Huawei's new Honor 20 series smartphones feature serious photographic power
LONDON — Honor has unveiled its 20 series smartphones, which are photographic powerhouses with a quad rear camera set-up aimed squarely at competing with the camera features of Samsung and Apple’s flagship phones.
The Huawei offshoot mobile brand went ahead with its launch event in London on Tuesday (21 May) despite the unfortunate news just a day earlier that Google would be stopping the brand’s access to the Android operating system as well as Play Store updates.
Google’s move was mandated by the US government and prohibits American tech companies from trading with the Chinese firm. Existing users can still use Android and Google apps on their Huawei and Honor devices for now, but they may not be able to receive future updates.
Washington had acted over concerns that Huawei, which supplies 5G equipment, would be hijacked by the Chinese government to spy on foreign governments through the infrastructure it builds.
Huawei called itself the victim of US "bullying" and said it was working with Google to respond to the trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.
Despite an uncertain future for Huawei and Honor products, the Honor 20 series offers some serious premium features at attractive prices.
The main products being announced were the Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro. The Honor 20 Lite had already been announced a few weeks earlier.
The Honor 20 is priced at €499 (S$770) in Europe, while the Honor 20 Pro costs €599. This is roughly half the price of other premium flagship smartphones from the likes of Samsung and Apple as well as Honor’s parent brand, Huawei.
Honor is serious about the look of its phones, having designed a holographic glass casing for the Honor 20 phones – which makes them shimmer in an iridescent pattern.
Both the Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro have 6.26-inch LCD displays and use the brand’s current flagship processor, the Huawei Kirin 980 chipset. This is the same processor used in the Huawei P30 Pro.
The Honor 20 has 6 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 128GB of storage, while the Honor 20 Pro has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Both phones run on Huawei’s modified version of Android 9 Pie called Magic UI.
But the brand is banking on the sheer photographic power of the new phones to draw users. During Honor president George Zhao’s unveiling presentation at the launch, he repeatedly compared the 20 series’ specs directly with those of Apple’s iPhone XS Max and Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Plus.
The Honor Lite has a 24-megapixel (MP) triple rear camera set-up, a 32MP selfie camera and 128GB storage. It uses the Kirin 710 chipset.
Besides the Honor Lite, which has a teardrop notch for its front-facing camera, the higher-end versions have a punch-hole 32MP selfie camera.
The fingerprint sensor is mounted on the right side of the phone casing, which is convenient for right-handers as the phone will unlock as soon as you pick it up. But the fact that the fingerprint sensor is mounted on the right side will pose a problem for left-handers.
There is no 3.5mm headphone jack on the Honor 20, and the only port is a USB-C port on the bottom of the phone.
The Honor 20 has four cameras at the back, including a traditional 48MP main camera, a 16MP super-wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth camera, which helps produce a bokeh effect (blurring of background). The fourth camera, a 2MP macro camera, allows for super close-up shots.
The Honor 20 Pro has the same 48MP camera, 16MP super-wide-angle camera, and 2MP macro camera, but the “bokeh” camera is 8MP instead of two, and comes with a 3X optical zoom.
All the Honor 20 phones are designed to work well in low-light conditions, which is what Huawei phone cameras are known for. The Honor 20 Pro has an astounding light sensitivity of ISO 204,800, while the Honor 20 has an ISO range of up to 102,400, which is still very impressive.
The Honor 20 Pro’s camera set-up has a DxOMark score of 111, which makes it second only to the Huawei P30 with a score of 112. Meanwhile, the Honor 20's battery has a capacity of 3,750mAh, while the Honor 20 Pro has a capacity of 4000mAh.
The Honor 20 Pro is available in Phantom Blue and Phantom Black. The Honor 20 is available in Sapphire Blue, Icelandic White and Midnight Black.
There is no release date so far for the new phones, though the Honor 20 is now available for pre-order in the UK and Europe. Honor said it would announce availability for the 20 Pro soon. Watch this space for updates as to Singapore pricing and release dates.
This article was the result of a trip paid for by Honor.
