The Honor View 20 is one of the highlight releases of early 2019, bringing in some impressive specifications at an affordable price. The phone also packs in the classic design of a premium smartphone, and even looks better than a lot of other premium smartphones because of the V-shaped shimmer effect underneath the rear glass. For most consumers, the Honor View20 ticks all of the boxes and is likely to be their smartphone of choice this time of the year.

The Honor View 20 isn't just all looks though. The phone also features technologies that allow it to stand out of the crowd. The back of the phone comes equipped with a 3D Time of Flight (ToF) sensor alongside a more conventional 48MP, f/1.8 primary camera. The ToF sensor measures depth by resolving the distance between the ToF sensor and the object based on how long it takes for light to travel. ToF camera sensors are used to enable 3D mapping at a distance, most commonly for facial recognition purposes as seen on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, the iPhone X, and the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition. However, since the View 20's ToF sensor is placed on the back of the device, it is not used for facial recognition. Instead, the phone uses this 3D ToF sensor for other features like AI calorie counting, 3D shaping and 3D motion-controlled gaming.

Honor View 20 XDA Forums Honor View 20 XDA Review

If you have purchased the Honor View 20 and are looking to explore the uses of the 3D ToF sensor, you can now experience 3D motion controlled gaming through two games that are made specifically for this purpose. Fancy Skiing and Fancy Darts utilize the specialized hardware on the View 20 to give you an alternative gaming experience.

The View 20 in these games acts similar to a Microsoft Kinect to detect and read the movement of your body. You do need to connect your phone to a monitor using either a Miracast, a USB Type-C to HDMI adapter or a special dock made by Honor. The feature is a bit gimmicky, as there is a slight but noticeable delay between our body movement and the input reaction on the display. There isn't a whole lot of replayability in these games once the novelty factor wears off, which is to be expected since this is one of the first device to feature this hardware. Nonetheless, it is an interesting first step towards exploring diverse rear camera setups to enable a wider range of functionality other than just photography.

Note: Huawei has stopped providing official bootloader unlock codes for its devices. Therefore, the bootloader of the Honor View 20 can’t be unlocked, which means that users cannot root or install custom ROMs.