trace of any existence of secondary space from the main space. You can switch between the space using different fingerprint or pattern which makes sure that nobody can notice even if you are using it before them. Secondly, from within Second space, you can choose to remove the option of Second Space configuration from Main Space Settings. Once done, nobody can search, and the only way to access it either using Fingerprint or Pattern.
Game Suite
Specially built for gamers who want to save a bit of battery as well, this pre-installed game suite lets you decide if games can run at highest performance or EMUI can tune it for battery usage, so it doesn’t run out rather too quickly. The suite will auto-detect games installed on your phone. You can also add them manually. Once done, you will need to choose between Full Powerhouse or Power Saving or Smart mode. The last one is probably a good choice, but then you can always decide. The settings apply to all the games in the suite, i.e., if I want to play few games at the full powerhouse, and some in optimized mode, there is no option. The games included in the Game Suite cannot be uninstalled from the phone unless you remove them from here. Notifications are annoying when playing games, and this is why you get the Uninterrupted gaming option which will silent notification from calls, alarms, and low battery, only. Accidentally touching the navigation bar is the most annoying, and common. Turn on the Lock Navigation keys option, and it will disable the navigation bar response completely. In order to use it, you will need a tap on the button three times.
Battery Optimization
EMUI offers inbuilt battery optimization which lets you keep running that phone for important calls, and SMS when you need them the most, especially when the phone doesn’t charge up quickly. It’s better compared to what we have seen in Honor 7X and 9i, but it is still slow. Go to Settings > Battery, and here you have a couple of options. Last tip here will disable the not so required app to run in the background when you are on roaming. When on roaming, the battery consumption is usually higher and turning off those apps not to use mobile data can save a lot of battery.
Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Data > Networked Apps Switch to Advanced Network settings from the drop-down on the top. Deselect apps which are selected to run in the background when on roaming.
Smart Controller
View 10 comes with an IR blaster and an app which allows you to control your TV, AV, Setup boxes, and any other appliances which work with IR remote, to your phone. The process to add a remote is fairly simple. All you need is select the device type, company, and follow the steps to complete the setup. What is interesting is the availability of creating custom remote. If you cannot find your appliances listed, you can point the remote, and View 10 IR in front of each other, and map each button.
Home Screen
App Drawer:
If you don’t plan to use any third-party launcher and want to have App Drawer in your View 10, EMUI offers it out of the box. Go to Settings > Display > Home Screen Style. Choose the option which shows App Drawer.
Home Screen Loop and Google Feed:
EMUI 8.0 has removed the HI-Board which still ships with EMUI 5.0. This has been replaced with Google Feed. If you are on your last screen, swipe right, and you will get to see it. This delivers news from curated websites. To disable this, and instead enable home screen loop, follow these steps.
Long press anywhere on the screen which is empty. This will bring up Home Screen options. Tap on settings. Here you can disable Google Feed, and enable Home Loop. Turning on Home Loop is optional as well.
Landscape Home Screen:
If you love this idea, under Home Screen settings (the same place where you disabled Google feed), turn on the Auto-Rotate option. Next time you hold your phone in landscape mode, it will auto-rotate everything.
Display:
Full-Screen Display for Apps
The View 10 has 18:9 aspect ration, and not all apps will run on full screen by default. To make them run on full screen, you have two options. The first one you get by default when you launch an app. It appears as a small label at the bottom of the app. Tap on it, and it relaunches in full screen. The second option is by going to Display > Full-screen display. Here you can disable apps which don’t work properly on full screen or enable a bunch of apps in a go.
Display Pictures while charging:
It’s a fancy feature, but if you have a charging stand, it looks beautiful when put on a show. Go to Settings > Display and turn it on. Here you can select a folder from your camera.
Easy Reading:
We tend to use our phone a lot, so much that we don’t even realize it. Having a lot of screen time also means a lot of strain on your eyes. EMUI offers Eye Comfort option which reduces brightness and changes color of the screen which makes reading comfortable, especially at night. You can also schedule it for night reading.
Huawei Histen Sound is for Audiophiles:
This feature was first introduced with Honor 9, and now in View 10 allows you to change the sound of your music to replicate to sound as if they are playing from the front, or all over around you or very near to you. Honor calls it 3D Audio Technology. I personally use a Jabra Earphone, and since it’s Bluetooth, it doesn’t work. You need to have an earphone or headset with 3.5 mm Audio Jack to experience. However, I did found that audio was much better compared to my Jabra headphone. There is an option for the equalizer, but it seems to work with only headphones which support it.
Screen Pinning
Many a time you need to hand over your phone to somebody else. This also means he or she can have full access to your phone, and personal data on the phone. This is where Screen Pinning comes in handy. Using this you can lock the user on one single app unless you unlock it using a passcode, fingerprint sensor or pattern. Go to Settings > Security and Privacy > More > Screen Pinning. Enable this along with option which says “verify lock screen password before unpinning” Now before handing over the phone to anybody, first switch to the app, and then hit the multitasking button. Look for a PIN like an icon at bottom right. Tap to enable screen pinning. To disable this, long press the back button, and the phone will be locked. Enter the password, and it will be disabled.
Other Tiny Tips:
