Honor 20 review: Great battery life & high-quality camera make it an affordable flagship

Price: Rs 32,999 (6/128GB)

Rating: ****

Specs: HiSilicon Kirin 980 octa core, 6GB RAM, 128GB (non expandable), 6.26-inch IPS LCD with hole punch (FHD+ 2340 x 1080pixels, 412ppi), quad rear camera (48MP f1.8 + 16MP f2.2 ultrawide + 2MP f2.4 macro lens + 2MP f2.4 depth sensor, 32MP f2.0 front camera, NFC, IR emitter, USB 2.0 with type C port & OTG, WiFi ac, BT5.0, 3,750mAh battery, 174 grams


Pros: Flagship performance, fast side mounted fingerprint scanner, great battery life thanks to multiple software optimisations, dedicated macro lens, high quality camera experience

Cons: No headphone jack, large protruding rear camera module makes it wobble on a table, slippery (can slide off a table), should have had an OLED display, bloat-heavy interface, non-expandable storage, only one variant on offer

It’s no secret and surprise that the blacklisting of Huawei (Honor’s parent company) by various US companies is going to cost the company dearly. More than two months after Huawei was added to the US Department of Commerce’s Entity List via executive order (15 May 2019), the situation is still unclear with some executives pegging the losses to Huawei at US$ 30 Billion. Consumer sentiment has taken a big blow and it’s a shame, because in the past year or so, smartphones from Huawei and Honor have really upped the game in terms of hardware, camera and/or value (we’re thinking of flagships like Huawei Mate 20 pro, Huawei P30 Pro, Honor View20 and Honor 8X).

The Honor 20 follows the same vein: it falls squarely in affordable flagship territory, where it competes directly with the likes of OnePlus 7 and Asus 6Z. It has the punch hole camera design with otherwise very slim bezels and some neat tricks including a quad rear camera system (with different lenses for macro and ultrawide), long battery life and excellent performance.

It’s a glass metal design that feels surprisingly small for the screen size of 6.3-inches. In a move that bucks current trends, this phone has a side-mounted capacitive fingerprint scanner. Depending on which hand you hold it in, you can register an index finger or thumb which will then fall naturally on the scanner. The scanner itself works fast and reliably, which is more than what we can say of some of the in-display fingerprint scanners that are becoming so common.

One of the highlights of the phone is the quad camera system. Look at the camera module and you’ll first see the triple camera module (it sticks out the back panel a fair bit) with the fourth dedicated macro lens sitting next to it, flush with the back panel. The primary is a 48MP half inch sensor (Sony IMX586) that’s in so many popular phones now and it does a great job here as well. It captures a lot of detail, has pleasing bokeh and accurate colour. There’s also a nice night mode, pro mode, AR lens, time lapse and more. The wide angle lens is good for interesting perspectives outdoors but it’s not as high quality and doesn’t have autofocus. The macro is nice to have but takes a lot of work (you have to keep it exactly 4cm from the subject and have good lighting) to get good results.

Things we didn’t like: the super-slippery and glossy back is a nightmare to keep clean. It’s not Gorilla Glass but the company’s own hardened glass which can just make it slide off a flat table if you’re not careful. The interface is Magic 2.1 (very much like EMUI) based on Android 9.0. It has a lot of features but also a lot of pre-loaded apps and feels very bloated. Weirdly, there is an IR emitter but they didn’t include a universal remote app. The saving grace is the battery life. We would regularly end the day with more than 30% battery to spare.

Again, at this price, the Honor 20 is a solid offering if you’re not bothered by the recent turn of events with the parent company. The OnePlus 7 would still be our top pick at this price for a number of reasons: it has brilliant software (Oxygen OS), great 48MP camera with OIS, amazing build quality, faster UFS 3.0 storage, faster processor (SD855 still beats Kirin 980 - plus OnePlus has much faster UFS 3.0 storage) and a nice amoled display. You can also consider Asus’ 6Z with the innovative flip camera.