Honor has launched three new smartphones in its Honor 20 series and we have the Honor 20 which is the company’s flagship smartphone. The Honor 20 is unveiled alongside the more powerful Honor 20 Pro and the midranger Honor 20i. It has a quad camera setup and a design and boasts an in-screen selfie camera (or the punch hole display). Take a look at our review of the Honor 20.
What’s In The Box
- Honor 20 with built-in battery
- USB Cable (Type-C)
- Fast Charger (5V, 4A)
- Transparent Protective Case
- SIM Tray Ejector
- User Manuals & Warranty Card
Honor 20 Specifications
- Display: 6.4-inch All-View Display, Full HD+ resolution (2310 x 1080 pixels | 398 ppi)
- Software: Magic UI 2.1 based on Android 9 Pie
- Protection: N/A
- Fingerprint Scanner | Face ID: Yes, side-mounted, Yes
- CPU: Up to 2.6 GHz octa-core (4x Cortex-A76 + 4x Cortex-A55) processor, 7nm Kirin 980 octa-core SoC, dual NPUs, 64-bit
- GPU: Mali-G76, GPU Turbo 3.0
- Memory: 6 GB RAM, LPDDR4X (2133 MHz)
- Storage: 128 GB or 256 GB UFS 2.1, expands via microSD card (SIM2 slot)
- Main Camera: Quad cameras 48 MP + 16 MP + 2 MP + 2 MP
- Selfie Camera: 32 MP
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, AI GPS (dual frequency), USB OTG, USB Type-C
- Cellular: 4G LTE, 2x nano SIM (GSM), dual-VoLTE, (SIM2 as microSD slot)
- Battery: 3,750 mAh, Honor SuperCharge fast charging
- Colors: Sapphire Blue, Midnight Black
- Price: Rs 32,999 (6 GB + 128 GB)
Design, Display, Build, & Ergonomics
The Honor 20 is among the flagship smartphones with a punch hole display that carries a selfie camera. The back of the Honor 20 uses Triple 3D Mesh technology which flaunts a 3D dynamic holographic patterns giving a gleaming effect when light falls on it. Our review unit is the Midnight Black variant while there’s a different color variant as well – Sapphire Blue.
The back has a vertical camera setup that holds three cameras and one macro camera right beside it. The side frames are polished metals concealed with the glass on both sides giving you a premium feel. The phone is slim and lightweight and offers a good grip.
The Honor 20 has a 6.26-inch All-View display with a 91.7% screen-to-body ratio thanks to its small front-facing camera cutout. The screen uses a Full HD+ resolution and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The camera cutout sits in the upper-left corner of the screen which can be easily ignored while watching videos or while playing games.
The right side has a fingerprint scanner i.e. the scanner is side mounted, and not on-screen while the rivals emerge with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The bottom has a USB Type-C port, however, the 3.5mm headphones jack is missing which may disappoint you.
Honor offers 90% buyback guarantee in 90 days on the Honor 20 and the offer will be available on Flipkart starting this 25th June. To know more details on the Flipkart’s Buy Back Guarantee, visit this link.
Software & User Interface
The Honor 20 ships with Magic UI 2.1 which is a customized version of Android 9 Pie with latest security patch dated 5th May 2019. The Magic UI was first seen on the Honor View20 and it’s very much the same EMUI with some tweaks in the UI.
The interface has some pre-installed apps including Honor’s own set of apps and a few third-party apps like Facebook, Messenger, Netflix, Vivo Video, Camera360. These apps can be removed without any hazzle if you don’t require it.
The UI adds in the Digital Balance feature that gives you the insights of the apps’ usage on the phone. Other features include the gesture-navigation, AI Calorie Counting, HiTouch, Party Mode, Ride Mode and more.
To know more about the Magic UI, visit the Honor View20 review in the Reviews section.
Hardware, Performance, & Gaming
The Honor 20 offers powerful hardware, it uses the Kirin 980 octa-core SoC, the same chip found on the Honor View20 and the HUAWEI P30 Pro. It comes one variant i.e. 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage that expands via microSD card. The performance should be on par with these two phones, the Honor View20, and the HUAWEI P30 Pro, as well as the rivals – OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.
Talking about the benchmarks, the Kirin 980 largely outperforms the Snapdragon 845 and close to the Snapdragon 855. The storage performance is fast, it reaches up to 900 MB/s (read) and 186 MB/s (write) speeds. Take a look at the benchmarks we recorded on the Honor 20.
Gaming won’t be a problem on the Honor 20, it has the ARM Mali-G76 MP10 GPU that takes care of the high-end gaming, the performance is close to the Qualcomm Adreno 630 (Snapdragon 845) and slightly below the Adreno 640 found on the Snapdragon 855. You can achieve smooth frame rates in modern games including PUBG MOBILE.
Cameras
Honor 20 flaunts its quad camera set-up at the back, it includes a 48 MP as the main camera, 16 MP wide-angle lens, 2 MP depth sensor, and 2 MP for taking macro shots. The front-facing camera is a whopping 32 MP which competes with the phones targeted at the selfie market.
A unique feature found on the Honor 20 is the addition of the new 2 MP macro camera that takes shots with as close as 4 cm distance. The 16 MP camera takes the wide angle shots and the other 2 MP is used for depth measuring techniques.
Like the rest of the Honor flagships, the Honor 20 offers a decent set of camera features and shares similar features found on the Honor View20 and the HUAWEI P30 Pro.
The feature list includes the AI Multi Scene Recognition, 3D Portrait Lighting, Night mode, AR Lens, 960fps slow-motion video recording, 3D Qmoji, and lastly, AI Color and the Background Blur video capabilities. No Monochrome mode is offered on the phone.
The camera also supports dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) on board to stabilize the photos and videos. The Honor View20 missed that out completely. It supports as much as 10X zoom, and it can be considered as one of the most versatile cameras in its segment.
Here are some samples we took from the Honor 20 camera.
Honor 20 Camera Samples
Battery Life
Compared to the View20, the Honor 20 has a slightly lower size battery, it has a 3,750 mAh battery vs. 4,000 mAh on the View20. As impressive as the Honor View20’s long-lasting battery life, you can expect a similar battery runtime. The battery performance is good, it easily survives a full day on moderate use with some battery left for the next day, the Magic UI has numerous optimizations to extend the battery life. Fortunately, the fast charger included charges the phone up to 50% in 30 minutes.
Verdict
The Honor 20 is an excellent flagship challenger, it combines the elegance, the punch hole display, versatile quad cameras, and top performance to match the modern flagships. Honor has delivered a reasonable smartphone that stands out from the crowd.
Rivals
- OnePlus 7 (128 GB) – Rs 32,999
Strength
- Stunning glass design | Metallic build
- In-screen camera | Full-View display
- Versatile cameras | Packed with features (AI Color, Background Blur, Super Slow-Mo, 3D Live Emojis)
- Top-notch performance | GPU Turbo 3.0
- Super fast charging
- Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Weakness
- No 3.5mm jack
- AMOLED display would give an edge over existing IPS
