Review of the Honor 20 Pro smartphone: excellent camera for reasonable money

Honor is the best-selling smartphone brand in Russia in the first half of 2021. Huawei's subsidiary owes this popularity primarily to budget smartphones, but they also love it for its affordable flagships, which provide users with top-end specs and a good camera for reasonable money.

This year, the Chinese decided to outdo themselves and released Honor 20 Pro, a review of which is brought to your attention. This is undoubtedly the coolest smartphone in the entire history of the brand. But what did the manufacturer sacrifice for an advanced camera? Let's figure it out.

Characteristics of Honor 20 Pro:

• Screen: IPS, 6.26″, FHD+ (2340×1080 px, 412 ppi), 19.5:9;
• Processor: Kirin 980 (7 nm, 4 Cortex-A55 1.8 GHz cores × 2 Cortex-A76 1.92 GHz cores × 2 Cortex-A76 2.6 GHz cores), Mali-G76MP10 graphics (720 MHz, GPU Turbo 3.0);
• Permanent memory: 256 GB (UFS 2.1), without MicroSD support;
• RAM: 8 GB (LPDDR4X, 2133 MHz);
• Main camera: 48 MP (Sony IMX586, f/1.4, EGF 28 mm, OIS) + 16 MP (f/2.2, wide-angle, viewing angle 117 degrees, EGF 13 mm) + 8 MP (3x zoom, f/2.4, EGF 80 mm, OIS) + 2 MP (macro, f/2.4, EGF 27 mm), 4K/30fps video recording;
• Front camera: 32 MP (f/2.0, EGF 26 mm), portrait mode, 1080p/30fps;
• Battery: 4000 mAh (Li-Pol) fast charging 22.5 W;
• SIM: 2 x Nano-SIM;
• Communications: NFC, 4G, Bluetooth 5.0 (aptX HD), Wi-Fi 5 dual-band (802.11ac), SAR 1.08 W/kg;
• Connectors: USB Type-C (OTG);
• Security: fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock;
• OS: Android 9 Pie with EMUI 9.1 shell (Magic UI 2.1);
• Dimensions: 154.6 x 73.97 x 8.44 mm, weight 182 g;
• Colors: Phantom Blue, Phantom Black, Icelandic Illusion.

The presentation of Honor 20 Pro took place on May 21 in London, but a few days before that, the United States imposed sanctions on Huawei, as a result of which the release of the new product was in jeopardy - the flagship was not certified by Google. Fortunately, the issue was resolved and everything ended well. The device debuted in Russia on July 25, and on August 2, Honor 20 Pro went on sale.

Interesting fact: the official price of Honor 20 Pro in Russia is 10 thousand rubles lower than in Europe: 34,990 rubles versus 599 euros (~ 43.7 thousand). It’s better not to order a smartphone on Aliexpress; Chinese versions do not support LTE Band 7 and 20.

The delivery set is absolutely standard: a smartphone, a USB-C cable, a 22.5 W fast charging unit, a clip for the SIM tray, a warranty card and a user manual. The nice thing is that the protective film was applied directly from the factory. The sad thing is the lack of a case and an adapter from USB-C to a 3.5 mm jack, as an unobtrusive warning that there is no mini-jack in the smartphone.

⇡#Technical characteristics

Design and ergonomics

Honor 20 Pro, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful Huawei smartphones in 2021. It is notable for its unusual colors with an interesting holographic 3D effect. The back of the smartphone is made of three layers of tempered glass at once - a regular, colored layer and the so-called depth layer. The purpose of the first two is obvious, but the latter consists of a huge number of tiny prisms, upon which light is scattered and illuminates neighboring pigments, thereby creating a three-dimensional effect. It looks really beautiful, but at the same time restrained, unlike the flashy gradients of most class=”aligncenter” width=”700″ height=”500″[/img]

Unlike the younger version with a flat back, the back cover here is noticeably curved at the edges. Due to this, the phone fits very comfortably in the hand, but the glass remains just as slippery and easily soiled.

The main camera lenses of all the latest Huawei smartphones are emphatically large, but the Honor 20 Pro has protruding optics for the purpose - there is optical stabilization on two modules at once. This is not particularly practical to use; on the table, the device wobbles noticeably when you tap on the screen. If this is a problem for you, buy a case that will cover the camera protrusion.

Against the backdrop of the dominance of similar devices, Honor 20 Pro managed to maintain recognition from the front. The cutout for the front camera on the left is a unique feature of Huawei; only Samsung flagships have this, but their camera island is located on the right side of the screen. Such cutouts are in no hurry to appear in more budget devices, so the device will look premium for a long time.

The bottom frame is slightly thicker than the symmetrical margins on top and sides of the screen, but this does not spoil the “frameless” feeling - the difference is insignificant. In the speaker grille above the screen there is a color notification indicator, which is clearly visible only if you look at the phone perpendicularly; if it is lying on the table in front of you, there may be problems with the visibility of the LED.

The connectors and buttons are arranged in a typical manner: at the bottom there is a USB Type-C port, a speaker and a microphone, at the top there is a second microphone and a proximity sensor. On the right are the volume and power keys, and on the left is the card tray, which, alas, does not support MicroSD.

At the top end, in an oval window, there is a proximity sensor, and not an IR port, which is erroneously indicated in some reviews. You cannot use a smartphone instead of a remote control, as was the case with Honor 10. The sensor itself works correctly.

But with the fingerprint scanner everything is much more interesting; it is located on the right side, directly in the power button of the smartphone. There are no complaints about the quality of the fingerprint sensor: it is very fast and accurate, it works almost instantly, and it is not necessary to press a key, a simple touch is enough.

But this location of the scanner cannot be called an unconditional advantage - it is convenient, since your finger immediately hits the button when you take the phone in your hand. But this solution is only suitable for right-handed people, and if the phone is lying on the table, you need to lift it to unlock it, since Huawei smartphones traditionally do not support turning on the screen by double tap. In addition, the scanner does not recognize gestures - viewing the notification shade and flipping through photos will not work.

By modern standards, the Honor 20 Pro has standard dimensions; the smartphone cannot be called a shovel, but it is also problematic to operate it with one hand; it is inconvenient to reach the top of the screen. Of course, the case could be thinner - here it is almost 8.5 mm, but then a capacious battery would not fit inside, so the dimensions are quite justified

Performance and software

The only configuration of the Honor 20 Pro is largely the same as the average one for the Huawei P30 Pro. The branded HiSilicon Kirin 980 with Mali-G76 MP10 video is also installed here. There are no memory options for this model, but with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, this is not a problem at all. There is also ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC. But unlike the Huawei flagship, there is no possibility of installing memory cards and USB-C version 2.1, not 3.0 (which is unlikely to be a big problem for the vast majority of users).

Honor has no less performance. The smartphone can handle even demanding games with ease, although it can get a little warm during long rounds of gaming (PUBG Mobile, for example). Moreover, all other tasks are given to him without problems. Multitasking is also okay, but from time to time the system unloads applications from memory, and even if a preview of the place where the work stopped remains in the open programs panel, when opened, the application will load again into its original state. Also, according to the test, the processor can throttle a lot, but this is not noticeable in use.

The OS installed here is Android 9.0 with Magic UI 2.1.0. This is the same EMUI, just called differently. For those who are familiar with Huawei or Honor smartphones, there is practically nothing new to expect here. Everyone else won't have to spend a lot of time getting used to it; the launcher is quite simple and intuitive.

Display

Honor 20 Pro is one of the few flagships that uses an IPS screen. The display occupies 91.7% of the front panel area, the hole for the front camera is even smaller than in the Galaxy S10. The very location of the hole on the left is also less striking than that of the Koreans. When you hold the smartphone horizontally, for example during a game, it does not loom, but is covered with your thumb.

The screen itself is represented by a 6.26-inch matrix with FullHD+ resolution and a pixel density of 412 ppi. It has a fairly high brightness - up to 480 cd/m², the automatic adjustment function works correctly. When using it, the brightness of the display in the sun can increase above the maximum level, which can be set manually. In general, there are no questions about the readability of the display.

Everything is also excellent in terms of color rendering. This is a good IPS panel with natural but rich colors, a good level of contrast and viewing angles. By default, the screen is a little cold, but the white balance can be manually adjusted in the settings, and there are two color profiles to choose from (normal and bright).

EMUI offers the ability to reduce the resolution from FHD+ to HD+, which is presented as a tool for improving the autonomy of the smartphone, but in fact there is no particular effect from the function. There is a night mode that raises the color temperature of the screen, making it less irritating to the eyes at night. The settings even hide the notch, but then the screen will become very asymmetrical, with a large top frame, it looks frankly so-so.

Honor 20 Pro performance - everything is great here too

The “heart” of the smartphone is the powerful Kirin 980 processor, which, although it is from last year, is currently the most current from Huawei. It was also used in Huawei flagships in 2019, in particular in the Huawei P30 Pro smartphone.

The processor is still good, energy efficient and packed with a large number of supported functions, and the results of synthetic tests are still impressive, as are the high speed of user and RAM, of which the device has 256 GB and 8 GB, respectively.

The operating system is Android 9 with Magic UI 2.1 shell, the interface of which works very quickly. Initially, there are several pre-installed applications, in addition to services from Google.

In any games, the smartphone works perfectly at the highest graphics settings - in PUBG we get 40 FPS, in Fortnite - 30, and in simpler games like Guns of Boom and WoT - all 60 frames per second, which corresponds to the maximum refresh rate of the Honor 20 Pro screen (60 Hz). Let me remind you that the smartphone uses GPU Turbo 3.0 technology, which optimizes performance in games, so frame drops, if they happen, do not affect the gameplay in any way.

There is no significant heating of the case when running games, perhaps due to the declared graphene cooling. Of course, the device becomes warm in the upper part - where the processor is located, but I was not able to make the Honor 20 Pro hot, unless you can try playing with the charger on, which is not recommended in any case.

Nothing predicted this, but various tests show a significant decrease in performance under load. It was not possible to feel this in games, except that once within an hour the picture began to slow down, but it is not a fact that this happened due to throttling.

Performance and OS

Honor 20 Pro received a top-end processor of Huawei's own production - Kirin 980, which is based on the latest 7 nm process technology. They didn’t save on memory either; there is even more of it than competitors of similar prices: 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of ROM. With such a volume, it is unlikely that anyone will be affected by the problem of the lack of a slot for MicroSD cards.

Although the smartphone is kept in AnTuTu at the level of last year’s flagships with Snapdragon 845, its performance is absolutely enough for absolutely any task. It is worth giving credit to Huawei for the high-quality optimization of the system; the interface here works simply with lightning speed - there are no crashes, no crashes, no brakes.

The Honor 20 Pro handles all games with ease, PUBG runs at maximum graphics settings, and any popular titles too. After 30 minutes of play, the case warms up to 43 degrees, throttling does not affect the frame rate, the picture remains smooth even during long-term gaming.

The operating system is Android 9 Pie with Magic UI 2.1 shell. Essentially, this is a complete copy of EMUI 9.1 from smartphones under the Huawei brand. The firmware is known for its controversial design, but good functionality and customization options. In the coming months, an update to EMUI 10 is expected, the visual part of which the Chinese have significantly redesigned for the better.

Review of the Honor 20 Pro smartphone: excellent camera for reasonable money

How much, in your opinion, should a smartphone cost with a camera in the top 5 according to one of the most authoritative resources, with an almost flagship processor made using 7 nm technology (the most energy efficient today), and with a battery life of a couple of days? Honor sells such a model for 14,000 UAH. The editors of gg used the company's new flagship 20 Pro for two weeks and share their impressions in this review.

What is this?

A top-end Honor smartphone with the flagship processor from last fall (Kirin 980), a modern design and one of the best cameras on the market.

What is in the box?

Smartphone, case, headphone adapter with USB Type-C interface, documents, paperclip. The paper clip is a beauty, and the adapter is... white. In a box with a blue smartphone and in a world where most headphones are black.

The case is transparent, made of soft silicone.

What does he look like?

Honor is a youth brand, bright, dynamic and that’s all. Therefore, design plays a paramount role in brand models. I got my hands on the blue Honor 20 Pro. The color feature of this device is the darkening around the edges, which adds an interesting effect.

The back panel is made of glass (I noticed it in the specifications because the sound is more reminiscent of plastic), so glossy that you can see your reflection in it, albeit a little distorted. And fingerprints - well, you can’t get them out. There will be no such problem with a case. The ends are made of aluminum frame.

The triple camera protrudes above the body. But after the presentation of the latest iPhone and Huawei Mate 30, I would like to emphasize that the designer did work on this model. Therefore, the camera module looks aesthetically pleasing and takes up little space. By the way, the included case for the Honor 20 Pro (unlike the Vivo V15 Pro) goes around the camera, so when the smartphone is in the case, it does not stick out.

I used the smartphone without a case. Didn't slip out of your hands and didn't get deep scratches in a bag with keys and other hard objects. There are small ones and are a little noticeable when the light plays on the curves of the case.

There is only one speaker, on the left at the bottom end. Loud, ringing, but if it were stereo it would be even better. Next to it is a microphone and USB Type-C. The connector, however, was placed asymmetrically. Is there really so little space in the case?

The fingerprint scanner is built into the screen lock key. Probably the most convenient place. The unlocking process occurs instantly, completely unnoticed. Faster and more convenient than with a face recognition sensor. The only thing was that it seemed that it was necessary to press harder on it to reboot the smartphone. But a reboot is a rare thing; you can push it once or twice a month.

Above the lock button is the volume key. The slot for SIM cards is on the left side, on top there is a microphone and an infrared port.

The front side is almost a solid screen, the frames occupy 1-2 mm on all sides, the screen accounts for 84% of the front panel. The front camera flaunts in the upper left corner. Although formally it has begun to take up less space on the screen, a large piece is still eaten away from the interface; for my taste, this solution is little better than last year’s teardrop cutouts. By the way, if you don’t like the cutout, you can hide it along with this part of the screen. Eh, iPhone, why did you do this to us? So we would live without cutouts on the display and would not know grief.

Is the screen decent?

The Honor 20 Pro screen is a savings. Not in the sense that it has problems with brightness or color reproduction, but in the fact that it has an IPS matrix. The matrix is ​​decent, the difference will be noticeable only to a trained eye. The screen diagonal is 6.26 inches, resolution 1080x2340 pixels (pixel density 412 ppi). The characteristics are generally typical for its price category, although manufacturers already offer OLED displays for that kind of money.

As for the picture quality, everything is fine under the rays of the sun. In games and graphics tests, the picture is also good for an IPS matrix, with contrast. Probably until you put an OLED smartphone next to it. But I haven’t had this happen, and it’s unlikely that the owner of a smartphone will either.

In the display settings, you can control color rendition, adjust the automatic brightness adjustment to suit your taste, and activate eye protection mode when the color rendition is warmer than usual.

How is its performance?

The model is equipped with a Kirin 980 processor and 8 GB of RAM. This is even more than the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which we reviewed and impressed with its performance. This is an eight-core processor with big.LITTLE architecture (4 Cortex-A55 cores, 1.8 GHz, 2 Cortex-A76 cores, 2.6 GHz and 2 Cortex-A76 cores 1.92 GHz) and GPU Turbo 3.0 support. Today, the device's performance is still excessive for most users, with a good foundation for the future. In the test, Honor 20 Pro shows results at the level of last year's flagships. In my life I had about 80 applications, if you count everything in the settings list, the interface worked without delay. Asphalt 9 and Shadow Fight 3 ran smoothly

Speaking of memory. The model received a 256 GB flash drive, but there is no expansion slot.

What about autonomy?

The battery capacity of Honor 20 Pro is 4000 mAh. This is my first experience using a smartphone with a processor made using the 7 nm process technology. The energy efficiency of the processor is noticeable in operation. Usually I always listen to music on the road, at least a couple of hours a day, I read and write a lot from my smartphone (news, notes, chats), I Google something, most online purchases are also from my smartphone. But I don't play. Youtube - also mainly from a smartphone, at home and on the road. In normal power consumption mode with this usage scenario, my smartphone worked stably for a day and a half.

Once, when the Honor 20 Pro had to act all day as a camera, a voice recorder and the only device for work - writing and sending texts, communicating in instant messengers, a navigator, etc.) - it “died” at about 18-19 pm (recorded from charging at approximately 9.00).

It so happened that I traveled a lot around the country with the Honor 20 Pro, without access to an outlet and without a power bank with me, so I still had to turn on the power saving mode. In this mode, the battery lasted me for about two days, and in standby mode the charge practically did not melt.

In the PC Mark battery life test, the device lasted more than 12 hours.

What's interesting about the interface?

Honor 20 Pro runs Android 9.0 OS, on top of which the proprietary Magic UI 2.1 shell is used. The interface is typical for all Huawei/Honor smartphones, which we have already written about many times (there is a detailed review of the shell in this review). There is no separate application menu; there are already several Huawei services, including a browser, HiCare application with support information, cloud, etc.

The smartphone constantly reminds you intrusively about protection against “theft”, data loss, etc. and in every possible way leads to the need to create a Huawei account. But even without this, you can safely use the device.

In this version of the shell, I was immediately struck by the fact that the smartphone offers to update applications from the AppGallery brand store. Even if they were installed from Google Play. By the way, I saw the same thing in Vivo V15 Pro. I looked into AppGallery out of interest. From the start, the store offered a rather strange selection of recommended applications.

But in general, the further you go, the more you feel that the company is working on developing the software and attracting developers (to whom it promises “full support”; according to some data, there are already 560 thousand people in the developer community). In addition to popular global services in Ukraine, Megogo, Vodafone, Kyivstar, Prom.ua, lifecell, Lanet and other Ukrainian companies have already added their applications to the AppGallery.

Honor, like Huawei, offers the user to backup their data in their account and the cloud (suddenly you don’t trust Google); you can transfer your data from an old Huawei/Honor smartphone to a new one in a couple of clicks through the Phone Clone function in the settings.

In the settings there is a separate section for game lovers - the game center. Here you can activate the “game without pauses” mode so that notifications do not bother you during the process, enable acceleration for games (will increase energy consumption and performance) or configure the launch of a specific game when a gaming accessory is connected.

A top-end smartphone today (and a year ago too) is already a fairly intelligent creature. This model has, for example, a voice control function using its own HiVoice assistant. Apparently, he already knows a little Russian. For example, it responds to questions about finding a phone or can answer or reject a call.

Or, for example, the intelligent HiTouch function using the ViSense platform can search for a product by picture in different online stores. The truth is mostly in Amazon. I didn’t find Ukrainian ones in the list of options. In addition, the search accuracy is low - for example, even if you search for a completely recognizable smartphone model or clothing with specific characteristics, they will offer only vaguely similar options.

Are the cameras good?

Honor 20 Pro is equipped at first glance with a triple camera, although the specifications indicate four modules:

• 48-megapixel wide-angle with f/1.8 aperture;
• 16-megapixel ultra-wide-angle with f/2.2 aperture;
• 8-megapixel telephoto with f/2.4 aperture;
• 2-megapixel for super macro photography with f/2.4 aperture.

The Huawei/Honor camera interface is also well known to gg and those who have already used branded smartphones. As camera capabilities evolve, additional shooting modes are added. Here it is, for example, super macro - for shooting objects at a distance of up to 4 cm.

The effect of super macro photography seemed interesting to me. This is the best thing if you want to convey the texture of some object. But it turns out great at a short distance, otherwise the focus doesn’t work.

In this generation, the camera has become even more automated. Sees a person in the frame - switches to portrait mode. At night - at night. When shooting landscapes, it suggests switching to the super wide-angle module. Below is an example of shooting with a regular module and a super wide-angle one.

But what I still don’t like is that in shooting with the bokeh effect, year after year, the camera does not learn to normally determine the boundaries of the object and “washes” what it considers the background at random. Huawei was the first to introduce this shooting mode in its smartphones, but year after year everyone pretends not to notice the problem.

But in fact, this is the only complaint about the camera (DXOMark experts do not consider this a problem at all; they awarded Honor 20 Pro 4th place in their rating. Above are Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G, Huawei P30 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, and then Last year's flagship Huawei Mate 20 is coming.

Example of a photo with zoom.

Night photography is amazingly good; smartphones from this manufacturer (and brand) still have no equal.

I didn’t have a chance to hold the Mate 20 in my hands, but I remember the Huawei P20 Pro camera for the fact that it took excellent pictures in proprietary modes, but was washed out and lost to the same Samsung in the evenings or in the forest on a sunny day, when a lot of light breaks through the foliage and is extremely bad I was filming against the sun with a competitor in the background. Honor 20 Pro no longer has such problems (or almost none). The camera produces excellent results in a variety of conditions in a point-and-shoot format, making it an excellent solution for people who like to take photographs, but are not particularly skilled. That is, for the mass user.

In dim lighting it turns out well, details are visible even in dark areas and there is no “soap”.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the quality of the photos. There is one nuance that caused inconvenience. While photographing people, the camera always seemed to freeze for a split second, trying to focus better. Because of this, it was difficult to catch a good angle or facial expression, especially when it came to photos of children or photos of people who are busy with something and do not know that they are being photographed. We can only hope that this is a glitch that will be fixed, because it interferes with life.

An example of shooting with a 32-megapixel selfie camera. Again, in this mode, Huawei/Honor ate the dog, software developers found the perfect balance between an “improved” face and natural beauty (the aforementioned Vivo, for the sake of Asian fashion, is still on the dark side and by default makes faces too decorated). But there are still misfires in separating the person from the background. And you shouldn't shoot against the sun. For selfies there are many modes with augmented reality, in my opinion, very Asian style.

You can look at the pictures in original resolution in a separate gallery on Torba.

Who are the competitors?

Within the brand's line, the model has two alternatives. Huawei Mate 20 Pro with similar hardware, but a slightly larger screen. In fact, within a year the model has not become outdated in terms of hardware (maybe the camera in it is a little simpler, but for the mass user the difference is unlikely to be noticeable). In my opinion, its main advantage is the screen. There is an OLED matrix and an Always On mode, which, in theory, improves energy efficiency. Additionally, the Mate 20 Pro has a unibrow cutout and rounded edges. Some people may prefer this option. One of the disadvantages is the price, it is several thousand higher for the model with 8 GB of RAM. And the design of the rear panel, for my taste, let us down.

Honor 20 is the little brother of the firmware. A slightly simpler camera (the differences are very small), a slightly smaller battery and a younger USB version, no FaceID, half the memory (128 GB versus 256 GB) and 6 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB. The difference in price is 2000 UAH.

A little cheaper, but still in this category there are two Xiaomi models - Mi 9T and Redmi K20 Pro. They have simpler cameras and less RAM, but they are cheaper by the same couple of thousand hryvnia. And there is an audio output.

Bottom line

Honor 20 Pro is definitely one of the most interesting proposals in its price category, if not the most interesting. The smartphone is comfortable to use in terms of performance and autonomy, has great ergonomics and is equipped with an excellent camera. The only argument against the purchase may be the IPS display - in this price category the scales are already leaning towards OLED solutions. Yes, and fans of audio output still have alternatives on the market.

4 reasons to buy Honor 20 Pro:

• the best camera for the money and one of the best on the market today;
• high performance without sacrificing autonomy;
• chic ergonomics (in particular, the location of the fingerprint sensor);
• built-in storage capacity of 256 GB.

2 reasons not to buy Honor 20 Pro:

• no standard audio output;
• I want an AMOLED screen.

Honor 20 Pro

A smartphone with a very good camera for reasonable money.
The older model of the Honor smartphone with an emphasis on a triple camera. Three lenses allow you to shoot at three different focal lengths. Night photography, which is traditionally strong for Huawei models, especially stands out. The Honor 20 Pro uses a 2021 flagship processor and is equipped with an uncharacteristically large 256 GB drive for its price category. What may stop you from buying it is the lack of a standard audio output, a slot for a memory card, or the desire to buy a smartphone with an AMOLED screen and the Always On function.

Buy in Eldorado Buy in Svyaznoy Buy in M.Video

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For those who want to know more:

• Huawei P20 Pro review: the world's first smartphone with Leica triple camera
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro review: Android flagship at maximum speed
• Huawei P30 Pro review: night vision device
• Huawei P30 lite review: a smartphone with a 48-megapixel camera
• vivo NEX 3 review: the first truly frameless smartphone
• Samsung Galaxy S10e review: smaller is not worse

Honor 20 Pro camera review

The key difference between the Honor 20 Pro and the standard version of the flagship is the main camera. It also consists of four lenses, but all modules are used for business - there are no useless depth sensors here.

The 48 MP main module is represented by the flagship Sony IMX 586 sensor, it has optical stabilization and optics with an outstanding f/1.4 aperture, which together provides excellent results when shooting in low light conditions.

Left - Honor 20, right - Honor 20 Pro

The second camera is an 8MP telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture and 80mm equivalent focal length that offers 3x optical zoom or 5x hybrid zoom. The telephoto is also equipped with an optical stabilization system.

The third module is a 16 megapixel camera for wide-angle shots, but unlike the first two, it does not have OIS or autofocus. And finally, the fourth lens is a 2 MP macro camera that has a fixed focus at a distance of 4 cm.

Photos taken with the Honor 20 Pro during the day look great. They are sharp, have natural color reproduction and a wide dynamic range. It is better to use the main camera in standard 12 MP mode. Increasing the resolution to 48 MP does not provide a noticeable increase in detail, and the amount of digital noise increases even with ideal lighting.

Examples of 12 MP photos:

The inclusion of AI algorithms leads to an increase in contrast and saturation; such pictures can be posted on social networks without any processing.

In low light, the Honor 20 Pro is also very good. The presence of optical stabilization minimizes the problem of blurry pictures and fully reveals the night mode, which, when activated, improves the clarity and dynamic range of photographs.

The results of the telephoto lens at 3x optical zoom during the day are not very different from the pictures taken with the main camera. The photos are also pleasing with wide pixel resolution and natural color reproduction, and even 5x zoom looks quite good on the phone screen.

Telephoto also greatly benefits from night mode, which allows you to get much more detail and reduce noise levels. The presence of OIS is very helpful here.

The ultra-wide-angle camera of the Honor 20 Pro is slightly inferior to the other modules; its images differ slightly in color rendition, and comparable sharpness is achieved through aggressive software sharpening. But in general, the width is not bad, and in terms of the quality of daytime photos it can be compared with that of the Huawei P30.

You can take normal photos with a wide-angle camera at night, but the lack of stabilization and fixed focus affect the final result.

The Honor 20 Pro is surprisingly good at shooting in portrait mode; the pictures are pleasing with natural skin color, detail and the right bokeh effect.

The same applies to selfies with the front camera. It can also blur the background, but errors in the contours of the object are more common here, especially when separating hair from the background.

What's not impressive is the macro camera, which is just as useless here as in the regular Honor 20. Close-up photos taken with a telephoto camera with 3x zoom look better than photos with a macro module, both in terms of detail, as well as in contrast and color rendition.

Honor 20 Pro can record video in 4K/30fps and 1080p/60fps; all three main cameras shoot in 4K. During the day, the videos look great; thanks to optical stabilization, the picture is smooth, with a good dynamic range, rich colors and no visible noise.

At night, the best result can be obtained when shooting FHD/60fps, since in UHD the picture noticeably doubles when moving. The sound recording quality and autofocus performance are good regardless of the shooting conditions.

Specifications Honor 9A

Sound

Honor 20 Pro has only one speaker at the bottom of the case. The speaker copes with its tasks well, although without any special frills. It is loud - you can hear it even in difficult conditions, be it in a crowd or a shower, there is no wheezing or distortion even at maximum volume. But in terms of volumetric sound and low-frequency processing, it is far from the stereo speakers of more expensive flagships.

In headphones, the smartphone sounds standard, and the volume is good. However, there is no headphone jack; you will have to connect them through the adapter that comes with the phone. All necessary wireless codecs are supported: aptX HD, LDAC, AAC and others.

Iron

Honor 20 Pro runs on the eight-core Huawei Kirin 980 SoC, this is a very powerful hardware platform of Huawei’s own production. Until recently, it was the flagship, but now the more powerful Kirin 990 has been released with overclocked processor core frequencies and a more powerful video accelerator.

However, even this power is still clearly excessive: the Kirin 980 easily copes with any tasks, including the most demanding games at maximum settings. The amount of RAM is 8 GB, the storage capacity is 256 GB without the possibility of expansion through memory cards. By the way, there is a GPU Turbo 3.0 mode that improves performance in games.

Connection quality

Huawei smartphones are famous for their excellent call quality, and the Honor 20 Pro is no exception. The device maintains excellent communication even in problem areas and has a high-quality microphone. At first you will have to get used to the conversational speaker; for the sake of framelessness, it has shrunk to a small slot, and therefore sometimes you will have to adjust and find in what position you can hear your interlocutor better.

The smartphone works in LTE networks and has fast Wi-Fi, of course dual-band. Navigation is also in perfect order - with active GPS, the phone does not heat up, the geolocation is accurate, and connection to satellites in the cold is carried out in 10-15 seconds. There is also an NFC module that supports contactless payment and travel card emulation. In general, there are no complaints about the communication capabilities of the Honor 20 Pro.

Autonomy

The battery, in comparison with the younger Honor 20, has grown from 3750 to 4000 mAh, which has a positive effect on battery life. With a mixed load (without games), the device provides an average of 8 hours of screen time; it is almost impossible to discharge it in a day.

How Honor 20 Pro discharges (display brightness 50%):

• 2 hours of watching Youtube - 11%
• 2 hours of playing Asphalt 9 - 28%
• 2 hours of Internet surfing – 16%
• 30 minutes of FHD video recording – 10%

The smartphone comes with a 22.5 W fast charger, which charges the smartphone by 46% in half an hour, and in an hour it reaches 84% ​​of the charge. A full charging cycle lasts exactly one and a half hours - for a 4000 mAh battery this is a good indicator.

Cameras

The Honor 20 Pro has four main cameras, and each has its own unique function. So, we have the following sensors: main wide-angle with a resolution of 48 MP, aperture ƒ/1.4 and optical stabilization (already familiar Sony IMX586); ultra-wide-angle with a capture angle of 117°, 16 MP resolution and ƒ/2.2; 8-megapixel telephoto, allowing for 3x optical zoom; and the last one is 2 MP for macro. Not the most common set, which even flagship devices do not yet have.

As usual, the main camera shoots in 12 MP resolution. There are all the same already familiar AI, Pro modes, background blurring, night shooting mode, and so on. During the daytime with good lighting, the camera tends to overexpose the image. This can always be slightly corrected both during shooting and on the finished frame, but this feature exists and you will have to remember it. AI can be left on; it will sometimes help tighten up the shadows or add minimal saturation. Such adjustments will be appreciated by ordinary users, and the overall quality of the photos is very good.

The ultra-wide-angle camera is also prone to overexposure. There is no big difference in quality from the main one with sufficient lighting. With it, as with any similar camera, it’s worth looking at distortions closer to the edges of the image. But thanks to the fairly good placement of the modules, I never got my finger in the frame.

Videos can be shot in 4K resolution, with good stabilization and exposure adjustment. However, there may be differences in colors between different cameras.

Example of recording 4K video with the main camera:

Example of recording 4K video with an ultra-wide format camera:

“Telephoto” allows you to get 3x zoom without losing quality. Like the ultra-wide-angle camera, this allows you to frame your shot differently depending on the situation. But with this sensor you already need to reconsider the frame on the spot, because the focus quite often misses, and it collects less light. As a result, the picture may differ significantly from the real one and those obtained from other cameras.

The last module is truly new. It is hardly possible to remember at least a couple of smartphones that are capable of focusing from 4 cm. But even here there are difficulties, because it is not always possible to take such shots handheld, and even if they carry a tripod in their pocket, it is only the most avid fans of mobile photography. Yes, the trick is new and interesting, but most likely the user will quickly forget about it. Moreover, the corresponding mode is hidden in the More menu, and there are no reminders about the macro mode. But a resolution of only 2 MP and poor image quality will not help this particular camera become popular.

At night, the zoom is only digital, so in the dark you will have to rely on the main and ultra-wide-angle cameras. Depending on the specific conditions and situation, the usual automatic mode will be quite sufficient, but there is also a separate night mode. So, both modules can take interesting shots in the evening, but it may take several tries.

The front camera resolution is 32 MP. She also navigates well in different lighting conditions and takes good pictures quite easily.

The application looks standard and, very importantly, works quickly. Switching between different modules and modes occurs without much delay. There were no problems with the camera during testing.

4.5

ITC.UA rating

Pros: Design, build quality and materials; screen; fingerprint and face scanning; performance and amount of memory; autonomy; cameras; price

Cons: Large protrusion of the camera block; weak speaker, no stereo sound

Conclusion: Honor 20 Pro manages to combine excellent performance and autonomy, a good screen, many different cameras with good capabilities, fast unlocking and a nice design. But you will have to put up with some details, such as a large protrusion of the camera block or an insufficiently loud speaker. Also, the smartphone will not be able to charge at induction stations, it cannot be immersed in water, and standard headphones cannot be connected to it without an adapter. But considering its cost, you can only complain about the speaker and the lack of stereo sound

Specifications

Verdict, competitors

What we liked about Honor 20 Pro:

• design, 3D design of the back cover;
• excellent all-round camera;
• speed and productivity;
• a lot of memory;
• battery life;

Flaws:

• lack of a slot for MicroSD;
• no minijack for headphones.

Controversial points:

• Useless camera for macro photography.
• no IR port (was in Honor 10);
• Fingerprint scanner on the side.

Honor 20 Pro is an excellent alternative to more expensive flagships. This is a comprehensively balanced and cool-looking smartphone with an excellent camera, performance and a powerful battery, which costs an adequate 35 thousand rubles in official retail.

Of course, there are some annoying limitations such as the lack of a headphone jack and non-expandable memory, but in terms of price-quality ratio, this is one of the best devices in its segment. The Honor 20 Pro has plenty of alternatives, but compared to the flagships of other Chinese manufacturers, our hero stands out due to a truly top-end camera.