Review of Honor View 20 with 48 Megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor and Kirin 980
ocworkbench 4/3/2019
Last year, we reviewed the Honor 10 and was impressed by it’s night shooting capabilities. This year, Honor launched a new flagship phone the Honor View20.
This flagship smartphone is powered by the Huawei Kirin 980 Dual NPU AI processor that is found on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It is powered by Magic UI 2.0.1 with Android PIE and comes in two variants, a 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM and a 6 GB RAM + 128 GB ROM edition.
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
The Honor View20 has a 6.4″ screen with a resolution of 2310×1080 pixels at 398 ppi and it adopt the punch hole design instead of the notch. The most exciting feature of this smartphone is it’s adoption of the SONY IMX586 sensor which is capable of shooting in 48 megapixel. It has a f/1.8 aperture and a 1/2 inch large CMOS size. The front camera is a 25 megapixel for better selfies with portrait lighting.
The smartphone comes with a 4000mAH battery which can charge up within 55% in 30 minutes with supercharge.
Good news for those who listen to music on the go, there is a 3.5mm jack. The phone supports dual nano-SIM and VoLTE. Other features include GPU Turbo 20 for optimal game play, a PC grade liquid cooling system to dissipate heat better than conventional designs.
Other software include a AI video editor and AI calorie counting which shows the calories of the food you shoot.*
The vivid dynamic Chevron shape colour gradient that stands out from the other smartphones.
* The unit we test is a review unit and do not have these applications installed.
[nextpage title=”User Interface and Benchmarks 1″]
User Interface
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
Speedtest results
With Dual 4G SIM inserted – Zero1 and a TPG SIM card. The phone still manage to last for a day before the battery needs a recharge.
As Zero1 is a MVNO based on Singtel, the speed is pretty decent and I am able to drive it up to 171 Mbps. We tested the TPG sim card on the phone. Unfortunately VoLTE isn’t provisioned yet for TPG.
PCMark 2.0 results
The PCMark 2.0 scores shows that it is still slightly behind devices powered by Snapdragon 845. The scores can be crossed reference with this article.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro scored 7645.
Pixel 3 XL scored 9106.
[nextpage title=”3DMark and AnTuTu benchmarks”]
3DMark scores
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
Futuremark 3D Mark scores shows that OpenGL outperform the Huawei Mate 20 Pro but lost to Pixel 3 XL. As for Sling Shot Extreme, it scored 2264 while the Huawei Mate 20 pro scored 2898 and the Pixel 3 XL scored 4203.
Antutu benchmarks
As for Antutu benchmark, the Honor View20 scored 262596.
Our Pixel 3 XL scored 236919 and Huawei Mate 20 Pro scored 273333.
[nextpage title=”Camera shots”]The Camera
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
The Honor View20 comes with IMX586 which is capable of taking 48 Megapixel picture. Pictures taken is in the size of 8000×6000 pixels. You can choose to shoot it in RAW mode.
The camera features AIS (AI stabilsation) which may not be that suitable for shaky hands. There is no mention of OIS (Optical image stabilisation) in the spec sheet.
Below are some shots taken in the night with no digital zoom. Pictures are down scaled to 1024×768 to fit the screen.
The first shot – The Fullerton Hotel was taken at night. The edges are sharp and there is little noise. I cropped portions of the screen just below the wordings in the next picture. The balcony can be seen, even the edges of the windows are visible.
Original 48 MP picture
Next is another shot at Marina Bay. Again, we can see the ripples clearly and edges of the building very clearly.
When it is cropped, the windows behind the flags are still visible with details.
Below are two more night shots.
More photos can be viewed at this link.
[nextpage title=”4K videos shot using HONOR View20″]4K video shots using Honor View20
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
As you can see from the videos, the stabilisation using AIS seems to be aggressive and the isn’t that smooth flowing. I hope a new firmware can fix this. The video shots are uploaded directly from the phone to Youtube
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
After weeks of testing out the Honor View20, we really like the camera very much. The pictures looks sharper and more detail than before. Night shots turns out to be pretty decent with little noise. Similar to the other models, there are also modes like slow motion, Light painting which you can experiment with.
In terms of performance, the speed is on par with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro as both are based on the same Kirin 980 processor. When compared to the snapdragon 845 smartphones, it wins some and lose some.
I am not sure if it is me but having the camera at the rear upper centre of the phone is easier for photography.
As for charging, we did a test and yes it does charge up to 50%-55% within half an hour. The charging is pretty fast till it reaches 90%. For a full charge to 100%, it took 1 hr 35 mins (1010 to 1145). Certain features like AI calorie reader are missing in the firmware. VoLTE support for TPG is also not there. We expect a new firmware update to enable these features.
So, if you like night photography, the Honor View20 is definitely worth a consideration in terms of costs and it’s capabilities.
Currently, the Honor View20 8GB / 256B retails at SGD 829 and
Honor View 20 6 GB / 128 GB retails at SGD 699
Pricing
Qoo10 SG from $699
Lazada SG from S$699
Amazon USA USD 759
Pros :
- 48 Megapixel
- Liquid cooling system
Cons:
- No MicroSD slot
- No IP rating for dust/water resistance
- No Wide angle lens, macro
Ratings
Score : 9.4 / 10
We give it our Gold Award
