Honor View 20 smartphone review: goodbye bangs, goodbye

It’s easier to get confused in the family tree of Huawei/Honor smartphones than in the pedigree of some Habsburgs: smartphones alone that bear the title of flagships can be counted at two or three for each brand. Honor annually falls under this title with a “numbered” model (at the time of publication it is Honor 10), which is then replaced in this position by the View series smartphone - with the latest platform and developments applied in the main smartphone of the Chinese company - Huawei Mate. But there is also Honor Magic2, which, in addition to the Kirin 980 system-on-chip, offers almost absolute framelessness due to the use of a slider mechanism.

The same hole with the front camera

The “magic” smartphone, however, never went beyond the Chinese market, so Honor View 20 can be considered the official international flagship of the brand, which has its own way to get rid of the hateful “unibrow” - this is one of the first devices with a hole in the corner screen where the front camera is inserted. Officially, the first two smartphones with a similar solution were Huawei nova 4 and Samsung Galaxy A8s, but View 20 is not that far behind.

This is not the only advantage of the new gadget. It is built on the basis of the most powerful Huawei platform - HiSilicon Kirin 980 with a special cooling system, is equipped with a dual rear camera with a main module, the declared resolution of which is as much as 48 megapixels, has three Wi-Fi antennas and a dual-frequency GPS module, as well as some superpowers associated with the use of an additional 3D camera.

⇡#Technical characteristics

Review of the Honor View 20 smartphone

At the beginning of the year, Huawei introduced to the Russian market a new flagship smartphone of its Honor brand - View 20, which incorporates most of the advanced mobile technologies currently available to the manufacturer. At the presentation of the new product, five new features and technologies were demonstrated, first used in an Honor brand device. Among them: a camera with a resolution of 48 megapixels, a front camera with a resolution of 25 megapixels built into the screen, a 7-nanometer “intelligent” Kirin 980 processor, as well as a triple “intelligent” Wi-Fi antenna and a “nano-textured” coating of the body with a “shine” effect "

Main characteristics of Honor View 20 (model PCT-L29)

• SoC Huawei Kirin 980, 8 cores: 2×Cortex-A76 @2.6 GHz, 2×Cortex-A76 @1.9 GHz, 4×Cortex-A55 @1.8 GHz
• GPU Mali-G76 MP10 @720 MHz
• Operating system Android 9, Magic UI 2.0.1
• Touch display IPS 6.4″, 2310×1080, 398 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 6/8 GB, internal memory 128/256 GB
• No microSD support
• Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• GSM/WCDMA networks
• Networks LTE Cat 13, TD-LTE: 38, 39, 40, 41. LTE FDD: 1—8, 19, 20, 28
• GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, BDS, Galileo
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz)
• Bluetooth 5.0, BLE
• NFC
• IR port
• USB Type-C, USB OTG
• Audio output to headphones (3.5 mm)
• Main camera 48 MP, f/1.8 + 3D TOF camera; 4K video
• Front camera 25 MP, f/2.0
• Proximity and lighting sensors, magnetic field, accelerometer, gyroscope
• Fingerprint's scanner
• 4000 mAh battery, SuperCharge fast charging
• Dimensions 157×75×8.1 mm
• Weight 180 g

Appearance and ease of use

Honor View 20 received two notable innovations, which is why its design is still unique on the market. First, the glass back cover shimmers in the light, creating a striking geometric V-shape pattern. Secondly, the front part does not have a notch, but there is still a cutout in the screen - a round hole made specifically for the front camera.

This is a rather unusual solution; it is designed to minimize the size of the cutout, maximizing the usable area of ​​the front panel for the needs of the display. The display as a result occupies 91.8% of the entire front surface. Engineers used an advanced buffer holder to position the front camera as precisely as possible under a miniature transparent hole in the screen with a diameter of only 4.5 mm, formed using lithography.

The speaker and LED event indicator are placed in a frame around the screen, which is why the diode light is visible rather poorly and only from the end. The same solution is observed in the latest generations of Meizu.

The materials used here are familiar: the side frame is made of metal, and both panels are made of glass. Surfaces are smooth, soiled and slippery, this has already become commonplace. When producing the View 20 case, nanolithography was used, with the help of which a nanotexture is formed, forming a bright and dynamic color gradient in the form of the letter “V”.

The fingerprint scanner was placed in the “traditional” way - on the back wall, and this is good. The platform is slightly recessed and can be easily felt blindly; this solution outperforms the newfangled under-screen scanner in terms of response speed and ease of use.

The cameras practically do not interfere with the smartphone lying steadily on the table, but the back itself is very slippery, so the device can slide off the table even with a completely imperceptible tilt of the surface.

The side buttons differ in surface texture: the power button has a corrugated surface with notches, so it cannot be confused with the volume rocker to the touch.

The tray for two Nano-SIM cards is not hybrid; a microSD memory card cannot be installed in it. Hot swap supported.

The top end, in addition to the 3.5 mm audio output, also contains an IR transmitter, as well as an auxiliary speaker.

At the bottom end there is a USB Type-C connector and a loudspeaker with a conversational microphone.

Honor View 20 is available in four body colors: “midnight black” and “sapphire blue” with a memory capacity of 6/128 GB, as well as “shimmering blue” and “shimmering red” with a memory capacity of 8/256 GB.

The presentation also featured other exclusive designs: To celebrate the launch of the new flagship smartphone, Honor has created an exclusive series of products in collaboration with Italian fashion brand Moschino.

Screen

Honor View 20 is equipped with a 6.4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2310×1080, covered with 2.5D glass. The physical dimensions of the screen are 69x147 mm, the aspect ratio is 19.3:9, and the pixel density is 398 ppi. The frame has a width of 3 mm on the sides, 5 mm at the bottom, and 3 mm at the top (we do not take into account the small round cutout - it is only 4.5 mm in diameter).

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections Alexey Kudryavtsev . Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Honor View 20, then they can be distinguished by size):

The screen of the Honor View 20 is noticeably darker (brightness according to photographs is 108 versus 118 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Honor View 20 screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. On the outer surface of the screen there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, which is noticeably better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7, so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a lower speed than in the case of regular glass.

When displaying the white field in full screen and manually controlling the brightness, its maximum value was 395 cd/m² in normal conditions, and in very bright light it rises to 425 cd/m². The maximum brightness is quite high, therefore, given the excellent anti-glare properties, screen readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at an acceptable level. The minimum brightness value is 0.9 cd/m², that is, a lower brightness level allows you to use the device even in complete darkness without any problems. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located almost at the junction of the front panel and the upper end to the right of center). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider; the user can use it to try to set the desired brightness level in the current conditions. If you do not interfere, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 4 cd/m² (a bit dark), in an office illuminated by artificial light (approximately 550 lux) it sets it to 160 cd/m² (normal), in a very bright environment (corresponds to clear lighting during the day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) increases to 425 cd/m² (to the maximum, as needed). The backlight brightness level depends on the position of the slider in dark and average conditions, and in very bright environments it is always set to maximum. We weren't happy with the default result, so we moved the slider a little to the right in complete darkness and for the three conditions above, we got 15, 150 and 425 cd/m² (the perfect combination). It turns out that the auto-brightness function works adequately and allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is no significant backlight modulation, so there is no screen flicker.

This smartphone uses an IPS matrix. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of Honor View 20 and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K.

There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

We note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field, although it is clear that the white field darkens a little towards the bottom end.

And a test picture:

The colors on the Honor View 20 screen are clearly oversaturated, and the color balance varies between screens.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the Honor View 20 the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the greater highlighting of blacks.

And a white field:

The brightness of the screens at an angle has decreased (by at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the Honor View 20’s screen is still a little brighter. When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a reddish tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is average; closer to the edge, the black field is lightened in places:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1300:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 21 ms (10 ms on + 11 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 35 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.05, which is lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve noticeably deviates from the power-law dependence:

This device has a dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness with a non-obvious dependence on time and on the nature of the displayed image. As a result, the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) may not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential display of shades of gray on almost the entire screen. For this reason, we carried out a number of tests - determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination at angles - (however, as always) when displaying special templates with a constant average brightness, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen. In general, such non-disabled brightness correction does nothing but harm, since constantly changing the screen brightness can at least cause some discomfort.

The color gamut is wider than sRGB and very close to DCI:

Let's look at the spectra:

The spectra of the components are well separated, which results in a wide color gamut. For a consumer device, a wide color gamut is not an advantage, but a significant disadvantage, since as a result, the colors of images - drawings, photographs and films - oriented to the sRGB space (and the vast majority of them) have an unnatural saturation. This is especially noticeable on recognizable shades, such as skin tones. The result is shown in the photographs above.

However, not everything is so bad: when you select the Normal , the coverage is compressed to the sRGB boundaries.

The spectra show that pure colors are already mixed with each other:

Colors in images become less saturated (and color balance changes slightly):

By default, the balance of shades on the scale is a compromise, since the color temperature is much higher than the standard 6500 K, but the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the hue on the color wheel.

In the graphs above, the curves are Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction ( Vivid ), and the curves Corr. — data obtained after selecting the Normal and shifting the point on the circle to the position indicated in the image above. It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature approached the standard value and ΔE decreased. There is some benefit from such a correction, and the brightness decreased by only 7%. Note that this function is implemented more for show, since there is no numerical reflection of the correction and there is no special field for measuring color balance.

There is a fancy setting that allows you to reduce the intensity of the blue component.

Dreamy marketers continue to insist on the presence of harmful UV radiation, although there is no hint of it (see spectrum above), especially at an intensity that could pose any health threat. There is also no eye fatigue caused by blue light. In principle, bright light can lead to disruption of the circadian rhythm (see the article about the iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch display), but everything can be solved by adjusting the brightness to a comfortable level, and there is absolutely no way to distort the color balance, reducing the contribution of blue sense.

To summarize: the screen has a fairly high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors even on a sunny summer day without any problems. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of air gaps in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, sRGB color gamut (if you choose the right profile) and good (after correction) color balance. The disadvantages are the low stability of black to the deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane. Taking into account the importance of characteristics for this particular class of devices, the quality of the screen can be considered high.

Camera

The front camera of Honor View 20 has a 25 megapixel sensor and an f/2.0 aperture lens. Even with room artificial lighting, the camera produces good detail (for its high resolution), brightness and color rendition in the pictures. There are also no special complaints about sharpness across the frame field.

The rear camera of the Honor View 20 is unusual: the smartphone has a ½-inch (6.4×4.8 mm) Sony IMX586 CMOS sensor with a resolution of 48 megapixels. According to the official description, "the size of the pixels combined into a 2x2 Quad Bayer array is equivalent to 1.6 nm." Thanks to the work of AI, the main camera of the smartphone supports high-definition shooting mode, providing high detail in the finished images. In this mode, the camera takes multiple photos and combines the sharpest details from them into one image.

In addition to the main camera, on the back of the smartphone there is a 3D TOF camera capable of taking “volumetric” images, tracking the position of an object and capturing motion in real time, collecting information about the return time of the reflected light signal. This camera can turn the View 20 into a motion-controlled gaming console, allowing you to play interactive 3D games. Today, the smartphone supports two games in test mode - Fancy Skiing and Fancy Darts, which, however, are not even available on test copies. So testing of the 3D TOF camera is still ahead; for now it is only physically installed here, but not active.

There is a manual settings mode, as well as special shooting modes - portrait, monochrome, night. It is possible to save pictures in RAW in manual mode.

We tested this camera even before the release of smartphones with current 48-megapixel cameras (we look at Xiaomi), there was really nothing to compare it with. The gallery below shows exactly 48-megapixel images; you can scale them yourself (for example, to a reasonable resolution of 12 megapixels). Unlike the same Redmi Note 7, here the maximum resolution pictures make sense; they show quite decent detail. However, if you compare it with Mi 9, both the “source” and the resulting 12 megapixel images are worse. Overall, the level of shooting is certainly very good, but not flagship. There is clearly too much noise in the pictures for the quite divine lighting conditions in the trading floor; closer to the corners of the frame, because of this, the detail drops to an indecently low level. In general, today one good matrix is ​​no longer enough; powerful software image processing is needed, and Huawei is one of the world leaders in this matter - but, as we see, not yet in the Honor series.

Videos can be shot in 4K at 30 fps and 1080p at 60 fps. Video is encoded in H.265 or H.264, your choice. The shooting quality is very high - both in detail and sharpness, and even at night the ratio of details and noise is optimal, the picture remains more or less clean and at the same time as legible as possible. There is no optical stabilization here, there is electronic stabilization. The audio is recorded cleanly.

• Video No. 1 (88 MB, 3840× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 2 (67 MB, 3840× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 3 (39 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)

Telephone and communications

The smartphone supports a large number of LTE frequency bands (Cat.13, 400 Mbit/s), including all LTE FDD bands common in Russia (Band 3, 7, 20), as well as LTE TDD Band 38. In practice, within the city limits features of the Moscow region, the device demonstrates reliable operation in wireless networks, does not lose connection, and quickly restores connection after a forced interruption. There are also no complaints about the operation of the Wi-Fi module (2.4 and 5 GHz, with support for 802.11ac). It is promised that “the triple smart Wi-Fi antenna prevents signal weakening,” that is, no matter how your fingers squeeze the metal frame of the device and no matter what position the smartphone is in your hands, the Wi-Fi signal will not be lost, this is the idea of ​​​​this statement from the developers . Bluetooth here is version 5.0, plus there is an NFC module with the ability to work with a Troika travel card.

The navigation module works with GPS (dual-frequency, with A-GPS), with the domestic Glonass, with the Chinese Beidou and with the European Galileo. The first satellites, even during a cold start, are detected quickly, within the first seconds, and the positioning accuracy does not cause any complaints. A magnetic compass, necessary for navigation programs, is available.

The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing a phone number, a search is immediately carried out by the first letters in contacts. Methods for sorting and displaying contacts are standard for the Android interface. The vibration alert is strange: it seems to be powerful, but somehow rough, that is, the vibrations do not “creep” gently, like the same iPhone, but jerk roughly and somehow unevenly hit the palm. In general, the vibration alert is not very pleasant.

The hardware platform allows the smartphone to support both SIM cards in 3G/4G mode at the same time. This way, the voice SIM card will work in 4G standby mode even if another card is assigned to 4G data. The cards operate in Dual SIM Dual Standby mode, there is only one radio modem.

Software and multimedia

The Honor View 20 uses the latest version 9 of Google Android with its own shell as a software platform, only this is not the usual EMUI, but Magic UI, the same as in Honor Magic 2. Why is not clear. Basically, the Honor View series (or simply “V”) is positioned as the top series for this brand (like Huawei Mate), while the Magic is located right below it in the hierarchy. That is, Magic 2 and View 20 are currently the top-end and closest relatives from the entire family of Honor smartphones. Until recently, both lines were not going to be introduced to the Russian market at all due to their potential high cost, and the entire Magic UI interface is tightly tied to Chinese services and the new digital assistant Yoyo. So, in general, everything is logical. But here’s the problem: the official Russian firmware does not include this luxurious assistant.

The sound of the View 20 is simple, while the Mate 20 Pro's speakers operate in stereo mode, and the sound is much louder, richer and bassier. So when they use the formula “the same flagship, only cheaper,” it is necessary to remember precisely such moments. No, the sound here is not top-notch and not the same as that of the Mate 20 Pro. The speaker sounds loud, clear, but with a predominance of high frequencies. The situation is better in headphones, but without breakthroughs, the bass is clearly lacking. There is no FM radio in the smartphone.

Performance

Honor View 20 runs on the Huawei Kirin 980 single-chip system. The SoC configuration includes three CPU clusters: two Cortex-A76 cores with a frequency of 2.6 GHz, two of the same cores with a frequency of 1.9 GHz and four Cortex-A55 with a frequency of 1. 8 GHz. The Mali-G76 MP10 GPU is responsible for graphics performance.

The amount of RAM is 6 or 8 GB, the storage capacity is 128 or 256 GB. MicroSD memory cards are not supported here, but connecting external devices to the USB Type-C port in USB OTG mode is supported.

Huawei Kirin 980 is a top-end SoC, it is produced using a 7-nanometer process technology. This is also the first solution with Cortex-A76 processor cores, a Mali-G76 GPU, and a dual-core NPU unit. The platform is very powerful, there are no barriers for it, it confidently copes with any tasks and the most demanding games. The developers mention the new liquid cooling technology Nine Liquid Cooling Technology. Overall, the platform is fresh, productive and economical. All tested games, including Modern Combat 3, Mortal Kombat X, Injustice 2 and PUBG, run confidently without the slightest slowdown at maximum settings. By the way, during the presentation it was reported that Honor and Epic Games have begun working together to optimize some Honor smartphones for the next-generation game engine Unreal 4 Engine.

Testing in comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench:

For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in 3DMark and GFXBenchmark gaming tests:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Testing in browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Heat

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 15 minutes of fighting with a gorilla in the game Injustice 2 (this test is also used to determine autonomy in 3D games):

Heating is greater in the upper right part of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 37 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is not very much.

Playing video

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a table.

Further testing of video playback was performed by Alexey Kudryavtsev .

This device supports DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB Type-C - outputs image and sound to an external device when connected to a USB port. We tested operation in this mode together with two adapters (USB Type-C → HDMI from Choetech and Tronsmart CTHA1). When connected to our monitor, video output is in 1080p mode. There are two operating modes: displaying an alternative desktop (PC mode) or simply copying the smartphone screen (projection mode).

In the second case, when the smartphone screen is in portrait orientation, the picture on the Full HD monitor is displayed inscribed in height and with wide black margins on the sides, and in landscape orientation - inscribed in width with narrow black margins at the top and bottom. There is no point-to-point output in both options. In alternate desktop mode, a completely different main screen is displayed on the monitor, and the smartphone screen can be used as a touch pad for coordinate input. Here is an example of such a desktop:

Not all applications are guaranteed to work correctly in this mode. Those that are not trusted in this regard are placed in a separate folder. The control panel at the bottom of the screen is removed when the image is displayed on the entire screen (for example, when playing a video). The output is carried out in true resolution 1920×1080 and point to point. Simultaneously with image and sound output, you can connect a mouse and keyboard, USB flash drives to your smartphone via USB, use a card reader, etc., turning your smartphone into a basis for a workplace, but for this, an adapter or monitor (having a USB Type-C input) must allow connecting external USB devices (that is, have a USB hub). In desktop mode on an external monitor, you can work in parallel on the smartphone itself, that is, you get two desktops at the same time, but video output in hardware decoding mode is carried out only on one screen, and the same program cannot work both there.

To test the output of video files on the screen of the device itself, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and 3840 by 2160 (4K) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps). In the tests we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode. The test results are summarized in the table:

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips have green ratings, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect comfort viewing. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is very good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p), the image of the video file itself is displayed one-to-one pixel by pixel, exactly at the height of the screen (in landscape orientation) and in true Full HD resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235: all shade gradations are displayed in shadows and highlights, which is required for correct playback of typical video files. Note that this smartphone has support for hardware decoding of H.265 files with a color depth of 10 bits per color, while the output of gradients on the screen is carried out with slightly better quality than in the case of 8-bit files (however, this is not proof of true 10-bit resolution). bit output). Display of HDR files is also supported.

Battery life

Honor View 20 has a built-in 4000 mAh battery. With it, the smartphone demonstrates very high levels of autonomy; this is one of the strongest points of the review hero. In real life, a smartphone confidently survives more than a day and a half, even in intensive use.

Testing has traditionally been carried out at the usual level of power consumption without using power saving functions, although the device has them.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted 22 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and when continuously watching videos in high quality (720p) at the same level brightness via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for 17.5 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone can work up to 8 hours, depending on the specific game. These are very good results.

The smartphone supports SuperCharge fast charging, which allows you to fully charge the device in less than 2 hours with an initial current of 1.8 A at a voltage of 9 V, then these values ​​naturally drop.

Bottom line

Honor View 20 is sold in Russia at recommended prices:

• 38 thousand rubles for options in black or blue with a memory capacity of 6/128 GB
• 45 thousand rubles for the version with a memory capacity of 8/256 GB for blue and red variants with a “V-shaped” pattern on the cover

Review of Huawei Mate 20 smartphone with Leica triple camera
It is quite expensive. As an alternative, consider the Huawei Mate 20, which is more interesting with its excellent three cameras, and the elegant waterdrop notch is not much worse (if at all worse) than the hole in the screen. Honor View 20, in fact, has only one camera as the main one, and 3D TOF is still present only “for furniture”. The sound of the View 20 is worse, the hole for the camera in the screen does not look as elegant as the developers themselves would like, and with the firmware based on Magic UI instead of EMUI, everything is also not clear.

In general, at the time of testing, the smartphone looks damp, a kind of experiment with a foundation for the future, and this always attracts geeks, so Honor View 20 has a chance in Russia. However, with the current price drop for Huawei Mate 20 to 40 thousand, buying this option still looks preferable.

⇡#Appearance, ergonomics and software

For the first time, a cutout in the middle of the status bar appeared in September 2017 - with the release of the iPhone X. It seems that a little more than a year has passed, and this technique of increasing the usable screen area, having been copied by everyone, has become very boring. It is no wonder that manufacturers gradually began to look for various options to abandon the “unibrow”, while somehow trying to maintain the ratio of the screen area to the front panel area as high as possible.

Red version of the Moschino version - note the branded wallpaper

In principle, there are many ways: you can make different versions of a sliding smartphone (Vivo NEX, OPPO Find X, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3, Honor Magic2), insert a second screen on the back panel (Vivo NEX Dual Display, nubia X) or move the “front” from the cutout to some other area. The latter option is used in Honor View 20. The lens, in fact, is built directly into the display - and it also eats away a small part of the status bar, but this is not as noticeable as on a smartphone with a cutout, even a very small one, such as, for example, in Huawei Mate 20 or OnePlus 6T. At first glance, this black hole in the upper left corner of the screen may hurt the eye, but, firstly, you quickly get used to it, and secondly, this solution is in any case fresher than the boring cutout.

Honor View 20, front panel: in the upper left corner there is a front camera, right under the top edge there is a thin slot for the earpiece

The display itself is a classic format for a modern high-status smartphone: 6.4-inch diagonal, aspect ratio 19.5:9. The frames are minimal both on the sides, top and bottom. But it’s still not worth talking about their complete absence, official “framelessness”. In addition, despite all the tricks, the screen itself does not become smaller - the View 20 is much larger than the Honor 10, it is a hefty smartphone that can only be operated with one hand using various software tricks, such as moving the reduced desktop to one of the corners.

Honor View 20, rear panel: in the upper left corner there is a block of two cameras and a single LED flash, in the center there is a fingerprint scanner

The back panel is made of polished glass - all in the traditions of Honor (established almost three years ago, in the eighth version), the back of the smartphone can be used as a colored mirror. The individuality of the model is emphasized by a special polishing in the shape of the letter V - so that no one forgets that you have not just Honor, but the eldest of them. The brand name, by the way, is also spelled out at the back – and in a fresh font that was rebranded at the end of last year. The smartphone shimmers in the light very beautifully – this time in a special way. It’s worth mentioning the gradient coloring used once again – it also looks good. The View 20 may not be the most beautiful smartphone in the world (it’s a little thick), but it’s clearly on the list of contenders for this title.

Honor View 20, left side: slot for two nano-SIM cards

Honor View 20, right side: power key and volume key/camera shutter release

The back is curved towards the edges - holding the smartphone is quite comfortable. But all the complaints typical of glass gadgets with curved edges apply here too - the device is slippery, it’s easy to drop it from a wet hand, and it also tends to crawl away from an insufficiently flat surface. Be careful and use a case (a simple transparent one is included).

Honor View 20, top edge: mini-jack, microphone, IR sensor and light sensor

Honor View 20, bottom: USB Type-C port, main speaker and microphone

Honor View 20 is available in two colors – blue and black. There is also a version of Honor View 20, released in collaboration (or, as we can now say, collaboration) with the fashion house Moschino - it is presented in red and blue colors and features special wallpapers and themes, as well as increased memory capacity (8/256 GB ). This is exactly what we tested, but without the pre-installed Moschino wallpaper.

The edges are made of aluminum, dotted with plastic inserts for the correct operation of numerous antennas, and sensors. There are no surprises with the functional elements: there is both a mini-jack and a USB Type-C port and a fingerprint scanner located in the old fashioned way on the rear panel.

The scanner is capacitive, works very quickly - it surpasses all modern screen sensors. Among the shortcomings, one can only note the inability to unlock the smartphone with one hand when it is lying on the table. But you can look into the abyss of its front camera - the abyss will look back at you and try to recognize your face. It does this quite successfully, but it does not use additional recognition tools such as building a 3D model or scanning the retina, meaning someone will only need your photo to unlock the phone.

Screenshot gallery

The operating system is Android 9.0 Pie with the proprietary Magic UI 2.0.1 shell. This is a version of the traditional Huawei EMUI shell, developed specifically for Honor smartphones. I talked about it in more detail in the review of Honor Magic2, but in the international version it is almost no different from EMUI - except that the themes and wallpapers are different, and instead of Huawei service applications, Honor applications are installed here. In China, it integrates a very smart voice assistant, YoYo, which works closely with various Chinese services and can recognize the owner’s voice at a very high level. It is unknown when it will appear in Russia and reveal the potential of Magic UI. Without it, it is a rather simple, unobtrusive, but overcrowded shell with proprietary applications (in my opinion, too much), with a pre-installed Yandex search on the second screen, Alice built into the notification panel and the Yandex browser as the main one. Almost “Yandex.Phone” (of a healthy person).

Someone may have questions about how that very hole is inscribed in the software shell - Android has just gotten used to cutouts, and here is a new trend. I hasten to answer them and dispel doubts - there are no problems, in applications it simply fits into the status bar and does not in any way interfere with the perception of information from the screen. Problems can occur in games, but quite rarely: due to the spread of the notch, the interface is created with a pre-defined free zone at the edge of the screen, which includes both a possible “notch” and a hole for the camera, as here.

Hardware Components and Design

From the front to the back, the Honor View 20 is beautiful. Over the past years, Honor and parent company Huawei have learned to make smartphones out of glass with an interesting appearance. They offer iridescent shades and unique laser-etched patterns. In this case, a V-shaped pattern is offered. As a result, the back surface seems to dance in the light with different colors, attracting the eye.

In this review, we're looking at the red version, which many find to be the most attractive of the three available options. There is also a blue device and a simple black one. The latter seems boring at first glance, but may appeal to fans of classic devices.

The logo is located at the bottom on the back of the case. At the top there is a double chamber. The main camera is 48 megapixels, and is supported by a 3D TOF (time-of-flight) sensor and LED flash. This is one of the few smartphones from major Chinese manufacturers that does not have an in-display fingerprint scanner. Instead, there is a classic scanner on the back of the case. Considering the not-so-good performance of modern in-screen scanners, this choice can only be welcomed.

Honor View 20 fits securely in the hand, thanks to the rear panel with rounded edges. The body feels less slippery compared to the OnePlus 6T. After a couple of weeks of working with the device, there was no fear that it was about to slip out of my hands.

From the front, the smartphone looks even more luxurious. Surely this year there will be a lot of Android smartphones with a hole in the screen. However, Honor was among the first to bring this design to Western countries. There is no cutout, instead the speaker grille is located in the narrow border between the screen and the metal frame. The ambient light sensor has been moved to the top frame, with an infrared sensor nearby. The camera is located inside a 4.5mm hole in the top left corner of the screen. However, the technology of this hole is different from what Samsung has done in its AMOLED panels. Honor claims that its technology is more advanced.

The camera module is located under the Light Guide Plate (LGP). A technique called Pixel Transition allows light to pass through to the sensor without a hole in the liquid crystal layer. The result is fewer layers to drill through, resulting in a stronger screen assembly that is less likely to break if dropped. Photo quality also improves because light leakage is reduced.

However, there is still light leakage around the cutout. There is a subtle tint around the hole that can only be seen against a pure white background. There is a similar shadow near the bottom frame. This is not to say that this is a big problem.

Such shortcomings have to be endured for the sake of futuristic frameless screens. The frame can only be seen at the bottom. It is only a few millimeters wider compared to the other three frames.

The screen quality is impressive. This is a Full HD+ LCD panel with clarity not much worse than QHD+ OLED screens. This case offers high brightness, rich colors and good white balance control with the ability to manually adjust. You can see the image without any problems even in bright sunshine.

The developers also didn’t forget about sound. This is one of the few flagship devices with a headphone jack. The bottom speaker is also good. In terms of sound and bass levels, it is close to the front speakers of the Pixel 3 XL.

Inside, it uses the same processor as the Huawei Mate 20 line of smartphones. It's the flagship Kirin 980 chip, helped by large amounts of RAM and storage, as well as a large battery.

Among the specifications, in comparison with flagships, one can only highlight the lack of protection against water. There's no IP rating, but splash protection is still promised. The SIM card compartment is not protected by a rubber gasket, like on the OnePlus 6T.

Another hardware compromise was the vibration engine. The vibration feels too weak, especially compared to the crisp vibrations of the iPhone or Pixel. This may be why the vibration feedback of on-screen buttons is disabled by default.

⇡#Display and sound

Creating a middle-class smartphone (okay, “upper middle class”), which surpasses last year’s flagship Huawei P20 Pro in power and partly in functionality, the manufacturer had to give up something - otherwise it would have turned out to be a full-fledged internal competitor for a gadget that was already gradually leaving the scene from last season, and for the fresh Mate 20/Mate 20 Pro, which is based on the same Kirin 980 platform. This something was the display - instead of the OLED that is already usual for all flagships, there is a liquid crystal screen with an IPS matrix.

The diagonal was 6.4 inches, the resolution was 2310 × 1080 pixels with a pixel density of 398 ppi. The detail is far from extreme, which can be seen on 4K video. There will be no problems when reading from the screen and viewing photos. The matrix is ​​of high quality - viewing angles are free, when the view is deviated to a serious angle, the contrast is slightly lost, but the colors are not distorted at all. The touch coating responds to 10 simultaneous touches. But the oleophobic coating is not very good - such a sin is common with Huawei or Honor smartphones. By default, a protective film is glued to your smartphone - it is better not to remove it for as long as possible. The defenseless screen gets dirty easily and is quite difficult to wipe off.

The measured maximum brightness level is 447 cd/m2 - the average for an LCD matrix; you cannot count on ideal comfort when using a smartphone on a sunny day outside. The image will be visible, the display will not go blind, but it will not be able to maintain full color.

The contrast level is 1171:1. Quite normal for IPS.

In the screen settings, you can turn on eye protection (a mode with the warmest colors), change the resolution or font size, and adjust the color rendering - choose between two profiles (normal and bright) or set the color temperature you need. I measured color rendering in exactly two preset profiles, without individual temperature adjustment. Among other screen settings, I’ll note the ability to fill the status bar with black, which is typical for smartphones with a cutout, and not with a front-facing camera-in-a-hole. But if you are annoyed by the black circle in the corner, you can get rid of it in this simple way.

Honor View 20, gamma in normal color mode. Yellow line – View 20 indicators, dotted line – reference gamma

Honor View 20, color temperature in normal color mode. Blue line – View 20 indicators, dotted line – reference temperature

Honor View 20, color gamut in normal color mode. Gray triangle – sRGB coverage, white triangle – View 20 coverage

In normal color rendering mode, the gamma is 2.05 - the curves are stable in dark shades, the gamma drops noticeably in light shades. The color temperature curve is stable, staying around 7,700 K. The average deviation for the extended Color Checker palette (shades of gray + a wide range of color shades) is 3.57, with an upper limit of 3.00. However, this result is better than the hospital average. The color gamut is almost equal to sRGB. The screen in this mode is set up very well, but you can improve the situation by slightly manually adjusting the color temperature.

Honor View 20, gamma in bright color mode. Yellow line – View 20 indicators, dotted line – reference gamma

Honor View 20, color temperature in vivid color mode. Blue line – View 20 indicators, dotted line – reference temperature

Honor View 20, color gamut in vivid color mode. Gray triangle – sRGB coverage, white triangle – View 20 coverage

In bright mode, Honor View 20 expands the color gamut - from sRGB to DCI-P3, increases the color temperature (the line is already uneven, jumping from 8,200 to 11,000 K), there is no need to talk about accuracy - the average deviation Delta E on the Color Checker scale is 7.42. The picture is frankly cold, rich, but very far from natural.

The Honor View 20's sound is not bad, but not great. On the plus side, I note the presence of a mini-jack - owners of wired headphones do not need to use an adapter and can even listen to music with them while charging their smartphone! Unprecedented luxury in modern times. The quality of sound transmission over the wires will be fine - although not outrageous, I was slightly lacking in detail and power reserves. If you are leaving the wired world in any case, there is support for aptX HD. The speaker is monophonic, located on the bottom edge, its volume is enough so that you don’t miss a call or hear what another blogger is broadcasting on Youtube. Listening to music or watching a movie without headphones or external speakers is not very pleasant.

Design

It’s worth saying right away that the device looks stylish and expensive. Although this is a flagship, the body is not made of glass, as is now common, but of aluminum, which gives the body strength. The back panel is easily soiled and fingerprints easily remain on it. It's sad that the manufacturer didn't include any kind of silicone case with the smartphone; it needs one right out of the box.

The design of the case is pleasing: the rear metal panel smoothly flows into the front glass without any joints. I would like to note the excellent build quality, all the parts fit perfectly, nothing creaks or plays. As is customary for this brand, the colors of Honor View 10 are bright and varied. So, in addition to the standard black, there is also blue, gold, and there is even Honor View 10 in red.

On the front we have a large display with thin frames, which is covered with impact-resistant 2.5D protective glass. The fingerprint scanner is located under the screen, and not on the back panel, like most devices. This is a rather controversial decision, since such a location is not always convenient.

Above the screen there is a front camera, a speaker for conversation, a notification indicator and light sensors. The “Honor” inscription appears at the bottom. On the back panel you can find a dual camera and flash, they are slightly convex. There are narrow plastic inserts at the bottom and top, which are designed for wireless modules and the antenna, so that their functionality is not impaired due to the metal layer.

On the right there are standard volume control buttons and a power key. On the left is a tray for a memory card and SIM card. On the bottom edge there is a built-in USB Type-C port, a headphone jack, a main speaker and a second microphone for calls. On top of the device there is the first microphone and an infrared port, which allows you to use the smartphone as a remote control for equipment.

⇡#Hardware and performance

Honor View 20 is the next (third) Huawei smartphone based on the company’s main platform, HiSilicon Kirin 980. It consists of eight cores, arranged in a more whimsical order than big.LITTLE: two ARM Cortex-A76 with a clock frequency of 2.6 GHz + two more ARM Cortex-A76 clocked at 1.92 GHz + four ARM Cortex-A55 clocked at 1.8 GHz. Graphics subsystem – ARM Mali-G76 MP10 with a clock frequency of 720 MHz. Technological process – 7 nm. According to Huawei, this is the world's first commercial platform using the 7nm process technology. In fact, they and the Apple A12 Bionic came out, essentially, at the same time: if HiSilicon was simply announced first, then Apple released smartphones with its 7nm system a little earlier than Huawei.

In terms of pure performance, the Kirin 980 does not set any records - it is inferior to both the A12 Bionic and the fresh flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 platform, approximately equal in power to last year's (officially the year before) Snapdragon 845. This is enough to run any modern games without problems, lose 4K video and provide a performance reserve for several years to come, but those who like to compare “parrots” have nothing to rejoice at.

If the immediate performance is good (but not brilliant), then with stability everything is a little more sad - like the Huawei Mate 20 Pro with Honor Magic2, the smartphone passes the CPU Throttling Test benchmark uncertainly, with the frequency decreasing to 55% of the maximum. But the average performance is 179 GIPS. I continue to argue that the problem is not primarily in the cooling (the smartphone remains, if not cold, then certainly not overheated), but in the controllers. Moreover, Huawei is obviously working on this - the average performance in this benchmark is growing from smartphone to smartphone with Kirin 980: 132 GIPS for the Mate 20 Pro, 153 GIPS for the Magic2 and now, 179 GIPS. But the frequencies jump and drop towards the end of the 15-minute test. Therefore, I cannot just routinely praise the Honor View 20 for installing a patented cooling system (with its own name - NINE Cooling Technology), the smartphone has problems in this area.

What the new platform is undeniably good at is operations that leverage machine learning. There are not many of them yet, this is not the key specification by which a mobile platform should be evaluated, but we are already testing smartphones using this parameter. The Kirin 980 easily beats the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 here - with a more than twofold advantage. Snapdragon 855 demonstrated a slightly higher level, but for a serious assessment you should definitely test the final smartphone with this platform on board, and not a “blank” for testing.

Traditionally for older smartphones of this brand, the Honor View 20 does not have a memory expansion slot - you can only rely on the built-in storage. The standard version includes 128 GB of internal memory + 6 GB of RAM. The Moschino version, as I noted above, is equipped with 256 GB of non-volatile memory and 8 GB of RAM.

Performance, memory, benchmarks

The device is powered by an 8-core Kirin 980 processor. This is Huawei's currently advanced chipset, built on the 7nm process technology and included in the ranking of the best mobile processors of 2018. This “mobile brain” even has The Nine liquid cooling system, which should improve the device’s performance in games and eliminate the problem of throttling.

As for memory capacity, there are two versions of the gadget - 6/128 and 8/256 GB of memory. Both modifications support memory cards, but in a still rare format - nano SD. There probably won't be a need for additional storage, as 128GB should be enough for 99 percent of users.

There are no questions and there should be no questions regarding the operation of the interface and any basic functions - in simple words, everything “flies” quickly and without failure. Things are excellent with multitasking mode and switching between applications - they are not unloaded from RAM, and they do not keep you waiting when launched. Impressions from Magic UI remain only positive.

Now let's move on to the most interesting and exciting moment - games. In this component, Huawei and Honor smartphones were often inferior to their Snapdragon competitors, and graphics accelerators from Mali are considered one of the main reasons. The Honor View 20 uses the Mali-G76 (MP10), which aims to break this stereotype.

All casual and “average” toys work perfectly on the Honor View 20 - it’s illogical to expect anything else in a smartphone for 37 thousand rubles. Now we’ll talk about testing three “heavy” games with modern 3D graphics.

PUBG makes you happy the first time you launch it because the phone automatically selects high graphics settings. During the game, everything is smooth and clear; during an hour of testing, no slowdowns were noticed. The device does not heat up much, so it manages to avoid throttling. A similar picture in Asphalt 9.

Shadowgun Legends is also in perfect order - smooth gameplay, excellent graphics, high fps. If you play for a long time and heat up the gadget, you can notice rare short-term drops in the number of frames, usually in intense scenes with a lot of enemies, shooting and effects.

Overall, Honor View 20 has made a big step forward in terms of graphics and gaming performance when compared to its predecessors on the Kirin 970 chipset. On this phone, you can play any game from Google Play with comfort and peace of mind.

Testing in synthetic tests shows that there is throttling in the smartphone - over 5 runs in AnTuTu, the result gradually decreased from 275 to 230 thousand points. In Geekbench, three runs showed almost identical numbers - about 3200/9600 points.

⇡#Communications and wireless communications

Honor View 20 is positioned as a smartphone ideally suited for working in wireless networks. There is also LTE, with which both slots for nano-SIM cards are friendly, albeit of the 13th category, with a maximum data download speed of up to 400 Mbit/s (and not 21st with 1.4 Gbit/s, like the Mate 20 Pro, for example), but all the necessary bands are supported, the antennas work well, the network is caught wherever it is, and works stably.

Honor View 20, slot for two nano-SIM cards

Everything should have been just as cloudless with Wi-Fi - there are three antennas at once, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, the Wi-Fi bridge function is supported for transmitting a signal to devices that are not so well suited to working with IEEE 802.11. But instead of ideal stability and capturing even the weakest signal, the View 20, on the contrary, demonstrated rather mediocre abilities in this area - on my home network, which, of course, is not yet well-established, it performed worse than, for example, the OnePlus 6T, regularly switching to the mobile network without warning where OnePlus was still picking up a Wi-Fi signal.

In general, there is a full box of wireless modules: Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, an IR sensor for working with household appliances, as well as dual-band GPS - you can count on a perfectly accurate track of your movements.

⇡#Camera

Formally, Honor View 20 is a smartphone with two rear cameras, everything is as it should be. In fact, a scheme is used here that is becoming more and more widespread, we saw something similar quite recently in the Vivo NEX Dual Display: along with the main module, there is an additional one that takes minimal part in the direct process of photo and video shooting. This is a so-called 3D TOF camera (a lens together with a point projector), which is used to obtain a three-dimensional model of the subject being photographed - and in this case, not only faces, as, for example, in the iPhone X (where it is needed to recognize the user), but also the whole body.

Yes, Honor View 20 is the first smartphone in the world with a built-in software enhancement system not only for the face, but also for the figure. In the portrait settings, you can select options for smoothing the skin and changing facial features, as well as the degree of “weight loss” - yes, the View 20 is not body positive, the smartphone will not be able to add extra pounds to you.

The system really works, both for photos and videos - the smartphone recognizes the human figure in the frame and effectively separates it from the background; not only does the 3D camera itself work here, but neural network computing is also used. But “losing weight” itself is carried out clumsily - the figure simply narrows, and this applies to both the body and (to a slightly lesser extent) the face. However, if you do not turn the slider to maximum, you may be able to achieve a balanced result. Are we expecting a new wave of depression due to the discrepancy between our virtual self and our real self?

The main camera is also very remarkable - the fact is that Huawei broke the record of the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro and installed a 48-megapixel Sony IMX 586 module in the View 20. In fact, we are, of course, talking about a 12-megapixel Bayer sensor with a group of light-sensitive photocells four each - I talked about the scheme in more detail in the review of the same Huawei P20 Pro. The sensor size is 1/2'', the size of an individual pixel is 0.8 microns. The lens has an aperture of ƒ/1.8. There is no optical stabilizer, autofocus is phase detection.

By default, the Honor View 20 camera shoots with a resolution of 12 megapixels, and zoom is available. In this case, it’s even awkward to talk about hybrid - the camera simply switches to shooting mode with maximum resolution and then crops out the excess. The difference with true optical zoom or classic dual-camera solutions is visible to the naked eye, especially when shooting at night.

If desired, you can switch to shooting mode with full, 48-megapixel resolution. There are two options - take the image directly from the sensor or allow the camera to take several pictures, then combining them into one using artificial intelligence. The latter method requires holding the smartphone motionless for four seconds, but it produces a truly impressive result in terms of detail - I won’t say that it can be compared with pictures taken on modern high-resolution cameras (either full-frame, like the Sony a7R III or Nikon Z7, or medium format - the work of the software is too noticeable increasing contour sharpness), but for a smartphone it looks very powerful.

In terms of the set of other numerous options, the Honor View 20 camera follows the Huawei Mate 20 Pro: here is the constant involvement of neural networks in the shooting process (can be disabled), and various lighting effects - from simulating a studio flash to “stained glass” - when shooting portraits.

Moreover, it has added its own Prisma - a built-in service that processes photographs using neural networks. The topic is two years out of date, but why not. By the way, the built-in AI processor cannot cope with this task - the service requires an Internet connection.

The portrait mode is quite functional, despite the absence of a special camera - the proportions of the face look correct, the background is blurred well. Almost all modern smartphones have learned to work with this.

Despite the fact that this is Magic UI and not EMUI, the camera application will not surprise users familiar with Honor or Huawei smartphones - horizontal navigation, a set of familiar settings. There is an augmented reality mode with the ability to both display Animoji on the screen instead of yourself, and “festival” using various masks. A “professional” mode with manual settings is available, but without the ability to shoot in RAW.

Night mode allows you to capture images using multi-frame exposures, where a series of frames are taken over 4 seconds. There is no optical stabilization, but due to software algorithms, the smartphone more or less compensates for jitter - blur at a wide angle is insignificant, it is much easier to notice it when shooting with a 2x zoom. Moreover, the quality of post-processing, compared to how things were in this mode before, in my opinion, has even increased - there is less noise, higher sharpness.

The overall quality of the shooting could be called excellent if Huawei had not started to interfere too actively with color reproduction and sharpness last year - this manifests itself in the Huawei nova 3 (to a greater extent) or Huawei Mate 20 Pro (to a lesser extent) and is only partially cured turning off artificial intelligence. Honor View 20 allows you to take pictures in any conditions and circumstances, even without optical image stabilization, but the colors may seem too bright and the sharpness may be excessive. However, this is a matter of taste - the Honor View 20 is good at photography in any case; the only thing it lacks compared to “real” flagships is zoom without loss of quality and a wider dynamic range.

Honor View 20 can shoot 4K video at up to 30 frames per second – and stabilization is available in both Full HD and 4K. Here, unlike the Chinese flagship of the brand, Magic2, there are video modes with intelligent color highlighting and background blur, in the manner of the Mate 20 Pro. Slow motion is available at up to 960 fps at 720p resolution and 120 fps at Full HD resolution.

The front camera is notable primarily for its location - and it does not affect the image in any way: the angle is quite normal, the angle is wide, but spatial distortions are not terrible. A selfie is just like a selfie – but with a resolution of 25 megapixels, Honor did not hesitate to install a powerful sensor here either. Aperture – ƒ/1.8, no autofocus and no flash.

Cameras

Honor View 20 becomes the first smartphone in the West with the new Sony IMX586 sensor with a resolution of 48 megapixels. This is an important milestone in the development of mobile devices in terms of smartphone camera resolution. However, it's not just about this indicator. By default, the camera takes 12 megapixel photos in JPEG format, using four-pixel binning into one. This allows you to get brighter and clearer images. This also leaves room for digital zoom. Many smartphones have adopted this method in recent years, including last year's Huawei P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro.

Like them, the new device is capable of producing gorgeous pictures, including in low light. In terms of quality, they are close to the Mate 20. An artificial intelligence-enabled shooting mode is also present, impressing with the accuracy of scene recognition.

When AI is enabled, the camera has excellent dynamic range, although highlights are often too bright compared to the competition. The colors are cooler compared to Google and Samsung devices. This cannot be called a major drawback, especially at a lower price.

Examples of photos:

Many of the changes that AI makes to photographs are beneficial. For example, a slight saturation of colors in photographs with food, a vignette effect in portrait photographs.

If we talk about portrait photography, we cannot say that depth recognition here is better than that of competitors. The TOF sensor doesn't help much. It should improve the accuracy of image analysis and aperture effect, but in reality the results are still as mixed as on other smartphones.

A manual long exposure mode is here too, reminiscent of the P20 and Mate 20, rather than the significantly less capable night mode on the Honor 10. There are differences between the white balance of the Mate 20 and View 20, but they are close in image quality.

The video quality is surprisingly good. Built-in AI stabilization does an excellent job of leveling frames when the device is held in hands during shooting. However, this can cause movement to be blurred, especially in darker indoor environments. However, the video is still impressive, especially compared to the results of the Mate 20 Pro.

The quality of selfies with the 25 MP front camera depends on where you shoot. Like the cameras on many mid-price smartphones, the camera here struggles in dark environments like bars and restaurants. True, it is the background that becomes grainy, and not the subject itself. Simulating a flash when the screen lights up helps. However, as with regular flash, this can result in uneven images with areas that are too bright. Another complaint is the camera's love for lightening and evening out skin, even when the beautification settings are set to 0. As a result, people start to look unnatural.

If you want to get the most out of these cameras, you need to enable the 48MP AI Ultra Clarity shooting mode in the settings. This is the best way to get the highest resolution from this sensor. As with Night mode, Ultra Clarity takes a few seconds to capture and process the image. But the result is much clearer.

Of course, because of these few seconds, you are unlikely to use this mode in everyday shooting. You can save it for special occasions when you can enlarge the image more and more without losing quality.

⇡#Autonomous work

Honor View 20 is equipped with a very capacious battery – 15.2 Wh (4000 mAh, 3.8 V). On the other hand, there is an LCD screen, and not an energy-efficient AMOLED (by the way, there is no option to enable the display of information on the locked screen). The large battery wins in this energy tug-of-war - the View 20 can easily last a day with active use and up to two days with measured use.

In our traditional test with HD video playback, at maximum brightness, with Wi-Fi turned on and auto-update, the smartphone lasted 9.5 hours - a very good result for a device with an LCD display.

For charging, the current USB Type-C port (USB 3.1) and the proprietary Huawei Super Charge fast charging system (4.5 V/4 A) are used, which in theory allows you to charge the battery by 55% in half an hour. It was not possible to check this empirically - the smartphone came to the test without a proprietary charger.

Magic UI Interface and Features

The smartphone operates on the proprietary Magic UI 2.0.1 shell, which has been actively used in smartphones under the Honor brand.

It must be said that there are practically no significant differences from regular EMUI, so using the gadget will be convenient and familiar. All the necessary settings are in the usual sections; there are various additional functions in the form of gesture control, status bar settings, navigation buttons and other little things.

As for other important functions. Honor View 20 is equipped with an NFC chip, which works perfectly in Russia through the Google Pay application. The smartphone also received two infrared ports for controlling equipment, a modern Type-C connector and proprietary fast charging. But the developers from Huawei/Honor do not yet want to protect smartphones from moisture. The phone does not support wireless charging.

Now about safety. The fingerprint scanner is fast and clear, but its location on the back panel has become unusual and inconvenient for flagship smartphones. To compensate for this, Chinese engineers have taken care of an excellent user facial recognition system. The gadget automatically activates the screen when you take it in your hand and unlocks automatically. This happens quickly and easily, the technology is highly accurate.