Honor 20

The Honor 20 is quite the premium-looking phone that is meant to keep you satisfied. Priced at Rs. 32,999, the Honor 20 has an elegant look and the hardware that can make it a top-ranked phone in the top mid-range market.

However, the camera performance of the Honor 20 needs a reboot. It is not very consistent, and that’s why the phone might lag behind its immediate competitor OnePlus 7. However, if you are an Honor fan, you will not be disappointed and can choose this phone over OnePlus 7.

The Honor 20 is a compact phone with a slim look and curved edges that slips comfortably in your palm. The phone has a dual-glass design. The glass rear has a gradient effect and a mirror finish, which makes it look premium. It changes colour based on how the light falls on it. Overall, the design is beautiful. The 2.5D curved-edge display along with the glass rear blends well with the metallic rim that goes around the edges of the phone. The volume rocker is on the right side along with the recessed power button with an embedded fingerprint sensor. It is quite snappy and accurate. The bottom of the phone hosts the speaker and USB Type-C port. There are two problems with this phone though – first the glossy back makes the phone a fingerprint magnet, and secondly, the camera bulge makes it look quite weak. Otherwise, the phone has a premium design.

Honor 20 has a 6.26-inch full HD+ screen with a 1080×2340 pixels. The phone comes with an excellent pixel density of 412 ppi. It does not have a reinforced glass, but the company claims that it uses a material that will prevent damage and scratches. It is a hole punch screen which might be a bit distracting, but it’s a modern touch. The phone may not have the AMOLED vibrancy, but it is plenty bright and can be used outdoors. However, the phone screen is a bit reflective, and harsh sunlight can make it even worse. Indoors, the colours are quite crisp. There is also an eye comfort mode that reduces the harsh blue tinge and gives a yellowish colouration. You can also manually switch from Full HD+ to HD+ to save power.

The phone gets its power from the Huawei own HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset which is the same used in Mate 20 Ori and P30 Pro. The Kirin is a powerful chipset, and it is blazing fast. You can run anything on this phone, including intensive tasks like running 15-20 apps, and this phone will not slow down. Even high-end games like PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 5 works brilliantly without any stutters. However, the camera app does become unresponsive at times while taking photos, which is strange. The only complain is while gaming is right on this phone, the audio is weak and is easily muffled due to the single speaker that is used.

The phone comes with a 48MP camera with 4-in-1 Light Fusion, which is the pixel binning technique of Huawei. It uses four adjacent pixels, combines it in one for bright photos. The 48MP is supported by a super-wide 18MP camera and a 2MP depth-sensing camera. In the front, the phone has a 32MP selfie camera. Huawei is known for its cameras, but the Honor 20 does disappoint a bit. In daylight, the camera was able to capture punchy photos which had plenty of details. However, the images had a bit of oversaturation, and the colours seem inaccurate. Red was too warm, and the green colours looked dull. The edge detection is generally, but the dynamic range of the cameras is weak, unable to reproduce the blue streaks of the sky during sunrise or sunset.  The panoramas by the wide-angle camera were quite good without much barrel distortion. The phone has a 32MP selfie camera which captures plenty of details. However, the beauty mode smoothens it out and makes the selfies look artificial. Low-light selfies develop a lot of grain.

The Honor 20 can record 4K video at 30fps and 1080 video at 60fps. The videos are quite good, but due to the lack of optical image stabilization, they can turn out to be blurry. On the other hand, it has Artificial Image stabilization, which cancels out hand movement artificially and is not very efficient.

The Honor 20 comes with a 3750 mAh battery which is quite good. The battery is a strong point for Honor 20.  It can last for an entire day with moderate use and even have 30-35% left by the end of the day. Running an HD video on loop found that the phone can run for 18 hours and 47 minutes, which is fantastic. The phone does not have wireless charging, but it does charge fast reaching from 0 to 100% within an hour and a half.

Honor 20 has an impressive design, and one of the best features of this phone is the grunts that it has under its hood. However, the phone has its flaws. The phone does not have the best cameras considering its a Huawei phone. The cameras tend to struggle with colour reproduction and do not deliver good videos either. The lack of proper display can also be a sore point for people looking for an immersive screen. Overall, the phone completes against OnePlus 7 and severely lags in the camera department in comparison. If you are looking for photographic oomph, the OnePlus 7 is a better phone to go for.