HONOR 20 & 20 Pro Launched, Is Trump’s Ban Cause For Concern?

HONOR has just wrapped up their HONOR 20 and HONOR 20 Pro launch event in London, so let’s take a quick look at the two phones.

Both phones are externally similar, with the main differences being the internals. The Kirin 980 AI Chipset is used in both, but the HONOR 20 (€499, approximately SG$766) comes with 128GB of internal storage and 6GB of RAM while the HONOR 20 Pro (€599, approximately SG$920) has 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.

Left to right: HONOR 20 Lite, HONOR 20 Pro

Both utilise the same 6.26″ 1080p, 412 ppi display squeezed into a 5.3″ form factor, boasting a 91.6% screen-to-body ratio, which is impressive. HONOR went with the punch-hole design at the top left for the front camera, which is an unobtrusive choice that maximises the screen real estate.

The fingerprint sensor has been integrated with the unlock button on the side which I do appreciate as a clever design move, although I question how secure it is, seeing as it only captures a small area of one’s fingerprint and claims to unlock the phone within 0.3s.

There are four rear cameras on the HONOR 20 Pro; a 48MP F/1.4 main camera which utilises pixel binning along with laser autofocus, a 16MP F/2.2 super wide angle camera, 8MP F/2.4 telephoto camera and a 2MP F/2.4 macro camera that boasts a 4cm focusing distance. Both the main and telephoto cameras have dual 4-axis optical, AI and electronic image stabilisation.

The HONOR 20 has the same cameras, except the telephoto camera is swapped out for a 2MP F/2.4 depth assist camera that provides a bokeh effect, there’s only AI stabilisation for the main camera and the laser autofocus has been removed.

Left to right: HONOR 20 Lite, HONOR 20 Pro

The HONOR 20 Pro (€599, approximately SG$920) will initially launch in Phantom Blue and Phantom Black, while the HONOR 20 (€499, approximately SG$766) will come in Sapphire Blue, Midnight Black and Icelandic White. There is also a co-designed phone design, the HONOR 20 Pro x Moschino. Availability in Singapore has not been announced for the two phones, but they are expected to be available some time between June and July.

The Dynamic Holographic design glass backs include HONOR’s Triple 3D Mesh technology, embedding millions of miniature prisms which makes the Phantom Blue and Phantom Black models appear green and purple respectively under sunlight.

HONOR 20 Lite (€299, SG$338) was also announced, but has been available in Singapore since 15 May 2019 at Lazada, Shopee, Qoo10 and authorised resellers.

The full spec list is available below, but do stay tuned for our in-depth review of the HONOR 20 Pro.

While the phones are looking to be great additions to HONOR’s lineup, the launch is shadowed by the implications of their sister company Huawei being added to the US Commerce Department’s list of companies that is prohibited from doing business with American companies like Google.

The HONOR 20 and HONOR 20 Pro will still be launching with HONOR’s Magic UI interface which is based on Android 9.0 Pie, along with access to Google’s apps like Gmail and YouTube, but it’s very likely that the HONOR phones won’t be receiving newer versions of Android as those roll out in the future. For more details, read about what the Trump ban entails and the implications on Huawei and HONOR.