Honor View 20 Review

Honor View 20 Review

The Honor View 10 went on sale at the start of 2018 at an aggressive price of Rs. 29,999. It was squarely aimed at the OnePlus 6 and used Huawei's powerful, AI-capable Kirin 970 SoC to compete with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845. The View 10 had lots of software enhancements and offered good camera performance. What we didn't like about the device was its awkward camera bumps and the fact that a fast charger wasn't bundled in the box. Honor has now launched the successor to the View 10, dubbed the View 20. The Honor View 20 has an even more powerful flagship processor and a radically new hole-punch in the display for its front camera. With competition getting fiercer by the day, is the Honor View 20 the best pick in the premium segment? We review it to find out.

The Honor View 20 has a modern design but it doesn't feel premium in the hand.
It has curved sides that make it comfortable to hold. The back panel is made out of glass but Honor hasn't mentioned the type of glass it has used. We found that the phone would slide when kept on any surface that isn't level so you will need to be careful where you place  it.

The frame is made out of metal and gets cold to the touch in an air-conditioned room. The power and volume buttons are on the right while the SIM tray is on the left. The power button has a textured pattern that makes it easy to distinguish without looking at it. We found the placement of the volume buttons to be too high, as we needed to shuffle the phone in our hand to reach them. You'll find an IR emitter and ambient light sensor on the top along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. At the bottom, this phone has a USB Type-C port along with the loudspeaker and the primary microphone

Now, coming to the display that has kept the Honor View 20 in the news. The massive 6.4-inch panel has a hole-punch in its upper left corner for the selfie camera. This is the first smartphone to launch in India with such a design instead of the usual notch. It eliminates the need for a notch by pushing the speaker grille and proximity sensor in to the frame of the phone.

This results in more screen real estate, but just like a notch, the hole-punch might be a distraction for some people. Getting screen protectors and cases could be an issue for some time, but Honor ships a case in the box and pre-applies a screen protector.

While the hole-punch means you lose a small portion of the display in the corner, we didn't have any issues with this. Since it's in a corner, it doesn't grab your attention as much as a traditional notch does. In fact, we had to point the hole-punch out to some of our friends and colleagues.

The Honor View 20, with its hole-punch display, does stand out compared to its notched competitors. While it still doesn't have an all-screen front, it is a step in the right direction. The flashy Sapphire Blue colour is good to grab attention but the slippery back is something we were constantly worried about while using this smartphone.