Introduction
Croatia based NOA brand entered the market with several “entry level” phones with their “Core” lineup, but alongside “Core” they released the “Element” lineup which brings high performance devices. Today we have an “Element” device, the Element H10. Basically, this is the same phone as the UMI Z, the only difference being that the company “hangar18” has made the rebranding to NOA. This NOA’s flagship comes in matte black color only. With the H10, NOA shoots for the highest class. Things that NOA pronounce in their flagship is the build quality, the chipset, spacious display and a DualSIM tray. Also, another one of the main characteristics of this device is that it has three 13MP cameras. Two camera modules work in pair on the rear side of the phone, while the third one of three 13MP cameras is located on the front, and serves as the selfie camera. With all that, the H10 also has a big battery with the capacity of 4000 mAh. In order to be an adequate alternative to the famous brands’ devices, such as the Galaxy S7, LG G5 and others, NOA will have to show excellent results.
Unboxing
Display
One great, and probably the most important thing in the H10 is its display. It is a 5.5” FullHD display which is realized through the IGZO technology developed by Sharp. FullHD resolution on a 5.5” diagonal translates to 401 PPI. Speaking of protection over the screen, the manufacturer didn’t specify the type of the protection, which could mean that there isn’t one at all, which is definitely a minus. Touch sensitivity of the display is great, as well as the sharpness, due to the good resolution. The colors are represented very nicely, and the visibility on the sunlight is average. NOA also provides us with the option to manually set color saturation. Also, MiraVision and ClearMotion are present, and they should improve the quality of video material display in general. Automatic brightness sensor does a very good job as well.
Hardware and OS
Another important thing in the NOA Element H10 is its chipset, which was, for the first time ever, implemented in this very model. It is the MediaTek Helio X27 chipset. With the code name MT6797X, it is a 64-bit chipset. This chipset is made up of 10 cores divided into three clusters. Two ARM Cortex-A72 cores are clocked at 2.6 GHz, while other cores are Cortex-A53, 4 of them clocked at 2 GHz, and other 4 clocked at 1.6 GHz. As in other devices of other manufacturers, these are energy saving cores, and fast cores used for more demanding operations. Quad core Mali-T880 MP4 GPU is in charge of graphics, and it showed very good results when playing high demanding 3D games. The H10 has 4GB of DDR3 RAM, while the internal storage memory has 32 GB. MicroSD card slot is present, and it supports expansions up to 256GB. Overheating of the device is not an issue, and it does not influence the performance of the device too much. The fingerprint sensor is inside the HOME button, and it works great. NOA Element H10 comes with preinstalled Android v6.0 Marshmallow firmware. The system resembles the stock Android on the Nexus devices, with somewhat changed icons. The thing that we didn’t quite like about this device is that the software is not 100% compatible with the device. For example, when you try to set up a fingerprint through the settings wizard, one step will tell you to place your finger on the sensor on the back of the device, which can be somewhat confusing since the H10’s scanner is located on the front side of the device. Another thing that happened several times is that the 3G network simply didn’t work. These flaws show that HOA still have some work to do in order to be a true competitor to the “big players”.
Camera
If you take a look at the official NOA website, biggest accent when presenting the H10 is put on its triple 13MP camera setup. Actually, we have two 13MP sensors of the back and one 13MP of the front of the device. Let’s start from the main cameras. The H10 has something similar to what Huawei have brought to the market. One sensor is a typical 13MP color sensor, while the other one is a 13MP monochrome sensor. Dual camera setup on the back is signed by Samsung. The quality of pictures is decent. Details are very nicely shown, the noise is under control, and the two complaints towards the camera would be color reproduction and auto-focus system. Auto-focus is terribly slow, which could be fixed by one of the upcoming system updates. For low light shooting conditions, we have a 4 diode LED flash in two colors, i.e. two tone flash. One illogical thing is that, when capturing 4K video, you don’t have an option to use this LED flash. Camera interface is somewhat confusing, but after a while, it’s easy to get used to it. Pinch-to-zoom is for some reason unavailable, and the only way to zoom is via on screen buttons, which is pretty inconvenient. Face/Smile Detection, HDR and additional filters are present.
Camera modes are:
- Panorama – for taking panoramic photos
- Video – video mode offers 4K recording at 30fps in .3gp format
- Mono – which uses only one camera
- Pro – mode with detailed settings of photo parameters
- Beauty Face – mode in which the camera recognizes and beautifies faces
The front facing camera is also a 13MP sensor and is also signed by Samsung. As well as the rear facing camera, it offers several shooting modes. The front facing camera offers pretty good quality photos, and video is captured in FullHD resolution at 30fps.
Connectivity
NOA Element H10 is a DualSIM device which uses two nanoSIM cards. It has a hybrid slot which means that is also represents a slot for a microSD card. Network connections are 2G, 3G and 4G. This device uses the modern, reversible USB Type-C connector for charging and data transfer.
Speaking of wireless connections, there are:
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with HotSpot mode
- BlueTooth v4.1
- OTG
- Assisted-GPS
An obvious disadvantage and a big flaw is the lack of NFC.
Battery
NOA H10 has a battery with the capacity of 4000 mAh which can be easily removed. It is a Lithium-Ion battery. By using the 5V/2A adapter, which is shipped in the factory box, the H10 charges up to 60% in about 1 hour, and up to 100% in about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Results are:
- around 300 hours in stand-by mode
- around 8 hours Screen-on-time
Final words
NOA H10 presented itself as a very capable and powerful device. But some obvious software flaws, or inability to use the LED flash during 4K video capturing cannot be allowed in a premium class device. 4K video is captured in long forgotten .3gp format. Wrong guidance when setting up the fingerprint sensor probably won’t be a deal breaker for anyone, but in these little things you can see that this in an unfinished device. The official website states that the Nougat update Over-The-Air is to come, but we, concluding with June, still didn’t get the update. Another thing that we have noticed is that the edges of the device are prone to scratches, and the factory box does not include any kind of protection. The price is on par with other premium class device, where the manufacturers offer quite a lot more. But, of course, if you don’t mind the lack of NFC and other flaws, and you’re willing to try something new, the H10 might be a device for you.
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Video review
Advantages and disadvantages
Reasons for and against it
good display
4GB of RAM
lack of NFC
cannot use flash during 4K video recording
unfinished software