Helio S10

What is it?

Helio releases entry mid ranger with a standard amount of kit. 

First impressions

Mostly metal construction and 2.5D GorillaGlass 3 provide both heft and protection. There's a little too much shiny gold for my liking on our review unit making me feel like a Saudi prince. There is also a black unit with a black bezel for those preferring the dark side. To give it a visually thinner edge, Helio narrowed the metal surround leaving the screen to float above the edge by a fraction. Buttons are easily accessible and the build feels solid. The top and bottom portions of the rear are plastic so be careful with those drops. The packaging comes with your standard earphones, chargers, screen protector and a very thin rubbery clear case. And thin here is good if you must use a case.

Display

No complaints about the 5.5 inch Full HD IPS display at 401PPI. As standard, text is sharp and colours look great. Sunlight legibility is good as the auto brightness goes to full although colour becomes a little less vivid. Overall, the screen won't let you down.

Under the hood

These days, not even mid-rangers want to be caught dead without an Octa-Core processor under the skin. Comes equipped with a Cortex A53 1.96GHz octa core processor. GPU is a Mali T860 which even after two years of trickling down from the performance range to this, continues to provide enough juice to meet most mobile gaming demands.

It is supported by 4GB RAM and 32GB of on-board storage loaded with Android Nougat. The cleaned out OS and the decent specs led to an AnTuTu score of 50385.

Battery

Comes with a non removable 4010mAh Li-Po battery. We got nearly full two days usage out of it. Quick charge allows a full charge in less than two hours. 

Camera

A Sony IMX 13MP on the rear and Samsung 16MP up front. Both are reputedly f2.0. Photos in bright light are clear with plenty of resolved detail although colours generally appear a little muted than expected. Nothing a filter won't change if punchy images are your thing. Low light photos naturally bring in noise with further increase in contrast and decrease in colour saturation. How does it fare for a traditional user busy snapping away pictures everyday? Hold still, and you will get good photos for your social media. HDR now offers only subtle tweaks to the dynamic range without creating unnatural colour saturations unless you are shooting people. Then you will turn them slightly orange. Stick to landscapes for HDR and you will get excellent shots.

The selfie camera comes paired with what they call a selfie lamp. Effectively the selfie lamp is an LED that glares brightly in your eyes so use it with caution. It works, but you will see red dots for a few seconds afterwards even if you don't look directly into it. Pictures came out surprisingly well detailed enough that many people will prefer to use the beauty option to smoothen out marks on their skin.

Quirks or special features?

Well, the fingerprint scanner is sometimes a bit of a miss requiring couple of attempts to access. It's located up front as the home button. If you touch it, there's is the vibrating haptic feedback telling you it does something. It's a capacitive button AS WELL AS a home button that requires a press. Swipe your thumb across the surface and you will pull out a customizable app drawer that comes out from either right or left of the screen. Press you and you use it as a home button. They should have kept it as a single touch sensitive surface for tap and swipe. 

It does come with an IR blaster so you can control your home appliances remotely just using the phone. 

SPECS

Display: 5.5" FHD IPS Display Gorilla Glass 3

CPU: 1.95GHz Octa Core Processor

GPU: Mali-T860MP2

RAM: 4 GB

ROM: 32 GB

Back Camera: 13 MP f/2.0

Selfie Camera: 16 MP f/2.0

Battery: 4010 mAh

OS: Android 7.0 Nougat

Price: Tk 19,990/-

VERDICT

 For the price, it offers decent specs and plenty of functionality. The screen is excellent while the dual  SIM offers the benefits of staying connected because one network will usually work in the lift while the other doesn't. The 4010mAh battery will keep you going a full day despite the FHD screen. It comes with a relatively clean install of Android and functions smoothly without lag. I like the camera and most people will for its simple interface, quick shutter and clean images. Your only concern will be whether to get the bling-bling gold or the black.