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Honor 20 Pro hands-on: the new budget king?

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The Honor 20 Pro is the latest device in the Honor N series, although the company has taken a different route this year. Instead of a single device, there’s now a line of three devices, highlighted by the Honor 20 Pro. It aims to bring everything you’d expect from a flagship to a more budget-oriented device.

Design and build

The Honor 20 Pro immediately stands out as high end with its full-screen display only interrupted by a tiny hole punch in the corner. The design is very reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy S10e, including the lack of a curved display (thank god). The fingerprint sensor is a capacitive unit mounted to the side doubles as a power button. On the back, you’ll find a wild quad camera setup surrounded by glass.

The device feels every bit as high end as the best of the best, with a lot of care put into build quality and aesthetics. The “Dynamic Holographic” back has an extra depth layer, really giving a lot of depth to the reflections compared to regular glass. It’s an impressive effect in person.

Specs and features

The Honor 20 Pro features high end specs such as a 6.26″ display, a top of the line Kirin 980 processor, 8GB of RAM, a large 4,000 mAh battery that can charge to 50% in 30 minutes, the quad rear camera setup, and a 32MP front-facing camera embedded in the display taking up only 4.5mm of space.

With the nearly bezel-less display and near flagship specs, it’s offering almost everything, and in some cases more than most flagships. Unfortunately, the Honor N series is losing the headphone jack with the 20 Pro. Huge shame.

The cameras

The quad camera system on the rear has an optically stabilized 48MP Sony sensor with a huge f/1.4 aperture, a 16MP ultrawide sensor, an optically stabilized 8MP 3x telephoto lens, and a 2MP macro sensor. That main 48MP sensor with OIS features an AIS Super Night mode, which functions like Google’s Night Sight, and an Ultra Clarity mode that can be used in the daytime to take super detailed 48MP images by compositing multiple images.

Images come out sharp, detailed, and punchy. Colors are saturated but remain fairly natural and everything is clear and evenly exposed. Dynamic range is excellent. The 3x telephoto lens also performs well, partially due to the optical image stabilization. Frankly, this camera system is likely up there with the best.

The 2MP macro sensor… is useless. Yes, it takes close-up photos, but the quality is pretty awful. It’s a gimmick more than anything. The Mate 20 Pro’s super macro mode is built into the ultrawide angle camera and is far superior (of course at a much higher cost).

Conclusion

The Honor 20 Pro is looking to be a solid contender in the mid-to-high end smartphone market. It brings almost everything to the table and does it well. And at only 599 euro, it’s very competitive and cheaper than the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s been an awesome experience using the device so far and it’s a really compelling option for those looking for a cheaper device.

Dima Aryeh
A tech nerd from childhood, Dima also enjoys building and racing cars as well as photography and video games to pass the time.

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