It took a year to endure, but now we're close to getting rid of those annoying cutouts and getting a truly bezel-less clean smartphone. Honor The View 20 uses the All View Display, where the front camera hole is used instead of a cutout.
This device is the first international smartphone with such a screen and can be called very successful. It has many other advantages besides such a special screen. Perhaps this is simply the best smartphone in the history of this brand Honor of the company Huawei.
Screen and design
It's worth working with Honor View 20 for at least an hour and you won't notice the hole in the screen. This is a true design miracle, impressive from a technical point of view and perfectly integrated in the right place. This is a solution to the problem of annoying cutouts, unobtrusively and increases the screen-to-body ratio. Do you like games on your smartphone? You will not notice this hole as your thumb will usually cover it. After such a device, I don't want to return to the model with cutouts. Of course, this is a matter of taste, but surely many users will think the same way, holding Honor View 20 in their hands.
Also worth mentioning is the back of the case. After years of trying, the Chinese manufacturer has come up with a design that gives the smartphone its authenticity. It is surprisingly simple, as it uses the letter V that reflects in the light. This appearance is eye-catching, but not too intrusive. Honor calls this design Light For Honor. It is a 300 nanometer thick multi-layered pattern where the V appears as if in a pool of water.
The “Twilight” version on flagships Huawei or the device Vivo NEX S are beautiful, but the reflective surface Honor View 20 is even more beautiful. She looks fantastic and hardly anyone will be able to do better anytime soon. In this case, the blue version of the device is considered, there is an equally beautiful red color and a more muted black version. If you want to stand out, blue and red are preferred.
The rest of this smartphone is equally impressive. It is neither too thin nor too light at 8.1mm and 180g respectively. The device fits perfectly in the hand and pocket. The fingerprint scanner is fast and conveniently located on the back of the case at the top center. USB-C is used for recharging, there is a headphone jack. What else to dream about?
And yet, the smartphone is not perfect. The hole for the camera interferes with some notifications, although there is more room than if there was a notch. It can also be distracting when watching a video in full screen.
6.4 inches diagonal, 2310 x 1080 resolution is normal, but not outstanding. Numerous settings are available to users, from color temperature to viewing modes like normal and vivid. The display brightness is high enough. Compared to the OnePlus 6T's screen, the detail is lower, as the panel OLED provides sharp contrast and solid colors, especially when viewed from an angle.
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Cameras
The rear camera on the Honor View 20 is single but special. This 48MP f / 1.8 Sony IMX586 sensor. There is also a three-dimensional Time-of-Flight sensor, which takes on the role of a second camera. In the settings, you can choose 12 MP, 48 MP, 48 MP images with an ultra high purity mode for photographing scenes and objects in daylight.
For night and low light, there is a night mode that uses 4-pixel binning and AI stabilization to increase brightness, reduce noise and get better photos.
The 48 megapixel resolution sounds very promising. Photos are obtained in 8 and 12 MB sizes, which is 4-6 times larger compared to more familiar 12 MP cameras. To understand whether it is worth spending so much space, it is better to watch the pictures on a large monitor. On the smartphone screen, the difference is minimal, and if there is, it is difficult to know for better or worse. Naturally, with a resolution of 48 megapixels, the camera provides amazing clarity and natural colors.
In addition, the image can be enlarged without significantly degrading the quality. If you edit photos on a computer, you can save your photos in RAW format in Professional Manual Mode. Graphic designers will surely love this smartphone's camera.
Four photographs of a Las Vegas hotel were taken to show the differences, or lack thereof. The first is in 12 megapixel mode, the other is in 48 megapixel mode, the third is 48 megapixel ultra-high purity, the last in night mode, because it was dark. In the latter case, the sky was the brightest, but the environment has a golden hue, while the other three photographs are similar.
Ultra high purity mode rendered the sky blacker, but not much. In the right environment and under the right conditions, this mode may be best. However, before you realize this, it is best to take photos in all possible modes so as not to be mistaken.
Aperture mode is now hidden in the settings and is not on the main screen. Its edge detection is still excellent, as is portraiture. Low-light photos are great without Night Mode, as the 48MP camera collects enough ambient light. Daytime shots are good, but not outstanding. They are not on par with Huawei Mate 20 Pro or Google Pixel 3, but not much inferior.
Perhaps software optimizations Honor will make your photos even better. Halos of light can be seen around some objects in the dark. If you fix these minor flaws, the camera can quite compete with the best. At the same time, the smartphone is half the price of the devices mentioned above, which is impressive.
Selfies are handled by a front 25MP camera in the hole on the screen. The software supports lighting effects, decoration mode, artificial intelligence. The results are good, but only when all these extra modes are disabled. With them, the images look unnatural; it's easier to take normal photos and then apply the filters you need to them. A no-nonsense AI mode will suffice. The off-center position of the camera does not interfere, it works great, even when shooting indoors.
You could say that taking pictures on the Honor View 20 is addictive. The cameras here are probably more capable than you have the talent to use them. Every time you want to surpass yourself and get even better pictures. I liked the quality very much, and in the future it may become even higher.
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Performance and software
The brand Honor belongs to the Huawei family, so the flagship Kirin 980 processor is used here. The smartphone is available with 6 and 8 GB of RAM and 128 and 256 GB of storage. This review covers 8/256 GB options on Android 9.0.1 with the January 2019 security patch. Android has the Honor Magic UI 2.0 wrapper installed on top. It is very similar to the shell Huawei EMUI 9, but in the future the differences between them will become more and more, according to the developers.
Some benchmarks were run to test the performance. AnTuTu scores 277,547 points, Geekbench single-core 3283 points, multi-core 9663 points, 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme 4349 (Vulkan).
If we compare this device with the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro, which also run on Kirin 980, the results of the smartphone Honor are slightly higher. It beats the OnePlus 6T and Pixel 3 except in the AnTuTu benchmark. However, the advantage is small, and such tests may not accurately represent everyday performance. However, this is a powerful smartphone, no doubt about that.
What about Magic UI 2.0 shell? We can say that it is just EMUI with a different name. There should be more changes in the future, with an emphasis on the youth audience, although it is not known what this means. So far, if you like EMUI, you will like the interface here. If you don't like it, it is recommended to study the settings, since a lot can be changed. Sure, Android won't look like Pixel phones, but the system is fast and fluid.
There are some annoying moments too. Hateful SwiftKey continues to be the default keyboard. Notification support is not as good as on Pixel smartphones. It lacks small conveniences like tapping a date to open a calendar. Honor reduced the size of the notification bar to a standard five-label size. The animation has become smoother, the notification dots are located above the application icons. You can activate the app list and the excellent gesture navigation system.
Games on the View 20 are great. Not only because it is a powerful smartphone, but also because of the large bezel-less screen. Because of him, the game is immediately addictive if it's a good game. Without a cutout, you feel like you're on a Nintendo Switch or PlayStation Vita handheld game console. In this case, the game Asphalt 9: Airborne was launched, no brakes and dropped frames were noticed. Naturally, the gaming function Honor GPU Turbo is supported. In some games it increases the frame rate, in others it also makes the picture smoother. All in all, the Honor View 20 can be called an excellent gaming device, apart from a rather weak speaker.
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Battery and sound
One speaker is located on the bottom edge of the cabinet, and at best it can be called average in sound. But there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is able to solve the problem with sound. For owners of Bluetooth – headphones there is also good news. AptX HD support provides high-quality sound on headphones compatible with this standard. In this case, Sennheiser CX 300 headphones were used, so there were no problems. However, the volume was not as high as one might expect. In the Pandora service, I had to twist the sound to the maximum. We can say that this unit produces a neutral natural sound, where there is no emphasis on bass.
Honor The View 20 has a 4000mAh battery. With this size, it allows continuous operation without an outlet. The Kirin 980 processor is extremely energy efficient, the screen resolution is not the highest. Also Huawei has many energy saving features. As a result, the device can work without any problems for two days.
Also, testing was performed when connected to a smart watch that does not increase power consumption too much. In addition, there is a quick recharge; when the device is still discharged, it will be possible to quickly make up for the lack of energy.
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Prices, warranty and availability
Just the other day the cost of these smartphones in Russia became known. They are offered for 38,000 and 45,000 rubles. Sales start on January 23rd. A two-year smartphone warranty and a 6-month battery warranty are provided. This applies to manufacturing defects and not to problems caused by rough handling.
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Let's sum up
One glance at the Honor View 20 is enough to make out a serious smartphone. It has an advanced screen and a gorgeous rear camera. Taking this into account, the price can be called quite modest.
The competitors of this device include OnePlus 6T, Nokia 7.1, Honor 10, Samsung Galaxy A9. Among the devices missing in our country are Google Pixel 3, Moto Z3 Play, you can still look aside iPhone XR and LG G7. As for the posh devices Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20, they are almost twice as expensive.
Honor The View 20 has a very modern design and was among the first to switch to the front camera holes. This design is just coming into fashion and may remain popular for a long time. This is not a rugged smartphone, so there is no water protection here. The package contains a transparent silicone case, which is desirable to use.