Honor has launched the Honor 20 Series at an event in London. The company has already released the Honor View 20 this year, along with the Honor 10 Lite, and has now added the Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro to the list. The Honor 20 is a sequel to the Honor 10, which has been available since April 2018. Here’s what you need to know about it, and the already announced Honor 20 Lite.
Updates
Rumors the Honor 20 Pro may be the first casualty of the battle between the U.S. and Huawei have been spreading, but Honor has told Digital Trends the Honor 20 Series — suggesting all three phones — are Google certified, and the 20 Pro’s availability will be announced soon.
The rumors spread due to the current pre-order availability of the Honor 20 and Honor Lite in several European markets, with the 20 Pro’s missing-in-action status causing suspicion, as initially reported by French website 01net.com. Claims that the Honor 20 Pro was not been able to secure Google’s Play certification are incorrect, Honor’s statement to us indicates. Despite the reassurance from Honor, nothing is certain in this situation.
Moschino special edition
Honor has worked with Moschino once more, this time to make a true Honor 20 Pro special edition. This is a continuation of the Moschino collaboration introduced with the Honor View 20, and the good news is, the pair have deepened the partnership. This time, rather than simply having a co-branded case, there is a Moschino Honor 20 Pro with a special design on the back.
In true Moschino style, the black phone has a gold inscription on the back reading, “This is not a Moschino phone,” and also a case saying, “This is not a Moschino case.” A selection of Moschino themes and wallpapers are also on the phone, but the technology is identical to the standard version.
Additionally, Moschino will make a co-branded phone bag, complete with chain-style strap, and you can see a picture of it above. Currently we don’t have any details on the price or availability for the Moschino Honor 20 Pro.
Price and availability
There are three Honor 20 phones, and all will be sold in various regions around the world, including Europe and the U.K.. No U.S. release has been mentioned. The 8GB/256GB Honor 20 Pro will cost 600 euros, or 550 British pounds, which converts over to about $695. It is listed as out of stock on Honor’s online store at the moment, but Honor informed Digital Trends at the launch it will be released in July.
The 6GB/128GB Honor 20 is 500 euros, or 400 British pounds, which converts over to about $505. It is also out of stock on Honor’s website, but U.K. network O2 along with retailer Carphone Warehouse both have the phone up for pre-order with deliveries expected on June 6.. Finally, the Honor 20 Lite is 300 euros, or 250 British pounds. This is approximately $315. Honor’s online store is out of stock, but Carphone Warehouse has the Honor 20 Lite available to buy now.
Honor 20 Pro
The top new phone in Honor’s “N-Series,” the name given to this range of devices, is the Honor 20 Pro, and it’s a compact, high-performance smartphone with an impressive camera. The body weighs just 182 grams, making it lightweight by today’s standards, and is 8.4mm thick, housing a 6.26-inch LCD screen.
A 91.7-percent screen-to-body ratio illustrates how small the bezels are, and despite the large screen, the Honor 20 Pro is more compact than most current flagship phones. Physically, it’s slightly larger than a Google Pixel 3, but without the bezels. The screen has a hole-punch design, just like Honor used on the View 20. It contains a 32-megapixel selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture.
On the back of the phone is a 3D glass rear panel with a clever “dynamic holographic design,” where colors appear to be deeply set inside the body. The new holographic design uses an industry-first process Honor calls “Triple 3D Mesh technology,” which combines three layers of glass to create a deep, reflective finish. It looks great, and comes in phantom blue or phantom black.
The camera bump is quite large because it contains three lenses — a 48-megapixel, f/1.4 aperture main lens with optical, electronic, and A.I.-driven image stabilization, plus a 16-megapixel f/2.2 aperture wide-angle lens, and an 8-megapixel, f/2.4 aperture lens. Alongside the main camera array is a 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro lens plus phase detection autofocus and laser autofocus sensors.
Artificial intelligence is used throughout for image recognition, special color modes, the Super Night Mode, and the 48-megapixel A.I. Ultra Clarity Mode. The Honor 20 Pro can shoot video at up to 4K resolution and with EIS. Powering the phone is a Kirin 980 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of storage space. It’s secured by a fingerprint sensor on the side of the phone in the power key, just like the Samsung Galaxy S10e.
Other features include Android 9.0 with Honor’s Magic UI 2.1 over the top, and a 4,000mAh battery with SuperCharge for a 50% charge in 30 minutes. There’s Honor’s GPU Turbo 3.0 game boosting algorithm, Bluetooth 5.0, and virtual 9.1 sound too.
Honor 20
The Honor 20 Pro is joined by the standard Honor 20, which is the same size and has the same 6.26-inch hole-punch LCD screen, plus the same Kirin 980 processor, but only up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space. The camera is similar, as it retains the 48-megapixel main lens, but here it has an f/1.8 aperture. The 16-megapixel wide-angle lens is onboard with an f/2.2 aperture, but there’s no telephoto lens here. Instead, the Honor 20 has a 2-megapixel depth-sensing lens and the 2-megapixel macro lens. Finally for the camera, the 32-megapixel front lens is also used.
Honor has reduced the capacity of the battery to 3,750mAh, but it still has SuperCharge for fast charging. The design of the phone is almost the same too, with a repeat of the Honor 20 Pro’s Dynamic Holographic Design on the back, but it more flat and less curvy than the 20 Pro. This time the phone is available in midnight black or sapphire blue color schemes. The body is 7.8mm thick and is light at 174 grams.
Briefly using the phone at the launch event revealed the speed and performance to be identical to the 20 Pro, while the body feels noticeably different in your hand. The flatter rear panel and less curved sides reminded me more of the 20 Lite, than the 20 Pro. The environment was too dark to assess the camera performance, although the experience was identical aside from the lack of periscope zoom.
Honor 20 Lite and Honor 20i
Honor has announced the Honor 20 Lite and the Honor 20i already, and both are closely related to the Huawei P30 Lite. It has a 6.21-inch screen, three camera lenses made up of a 24-megapixel, 8-megapixel, and a 2-megapixel lens, plus a rear fingerprint sensor, and a Kirin 710 processor. The Honor 20 Lite has been announced in Malaysia, while the Honor 20i (or Glory 20i) is for China.
Updated on May 24, 2019: Updated with current availability, plus photos of the Honor 20 and the Moschino Honor 20 Pro.
