Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13886/honor-launches-the-view20-a-48mp-camera-handson
Honor Launches The View20: A 48MP Camera Review
by Andrei Frumusanu on January 28, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Kirin 980
- Honor View20
Last week Honor launched its new 2019 flagship device: the Honor View20. The new flagship phone is the follow-up to last year’s View10, a new segment entry in Honor’s usual line-up. The View series is characterised by their early adoption of full-screen, minimalistic bezel designs; last year’s View10 was one of the early devices bringing 18:9 aspect ratio screens to the masses, while this year’s new View20 further improves the screen-to-body ratio with the introduction of a hole-in-display front-camera setup.
While the hole-in-display camera setup of the View20 is certainly its first striking design characteristic, Honor is also positioning the View20 as a special camera phone as it is one of the first of a wave of 48MP camera sensor devices sporting Sony’s new IMX586.
Let’s go over the specifications of the View20 first:
Honor View Series | |||
View20 | View10 | ||
SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 980 2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.60 GHz 2x Cortex-A76 @ 1.92 GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80 GHz |
HiSilicon Kirin 970 4x Cortex-A73 @ 2.36 GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.80 GHz |
|
GPU | Mali G76MP10 @ 720MHz | Mali G72MP12 @ 746MHz | |
DRAM | 6/8GB LPDDR4X | 4/6GB LPDDR4X | |
Display | 6.4" 1080 x 2340 (19.5:9) IPS LCD |
5.99" 1080 x 2160 (18:9) IPS LCD |
|
Size | Height | 156.9 mm | 157 mm |
Width | 75.4 mm | 75 mm | |
Depth | 8.1 mm | 7 mm | |
Weight | 180 grams | 172 grams | |
Battery Capacity | 4000mAh | 3750mAh | |
Rear Cameras | |||
Main | 48MP Sony IMX586 1/2" sensor w/ 0.8µm pixels f/1.8 lens |
16MP f/1.8 |
|
Secondary | TOF 3D sensor | 20MP B&W (2x zoom func) | |
Front Camera | 25MP f/2.0 | ||
Storage | 128/256 GB | 64/128 GB | |
I/O | USB-C 3.5mm headphone jack |
USB-C 3.5mm headphone jack |
|
Wireless (local) | 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.0 LE + NFC |
||
Splash, Water, Dust Resistance | none | none | |
Dual-SIM | 1x nano-SIM | ||
Launch Price | TBA | 370€ |
At the heart of the phone we find the brand-new Kirin 980 SoC from HiSilicon. Huawei’s/Honor chipset strategy is to make flagship SoCs that are not only used in their highest tier flagship devices, but also trickle down into lower priced models such as demonstrated by the new View20. In terms of CPU performance, the Kirin 980 gets top marks, as we saw it performing outstandingly well inside of the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro which we’ve reviewed two months ago. The same performance is showcased by the new View20, meaning we’ll be seeing excellent performance and outstanding power efficiency out of the phone, more than able to keep up with other 2019 flagship phones.
One performance aspect of the View20 that improves on the Mate 20’s, is sustained GPU performance: The integration of a beefier heatpipe now allows the SoC to sustain the peak GPU performance in nearly all workload and reasonable temperature situations.
The new View20 increases the main memory and storage capacities compared to its predecessor: We now see a 6GB/128GB model as the base configuration, while Honor offers an up-sell 8GB/256GB variant as well. Pricing at the time of writing was still undisclosed, and we’ll update the article after the official launch event has concluded.
The View20 is characterised by its near bezel-less design and full-screen display. The phone’s specification sheet does make it sound scarily big at 6.4” display diameter – however because of its elongated 19.5:9 aspect ratio, the actual device still only comes in at 75.4mm wide, a width that has over the last year become increasingly popular by essentially most if not all phone vendors.
I found the display of the View20 to be relatively “okey” – it isn't extraordinarily great nor is it bad. The 1080p resolution is sufficient for most people, however it’s not the densest display available for sure. The contrast ratio is also good for an LCD, but the one thing that was disappointing was the off-axis viewing angles which are rather sub-par. Even though the View20 is within the price range say a OnePlus 6/6T – it definitely lags behind the OLED competition and even the higher quality LCD competition, such as even Huawei’s own most recent Mate 20.
The back of the View20 is characterised by a unique “V-shaped” reflective glass back. This was done on purpose in order to give the device a defining look that’s not available anywhere else. We also find a standard rear-mounted fingerprint sensor on the back.
Naturally the other defining feature of the phone is again the front hole-in-display camera setup. The View20 isn’t the first device with the feature, but it is among the first non-Samsung Display based phones to feature the new technology. Honor is particularly proud of the dimensions achieved on the View20 as the camera hole is of a smaller diameter than what Samsung had achieved in the A8.
The hole-in-display camera cut-out is an alternative to display-notches, and represents an intermediate technology step towards the goal of true full-screen display devices. There are some phones that can already claim this today, with Honor’s own Magic 2 being one of them, but these come with rather cumbersome moving mechanical elements which do represent regressions in terms of weight and device robustness.
By default, the software on the View20 simply ignores the hole cut-out, only shifting the notification icons around. Full-screen applications in their default mode are also not aware of the hole. Alternatively, the software can be setup to include a blacked-out top of the phone and not use this area in full-screen applications.
Applications which apply notification area colour schemes also work great – here the notification bar when being blacked out also automatically hides the camera hole. This is the default behaviour of the phone, but as mentioned can be forced to be always like this (with added rounded corners being the only difference).
At the bottom of the phone we find a USB-C port as well as the single mono-speaker of the phone.
The top is characterised by a IR baster, ambient light sensor, as well as the much controversial 3.5mm headphone jack. Good on Honor’s product team on deciding to keep this feature!
Finally, going back to the rear of the phone, the other defining feature or the View20 is the fact it is one of the first phones to include Sony’s new 48MP IMX586 camera sensor. Huawei isn’t new to high MP sensors as we’ve seen the custom 40MP unit in both the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro last year. The View20’s sensor, although it has a higher resolution, is actually smaller than the 1/1.7” module found in Huawei’s aforementioned devices, coming in at 1/2”. The bigger resolution in a smaller sensor is achieved by reducing the pixel pitch of the sensor from 1µm to 0.8µm. Furthermore, the pixel array is arranged in a quad-bayer setup:
This means that the physical colour filters on the camera sensor only have an effective resolution of 12MP. Sony’s sensor ISP is able to achieve a virtual 48MP bayer result out of the sensor by rearranging the subpixel-data among the logical pixels. It’s to be noted that this method would result in an effective spatial resolution increase of only half-way to 48MP, and actual results would be of clarity somewhere in the range of a true 27MP bayer sensor.
The secondary camera sensor on the View20 is an odd one: It’s a TOF (time of flight) sensor that is able to act as a 3D sensor. Currently the issues with this module is that Honor only has very limited uses for it, only showcasing 3D motion control of a specific game. It would have been nice if the phone at least had some sort of demo application showcasing the raw input of what the TOF sensor actually sees, as this would have been a nice technology showcase of the available hardware. Honor says it will continue to work on software use-cases in the future and update the phone’s firmware over time to make better use of the TOF sensor.
System Performance
System performance of the Honor View20 shouldn’t bring any big surprises because it contains the same Kirin 980 chipset as we’ve reviewed in the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. The chip performed excellently in those devices, and there isn’t any reason for the View20 to perform any different.
Honor employs the same kind of “Performance” mode in the View20 as we saw in the recent Huawei flagships. This performance mode is found in the battery settings of the device. The mode is a bit confusing for new users as it represents a new setting that previously wasn’t present on Huawei devices. Following our articles about Huawei/Honor cheating in benchmarks last year, the company had decided to implement this new “full intended performance” mode, while by default the phones would come in a more limited state.
The difference between the normal mode and the performance mode, as far as I have been able to tell, is the scheduler and DVFS ramping behaviour, as well as possibly thermal limits. The performance mode is in technical terms very much similar in behaviour and scaling speed as recent Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs in competing devices, while the normal mode is a more conservative mode which is about twice as slow in its ramp up speed.
What I did note was new in the View20 is there’s actually a battery warning in performance mode. I’m not sure exactly why this was implemented as we’ll see in the battery life results page, it’s absolutely not something to worry about.
In general, I recommend performance conscious users to have performance mode turned on, while people who are less sensitive and do not notice the difference it might be worth to stay in normal mode and enjoy the slightly better battery efficiency.
In PCMark, the View20 performs within margins of error the same as the Mate 20’s – which again was to be expected.
In the web benchmarks, the View20 performs either equally well as the Mate 20’s, or in WebXPRT, actually slightly beats the Huawei flagships by a small amount.
Overall the performance of the View20 is very much at a flagship level and is at the very best of what you can get out of an Android device nowadays. Since our review of the Mate 20’s, we have been able to get preview performance figures of the new Snapdragon 855, and in terms of system performance, the Kirin 980 chipset devices are more than able to compete with Qualcomm’s new flagship. This means that for the rest of 2019, it looks like devices such as the Mate 20 and in this case the View20 will be among the top performing devices that you can get, which does bode extremely well for longevity of the phones.
GPU Performance
GPU performance of the View20 is actually one of the things that should actually differ from what we’ve seen in the Mate 20’s: the explanation here is related to the fact that the View20 promises a much improved SoC thermal dissipation solution in the form of a heat pipe system, while the Mate 20’s did not employ any such dedicated solution.
For GPU and gaming performance, sustained performance is the key measurement metric as over the last few years we’ve seen devices vary a lot between their peak performance figures and their longer term thermally constrained figures.
Starting off with 3DMark’s physics test, the View20 actually ends up as the top performing device tested so far. Here its thermal dissipation solution as well as thermal throttling settings do allow the phone to post near its peak performance even though the phone had reached its peak thermal temperature and thermal envelope equilibrium after more than 30 minutes of load.
The graphics subtest also fares well for the View20. Although it again shows very good sustained performance figures near its peak, the Mali G76MP10 GPU in this case still lags a bit behind Qualcomm and Apple’s solutions.
In both GFXBench Aztec benchmarks, the View20’s sustained performance is again exemplary, showing no throttling even after long periods, but as before the absolute performance still is a bit behind Qualcomm and Apple’s best.
Finally, in the by now a bit more legacy GFXBench tests, we again see the View20 beat the sustained performance offered by the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro with the same Kirin 980 chipset.
Overall, the View20’s gaming performance looks to be quite good – its peak performance isn’t quite up to par with the latest generation chipsets, however its sustained performance is quite excellent due to the what looks to be Honor’s new heatpipe SoC thermal dissipation solution. The end-performance ends up around between some of the better Snapdragon 845 devices we’ve seen in 2018 – which is actually a good place to end up in given Kirin SoC’s rather disappointing showings in the last few generations.
Battery Life
Battery life of the View20 is something I knew would be good before I even had completed our battery suite run. The efficiency by the new Kirin 980 as shown in the Mate 20’s was just excellent, particularly in the LCD Mate 20. The View20 in this regard is very similar to the Mate 20: it sports a similar capacity 4000mAh battery, the same chipset, and also an LCD screen. The screen is probably the only differentiating factor between the two devices, as the RGBW panel of the Mate 20 might have a slight efficiency lead over the regular RGB panel of the View20.
In our web-browsing test, we confirm my suspicions as the View20 ends up with some excellent battery life results. Again as suggested, the Mate 20 still has a lead here in terms of absolute battery life, again likely due to its more efficient display panel.
In PCMark’s Work 2.0 battery life test with a more diverse APL and workloads, the View20 again scores absolutely excellently reaching top marks in battery life.
We have to remember that these results here are in fact performed with the performance mode enabled, and while I didn’t have time to repeat my tests for this review, running normal mode should see a slight improvement over this figures.
Overall, just excellent showings by the View20. Huawei & Honor’s absolute battery life has for the last few generations always been quite good, but sometimes it didn’t quite work out in performance. The new Kirin 980 is able to reach outstanding efficiency figures with both long battery life results all while being at the top of the performance charts. It’s rare for a device to be able to achieve this, and especially given that the View20 isn’t really priced at nearly as high as other high tier flagship phones.
Camera - Daylight Evaluation
While this isn’t a full review, the one aspect of the View20 that I definitely wanted to cover for the launch embargo is the new camera. Honor makes a lot of promises for the View20, an in particular there’s a new “AI Ultra Clarity” mode which promises to improve detail retention in the full 48MP mode in bright lightning conditions.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ]
[ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
In the first scene, the View20 in its default 12MP capture mode performed very well and does look like it represents an increase in detail over the Mate 20 Pro’s 10MP mode. Dynamic range processing between these two devices looks to be very similar, although I do feel they both are too warm and not as realistic as some other the competition phones.
In 48MP mode, we see some of the inherent disadvantages of the sensor as similar results to last year’s 40MP units from Huawei: the picture unfortunately loses out in dynamic range and this is particularly visible in the darker and less detailed shadows. The shadows in the View20 are darker than the Mate 20 Pro, however the highlights on the View20 are more pronounced. Another difference in the new sensor is seemingly better detail retention on textures, pointing out to better DTI of the new sensor. While textures are improved on the View20, one aspect where it does clearly lag behind is in the clarity of the branches of the tree. I think this could point out to a worse quality lens on the part of the View20 as it does looks like a typical case of chromatic aberration.
Using the AI Clear mode (“Clear mode” from here on forth) we see the picture regain some of the dynamic range that was lost by using the 48MP mode. While this was an improvement, the detail in this scene suffered tremendously as we see a heavy noise filter on the whole image just blur out details in an indiscriminate fashion, making this a huge miss for this mode in this first scene. I’m not sure what happened here, it could be that the firmware still has some bugs as under closer inspection it does look more like a 12MP result even though the phone was set to 48MP clear mode.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Mate 20 ] - [ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ]
[ LG V40 ] - [ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
In the second scene, we have a quite different result compared to the first shots. In 12MP mode again the processing was extremely similar to the Mate 20 Pro’s 10MP mode, with just a slight advantage in detail for the new phone. While on paper this 12MP mode should be somewhat equal or actually even superior to other 12MP phones, it’s actually not the case as the phone still trails the effective spatial resolution produced by the Note9.
Switching over to 48MP mode, the View20 now actually leads in terms of resolved detail. Here again it’s visible that the new sensor is a definitive upgrade compared to the 40MP unit in the Mate 20 Pro.
Turning on clear mode again, we now actually see a big beneficial effect on the picture quality as the resulting image has better dynamic range and also its detail retention is overall improved in the whole of the shot. The resulting shot is definitely leagues ahead of any other phone in terms of sheer detail, although it comes at a cost of reduced dynamic range and shadows.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Mate 20 ] - [ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ]
[ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
The in the next tree stump shot, between the 12MP and 48MP clear mode shots, the exposure and resulting dynamic range of both shots are virtually indistinguishable. Under closer inspection, this again looks to be a dud shot for some reason as the 48MP clear mode shot doesn’t actually have any better spatial resolution than the 12MP shot, a similar result to our first scene.
Clear mode aside for now, the normal 48MP shot has some fantastic level of detail, again showcasing the much better DTI compared to its 40MP brethren in the Mate 20 Pro.
Finally back in the 12MP mode, the View20 showcases exemplary dynamic range, although again it loses out in terms of detail compared to say the Note9 or OnePlus 6T.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ] - [ Mate 20 ]
[ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ] - [ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
In a similar scene, but this time with the sun more brightly lighting up details, we see the clear mode again actually be useful as it’s able to better retain details throughout the scene. At this focal distance, we again see some issues compared to the result of the Mate 20 Pro; the latter image is again much sharper and the type of blurriness we’re seeing is again what one would traditionally attribute to lesser quality optics.
This detriment isn’t nearly as visible in 12MP mode, and here the View20 showcases again excellent dynamic range as probably the best exposed results among the tested smartphones.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ] - [ Mate 20 ]
[ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ] - [ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
This last scene is quite harsh in terms of the dynamic range requirements. Nevertheless, the 12MP mode of the View20 manages to breeze through this aspect of the shot, taking full advantage of the characteristics of the quad-bayer sensor setup.
The 48MP mode in this shot is a good showcase how the sensor loses out in dynamic range when using its “full resolution”. Clear mode here does manage to regain some of the dynamic range back, and again for this scene we see a beneficial effect on details.
It’s an improvement, but high MP sensors still aren’t worth the double-edged sword
My experience with the View20 and the new IMX586 sensor pretty much mirror what I’ve come to experience with the 40MP sensors of the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro. The high megapixel count can definitely be useful to resolve more detail at a micro level of a picture, however these capture modes come with a big double edged sword side-effect of much worse dynamic range at the macro level of a picture.
In every-day use-cases, I don’t recommend using the 48MP modes of the View20, as much as on the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, it comes with too many compromises. Huawei defaults its settings to 10MP on its phones, and this makes sense. Honor on the View20 also defaults to 12MP mode, however the inclusion of its new 48MP “AI Ultra Clear” mode complicates things for the users as it’s not exactly clear which mode is better to use. First of all, as seen in several scenes here today, the clear mode seems to be buggy and resulting in 12MP quality pictures even though the output image is 48MP in resolution. More important than this, and even though the clear mode does improve on this, the loss in dynamic range remains disappointingly big, which can cause for bad images in challenging capture scenarios.
The View20’s sensor does look like a straight improvement over the 40MP unit on the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro – however it’s also seemingly clear that the new phone doesn’t have as good optics as the Huawei flagships. Here it does look like the Huawei’s counterparts Leica optics actually are actually worth their marketing promises.
What the View20’s camera ends up in low-light is as an excellent 12MP shooter with great exposure and dynamic range characteristics. It’s not going to win in terms of detail, but it’s sufficiently good enough that it shouldn’t represent a deal-breaker. Overall though I do wish we’d see Huawei or Honor employ a top-range low MP sensor in their phones and measure such as setup again competing flagships.
Camera - Low Light Evaluation
Low-light testing on the View20 is interesting. Here on one hand we should see the advantages of the big sensor in its pixel-binning mode, but on the other hand this might be a regression compared to the bigger 1µm 40MP sensors of the Huawei counterparts. Much like the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, the View20 lacks an OIS mechanism that not only represents a disadvantage in terms of video recording, but also low-light capture. Let’s see how the new Honor device ends up in terms of low-light capture.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Mate 20 ] - [ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ]
[ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
The first shot unfortunately does confirms some of my fears about the new sensor: Although at first glance the result is very similar to the Mate 20 Pro, under closer inspection the View20 does have overall worse details and less sharp edges than what the flagship counterpart can achieve. Unfortunately this is a simple matter of light capture ability on the part of the sensor, and here the View20 only achieves 64% of the per-pixel area compared to the Mate 20 Pro.
The View20’s strength remains its processing ability, which still allows it to achieve quite good results compared to the competition.
The 48MP clear mode in effect is again no better than the 12MP mode, both in detail and exposure. We’ll see this behaviour to be true of all the low-light shots, and in effect I would have wished Honor’s software would have just reverted to a 12MP shot instead of needlessly generating a 48MP file.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Mate 20 ] - [ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ]
[ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
The next shot the View20 also ends up strikingly similar to the Mate 20 Pro. The phone’s advantages over the classical competition here isn’t solely due to the sensor, but as demonstrated by the regular Mate 20, can be largely attributed by the image processing and ISP of the new Kirin SoC.
[ Honor View20 ] - [ Mate 20 Pro ]
[ Mate 20 ] - [ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ LG V40 ]
[ OnePlus 6T ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
In extreme low-light, the View20 seemed to have issues focusing correctly as all my 12MP shots ended up being blurry. The 48MP clear mode shots here better demonstrated the raw capture ability of the sensor, and it ends up with quite a good representation of the scene.
Switching over to the night mode, we get a significantly better result of the moonlit scene. In terms of pure light capture ability, the phone still lags behind Google’s Night Sight mode on the Pixel 3, even although this latter result is fantastically over-the-top in terms of how bright it managed to make this dark scene.
Overall, good low-light capture
Overall the View20’s low light capture ability is very similar to the Mate 20 Pro and more recent Huawei devices. This means that they’re quite top performers exceeding the ability of classical smartphone cameras which don’t employ new computational photography modes.
End Remarks & Conclusion
In many ways, the View20 represents an interesting alternative to Huawei’s most recent available offerings. The phone gets a lot of firsts in terms of features, but also clearly showcases that it isn’t quite the best that the company has to offer with some issues in regards to the overall polish of the product.
The new screen and the company’s first use of a hole-in-display front camera setup is one of the key aspects of the device. The new design works well in my opinion and Honor’s camera hole size and positioning do offer a viable alternative to a display notch. Obviously I still wish the hole would be ever so slightly smaller and take up even less space, however I think it’s a great first step for what we’ll come to see a lot more often in 2019.
What is most disappointing about the View20 screen is the display panel itself. Here the off-axis viewing angles aren’t as competitive and it’s visible that the component is more deserving of a “mid-tier” classification rather that of a higher quality LCD. Huawei’s Mate 20 for example offers a much better quality display panel in this regard, and obviously the phone can’t compete with OLED alternatives such as that of the OnePlus 6/6T. Display calibration, while I haven’t directly covered in the review, isn’t an issue for the View20 as Honor offers accurate display mode settings and also has fine-tuning options to set colour temperature to your preference.
While the LCD’s viewing angles aren’t top-notch, efficiency is very good. The combination of a large battery, the excellent Kirin 980 chipset, as well as an efficient display panel put the View20 at the top of the battery charts among some of the best performing devices out there.
While battery performance is top-notch, it doesn’t come with any compromises as performance of the View20 is also an absolute non-issue, all thanks to the Kirin 980 chipset. The View20 performs as good as the recent Mate 20’s – and actually improves 3D performance as the new heatpipe system allows for sustained performance at or near the peak performance of the GPU, reaching about the similar sustained performance levels as that of the very best Snapdragon 845 devices last year.
Finally, the camera of the View20 had a lot of promise, but in the end it continues the dual-edged nature of these high MP camera sensors. Much like the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro’s 40MP sensors, the new 48MP unit of the View20 can achieve some fantastic pictures in terms of detail. However most of the time and in the vast majority of situations, this will also result in a drop of dynamic range that will be noticeable, and most of the time it won’t be worth it compared to the regular pixel-binning mode at 12MP resolution. In this mode, the View20 showcases fantastic exposure results and dynamic range among the top performers in the current smartphone space, but it’s not quite the best in terms of detail retention.
The inclusion of the new 48MP AI Ultra Clear mode really complicates things, this does have tangible advantages over the 48MP mode, however the implementation sometimes just seems buggy, and I’m not sure if this is by design or simply because of immature software. What is really unfortunate is that this again adds a capture mode that adds to the confusion as to when to use what mode in order to get the best results. I really wish Huawei and Honor would streamline the capture experience in this regard as less versed users will have to learn how the camera behaves before being able to get the most out of it.
The TOF sensor at the moment is in practical terms essentially useless – Honor just doesn’t deliver sufficient use-cases for it and the one game that supports it makes it no more than a gimmick. In the future this could be alleviated via software, but as of right now, you might just as well ignore that it’s there, and just treat the View20 as a single-camera phone.
Should I Buy It?
Overall, the View20 is an odd device in terms of its target market. Honor’s marketing materials position the device against the highest flagships, such as the iPhone XS, Galaxy Note9, or OnePlus 6T. The one weak point where the View20 can’t compete with these devices is in screen quality. Even the OnePlus 6T which comes at a similar price range as the 569€ base price of the View20 outdoes it in the screen department, and here I don’t see the hole-in-display camera as some sort of competitive advantage that would give the phone any kind of higher worth price wise.
Camera on the View20 is pretty good – even though I’m torn on these high-MP sensors, in the regular 12MP mode the View20 is plenty competitive with the best devices out there both in daylight and in low-light. Just make sure you know exactly in what capture mode you’re supposed to be in.
What puts the View20 ahead of the competition and really makes it an outstanding worth for its money is the performance and battery life. Here the View20 is clearly punching far above its weight and the inclusion of the Kirin 980 in this lower price tier gives the device a marked advantage.
Overall I don’t think users will be disappointed with the View20 – given its performance, expected battery life, as well as camera performance, even though it’s not a perfect device and has a lot of rough edges or missing some features, for the price it does offer excellent package that is hard to argue against.