Honor View 20 Review- A True Flagship Killer!

Honor has announced their flagship smartphone, the Honor View 20 in India. The device was first announced in China back in December 2018 and is the world’s first 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor. It is also the first device from Honor with a hole in the display for selfie camera. The device also packs the world’s first 7nm chipset, the Kirin 980. The phone also runs Android 9.0 out of the box and has Magic UI on top of it. The device pricing starts at Rs 37,999. So how good is the Honor View 20 and will it be able to take up OnePlus 6T in this segment? Let’s find out in the detailed Honor View 20 Review.

Design and Build:

The design has been one of the strong points of Honor smartphones, be it budget or flagship and the View 20 is no different. Even before the launch the View 20 had captured attention worldwide because of the design. The phone is made of metal and glass. The rear glass panel has a striking V pattern which shows up when light falls on it. It is more evident on the blue and the red variants of the device and this is accomplished with the help of nanolithography. The phone definitely looks premium with the finishing. We would suggest you to go with Sapphire Blue or Phantom Blue (available only in 8GB RAM variant).

The power and volume keys are on the right side while the SIM tray is on the left side. The bottom panel has USB type C port, single speaker and microphone while the top panel has IR blaster and 3.5mm audio jack. On to the front panel, the most striking feature is the selfie camera which is a hole in the display. The 25MP selfie camera sits on the top left corner killing one of the popular features of 2018, the Notch. Being glass and metal, the phone feels great in hand and overall feels premium.

Display:

Honor View 20 packs a 6.4 inch Full HD+ resolution display and the most interesting aspect of the display is the punch hole for the selfie camera. This is the first device in India with the punch hole selfie camera. This basically avoids the notch and gives you much better experience when using the phone. The IPS LCD panel on the Honor View 20 is pretty good with good brightness levels and very good touch response. The color quality looks good but at this price point, Honor could have thought of going with AMOLED panels. The screen to body ratio is 91.8% on the Honor View 20.

Software:

The Honor View 20 runs on Android 9.0 Pie out of the box and it has Magic UI on top of it. Basically Magic UI is the same as EMUI. The Magic UI offers plethora of options and modes to choose from to customize the device. It has a customize look with the ability to switch between app drawer and multiple home screens. Magic UI is highly customizable UI available and offers tons of features and tools to make your experience better. The settings panel and notification toggles are customized.

There is also App Twin feature which allows you to run two instances of the same app. This means you can run two instances of Facebook, WhatsApp etc. Other additional features include motion control, floating dock, voice control and also gloves mode. It also features the themes app. The software also comes bundled with some Huawei apps like Torch, sound recorder, phone manager, etc. The fingerprint scanner supports a lot of functions including locking apps and gestures for viewing the gallery. Another interesting option in the UI is File Safe which is security options and works with pin and fingerprint.

Performance:

The Honor View 20 is powered by the world’s first 7nm chipset, the Kirin 980 which is one of the powerful flagship processor available. The device is either coupled with 6GB of RAM or 8GB. The unit we tested had 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage included. Talking about the day to day performance, it was extremely smooth performance with no lag and it responded to all the tasks it was put to with ease. The memory management was really good and is able to retain all the apps perfectly well.

The speaker performance of the device is good and the phone comes with dual SIM card but misses out on SD card slot. But you get plenty of storage with 128GB and 256GB options. The SIM slot comes with 4G LTE and VoLTE support. The call quality is also very good on the device. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back panel and the phone does not comes with in-display scanner. But the fingerprint scanner is extremely response and quick to unlock, the same is the case with face unlock.

The gaming performance of the device is very smooth without any major battery drain and heating. It was able to handle games like PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9 without any issues. Another good thing about the device is that the punch hole camera did not interfere with gaming unlike the notch display.

Camera:

The Honor View 20 is the world’s first smartphone to come with the Sony IMX586 sensor 48MP rear camera. It also has a secondary TOF 3D camera for depth sensing for portrait shots. The rear camera has an F/1.8 aperture with LED flash. The front camera is a 25MP f/2.0 sensor on the view 20. The camera interface is largely unchanged and it comes with all the modes and features you would see on an Honor smartphone. There is also AI camera mode for both the rear and front camera. As of now, the Sony IMX586 is bigger than most mobile sensors on the market, and it offers far more resolution than competitors.

The camera quality of the View 20 is really good. In good lighting conditions, the View 20 is able to provide great results with excellent details and sharpness levels. The 48MP AI Clarity mode gives you stunning results but it takes 4 seconds to capture. There is also AI mode, but unlike the AI mode on Honor 10, it does not saturate the images and provides great results when turned on. The overall color production is very much natural and it does a really good job.

Coming to the low light captures, here again, the phone manages to capture a lot of detail in challenging light conditions and results are impressive. There is dedicated night mode available but it is not as good as the one on Mate 20 Pro and often over sharpens the image. The portrait shots also have come with good detailing.

The phone also support video recording in 1080p (30 and 60fps) while 4K is limited to 30fps. There is EIS on offer in 30fps. The video quality is also good. The 25MP AI selfie camera take good selfies. There is good details and sharpness levels are also quite good. Here are some samples taken with the device.

Battery Life:

Honor View 20 comes with a massive 4000mAh battery with Huawei’s Super charger included in the box. The battery life on the device is very good and we could easily get one and a half day of battery life. The bundled 40W Super charger can charge the phone in less than 1.5 hours.

Verdict:

With great design and build quality, excellent performance, great set of camera and superb battery life, the Honor View 20 is a great package offered at Rs 37,999 for the 6GB RAM. It is hard to find faults with this device, probably you could point out that it misses out on IP68 certifications and wireless charging or even SD card support. But these are not really deal breakers. Overall, we feel the Honor View 20 is superb package from Honor and a device worth buying.