Huawei’s popular sub-brand Honor announced three new devices at a launch event held in London earlier today. The three devices that went official include the Honor 20, the Honor 20 Pro, and the Honor 20 Lite. Of the three, both the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro fall under the ‘affordable flagship’ category where it will compete against the likes of the recently announced OnePlus 7, OnePlus 7 Pro, and the ASUS Zenfone 6. The Honor 20 Lite features relatively modest specifications and is more of a budget handset that would spar against the Redmi Note 7 Series and the Realme 3 Pro here in India. As for the Honor 20 and the Hono 20 Pro, both these devices have near-identical specifications with the differences only in terms of the camera setup, battery capacity, and the storage variants. Earlier today, Honor India confirmed that all these phones will come to India via Flipkart.
Let us now take a closer look at these three newly announced phones. We start with the two affordable flagships first.
Honor 20, Honor 20 Pro Specifications, Features
As outlined in the introduction, both the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro feature near-identical hardware. The Honor 20 is more affordable of the two, and therefore, has slightly lesser features, especially in the camera department. But first, let us take a look at the common features on both the handsets.
The new Honor 20 series come powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC. This is the same chipset used on the Huawei Mate 20 Series, and the recently launched Huawei P30 Pro. With the Honor 20 Series, the powerful Kirin 980 SoC will now be available to a wider audience. The Kirin 980 is based on a 7nm manufacturing process and features quad Cortex-A76 cores clocked at up to 2.6 GHz along with four Cortex-A55 cores operating at up to 1.8 GHz. The graphics department is handled by the Mali-G76 GPU.
Moving on to the display, both the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro feature a large 6.26-inch IPS LCD display with a punch-hole at the top right corner for the front-facing camera. This panel has a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels in the tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Instead of the opting for a conventional rear-mounted fingerprint scanner or the newer in-display solution, Honor has, for the first time on an Honor device, placed the fingerprint scanner on the edge of the side panel. Sony has, in the past, tried this arrangement and while we do not think it is an ergonomic disaster, people might take some time getting used to it.
Honor 20, Honor 20 Pro: Differences, Camera Specifications, Price
The camera department is one area where both the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro have slight differences. To keep things simpler, all you need to remember is that the Honor 20 Pro gets a telephoto lens while the Honor 20 Pro does not.
The primary rear camera on both the devices use the same 48-megapixel sensor (Sony IMX 586). The Honor 20 Pro, however, uses a wider f/1.4 lens as opposed to the f/1.8 aperture lens used on the Honor 20. The latter also lacks optical image stabilization. The secondary camera on both the devices use a 16-megapixel sensor with an ultrawide (13mm) f/2.2 lens.
The third shooter on the Honor 20 Pro is a telephoto camera that uses an 8-megapixel sensor with an f/2.4 aperture, 80mm telephoto lens with laser autofocus and 3x optical zoom. The Honor 20 lacks a telephoto lens and instead uses a 2-megapixel depth sensor in its place. The fourth camera on both the devices is a 2-megapixel, f/2.4, dedicated macro camera. Both the handsets get a 32-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calls.
The other major difference between the two devices is the battery capacity. While the Honor 20 uses a 3,700 mAh battery, the Honor 20 Pro gets by with a larger 4,000 mAh power pack. With a 22.5 watt charger in the box, both the handsets can be charged from 0 to 50 percent in 30 minutes.
Both the handsets will be sold in single RAM/Storage versions. The Honor 20 comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage while the Honor 20 Pro gets 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage. Both the devices, however, lack a memory card slot.
Both these devices run Android 9 Pie with Magic 2.1 UI. While the Indian prices of these two phones are yet to be announced, in Europe, the Honor 20 would be sold for EUR 499 while the Honor 20 will set users back by EUR 599.
Honor 20 Lite: Specifications, Features, Price
The Honor 20 Lite was also announced alongside the more expensive Honor 20 devices. This handset is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 710 SoC from Huawei. This is the current budget workhorse from HiSilicon that is typically used on all budget and mid-range smartphones from Huawei/Honor. The phone is offered in a single 4GB RAM version with 128GB of internal storage. The dual SIM capable device uses a hybrid slot that can also take a microSD card for enhancing the storage further.
The Honor 20 Lite gets a 6.21-inch IPS LCD display with a waterdrop notch. It also boasts of what Honor refers to as a 3D curved back panel. Even though the Honor 20 Lite is considerably cheaper than the other two Honor 20 devices, it still retains the high-resolution 32-megapixel front-facing camera. The phone also gets a triple camera setup at the rear consisting of a 24-megapixel primary camera, 8-megapixel secondary wide-angle camera, and a third 2-megapixel camera for depth sensing. The Honor 20 Lite also gets a super night mode for excellent images in low light situations.
The Honor 20 Lite gets a 3,400 mAh battery but does not support fast charging. It uses a standard microUSB port for wired connectivity. And yes, a headphone jack is present as well. The honor 20 Lite has been priced at 299 Euros and when it eventually makes it to India, we expect it to be priced below the INR 17k mark.
