As phones have officially leaped past the $1,000 mark over the last few years, some smartphone manufacturers like OnePlus and Honor are going with a different tactic. These brands are creating flagship smartphones at a midrange price point.
After its phenomenal success with the View 10 in 2018, it looks like Honor is getting ready up the ante with the upcoming Honor View 20. Here’s everything we know about it.
Name
The Honor View 10 was also known as the Honor V10 when it was released in China, and it’s likely the Honor View 20 will also be known as the V20 outside of its international release. Currently, many rumors related to the phone refer to it as the Honor V20. There may be some regional differences between the phones, but we expect them to be minor.
Design and display
What will the Honor View 20 look like? At the moment we don’t know exactly, but the display may be the most exciting feature. It looks like Honor will forego a large display notch, and adopt a circular screen cutout to house the front-facing camera.
Earlier this year the South Korean website ETNews reported Honor’s parent company Huawei had developed a smartphone display with a small hole for the camera lens. In November 2018, two photos appeared on Slash Leaks of the purported Honor View 20 display, showing a display with a small hole in the top center for the camera sensor.
However, Honor has teased a smartphone announcement for the end of January 2019, and the phone may have a small screen cutout offset to the left. It’s unknown if the device will be the Honor View 20.
The hole-punch display is a novel way to reduce bezels on smartphones and Huawei is by no means the only company tinkering with this new display tech. In fact, it looks like Samsung may use a similar display for some of its 2019 phones including the Galaxy A8S and perhaps the Samsung Galaxy S10.
Specs
Will the upcoming Honor View 20 be a hardware powerhouse? It’s possible the View 20 will ship with a Kirin 980 processor and 6GB of RAM. Honor’s smartphone due to be announced at the end of January next year will come with the Kirin 980. There is also a good chance the base storage configuration will come in at 128GB, though we would anticipate a bump in the external storage capacity via MicroSD. We also wouldn’t be surprised to see 40W charging make its way to the Honor View 20.
Software
There is nothing in the way of software leaks for the upcoming Honor View 20. That said, historical smartphone data makes it pretty easy to flesh out software details. We believe the Honor View 20 will ship with Android 9.0 Pie. You can also expect to see Huawei’s custom UI, EMUI 9, make an appearance on the phone.
It’s also a pretty safe bet Huawei’s suite of productivity apps will ship with the phone. PrivateSpace allows you to create a private home screen that can be completely hidden. App Lock and App Twin allow you to secure and create multiple instances of apps on the Honor View 20.
Release date and price
When should we expect to see the Honor View 20? Honor will announce a new smartphone that could be the View 20 on January 22, 2019, at a media event in Paris. The company has not confirmed the name of the phone to be shown there, so it’s not certain it’ll be the View 20, plus CES 2019 will also take place before it.
Previously, Honor announced the Honor V10 handset in China in November 2017. By December, the newly rebranded Honor View 10 was confirmed for release in Europe, the U.S., and much of Latin America for 2018.
There are no firm details for pricing but, again, we don’t expect pricing for the V20 to venture too far from its predecessor at around the $500 to $600 range.
Updated on December 5, 2018: Added news of a possible launch event for the Honor View 20.
