Huawei and sub-brand Honor have been caught at the cross-hairs in the U.S. president Donald Trump's trade war against China. In spite of being put in a tough situation, Huawei is moving forth and launching newer devices in the market. Last month, the Honor launched its latest flagship series including the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro in London. Both of these devices are powered with the Kirin 980 SoC, equipped with quad cameras, holde-punch displays, GPU Turbo 3.0, and more. Now, the duo has made its way to India with another device in the series – the Honor 20i.

Honor 20 Pro XDA Forums / Honor 20 XDA Forums

The flagships - Honor 20 & Honor 20 Pro

The Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro (our review) share much in common with only a few minor differences. Both these devices fall in the category of affordable flagships and take this baton from the Honor View20 (a comparison between the three Honor flagships) which was launched last year with high-end specifications, hole-punch design, and quad cameras. The Honor 20 series is also powered by Huawei's headliner SoC – the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC – along with options up to 8GB of RAM. The two Honor 20 flagships feature UFS 2.1 type storage with up to 256GB in terms of capacity.

Both - the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro use 6.26-inch “All-view” IPS LCD displays with a hole for the selfie camera on the top left corner. The devices have a screen-to-body ratio of 91.6% and Honor claims that these smartphones feature one of the smallest hole punches. While this is still not as good as the higher screen-to-body ratios of the ASUS ZenFone 6 (coming to India as only ASUS 6Z) or the OnePlus 7 Pro but this design eliminates the baggage of attaching a mechanical part, thereby cutting off any lag while switching between the front and the rear cameras.

For the 3D holographic back, Honor has used a two-stage process which creates a depth-inducing optical effect which the company says resembles the scattering of light under the ocean. This process includes fine diamond-shaped grooves which reflect light in multiple directions, creating different patterns at different angles with the incident light.

 

In terms of cameras, the Honor 20 and the Honor 20 Pro features quad camera setups on the back but with varying configurations. Both utilize a 48MP Sony IMX586 as the primary sensor along with a 16MP wide-angle sensor as the secondary sensor. The difference comes in the form of the third sensor in the array, which is an 8MP telephoto lens with 3X zoom on the Honor 20 Pro versus the 2MP depth sensor on the non-Pro variant. Notably, the primary lens on the Pro has a much wider f/1.4 aperture compared to the f/1.8 aperture on the other and as expected, this is to facilitate better low-light shots. Lastly, the fourth lens which is placed on the side of the triple camera array serves is a 2MP fixed-focus lens dedicated to macro shots. On the front, the two devices feature 32MP selfie cameras with f/2.0 aperture values.

For power backup, the Honor 20 Pro has a 4,000mAh battery while the Honor 20 has a slightly smaller 3750mAh battery. Both the devices 22.5W SuperCharge fast charging technology.

When it comes to software, both the smartphones run Honor's MagicUI 2.1 (based on Android 9 Pie) which is a rebranded clone of Huawei's EMUI 9.1. We are obligated to tell you that even though Huawei and Honor have been vouching for uninterrupted updates to the two smartphones in the future, the situation is more complicated. Following the ban by the U.S. government, Huawei and Honor smartphones might no longer receive updates to Android and if they do, these devices might lose access to Google's services. We'll have more information by August 19th (or before if there's some interim judgment by the U.S. Commerce Department) but until then, the situation remains tricky.

Honor 20i

The Honor 20i was also released alongside the Honor 20 and the 20 Pro in India today. Unlike the other two, this is a mid-range device – essentially a rebranded Honor 20 Lite which was also launched last month before the main Honor event. The Honor 20i features a rather basic design with a gradient back, a smaller 6.21-inch water-drop notch LCD IPS display, triple cameras, and a fingerprint scanner on the back. It retains the headphone jack but also comes with an old micro USB port for charging and data transfer.

The camera setup on the back includes a 24MP primary sensor, an 8MP secondary sensor with 120º FOV, and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, there's a 32MP selfie camera. The camera software uses AI to optimize up to 500 scenarios as well as neutralize skin tone and improve the shape of the face among other beautification effects.

For performance, the Honor 20i is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 710 chipset and comes with up to 4GB of RAM. This is coupled with up to 128GB storage options. The smartphone is rocking a 3,400mAh battery but there's no mention of the fast charging. Furthermore, it runs on EMUI 9.0 but we can expect an update to EMUI 9.1 soon.

Honor Pad5

In spite of the dwindling tablet sales worldwide, the demand for 4G tablets is ramping up in India. This has inspired Honor to release the Honor Pad5 with a primary objective of entertainment. There will be two variants – one sized at 8.1-inches and the other at 10.1-inches. Both the variants get Full HD display resolution and dual stereo speakers tuned by Harmon Kardon and placed on the back.

The two variants of the Honor Pad5 are powered by an octa-core HiSilicon processors with the smaller one using a Kirin 710 while the bigger model being powered by a Kirin 659. The 10-inch model gets fingerprint support via a front-mounted sensor (which makes the tablet look like an older Samsung Galaxy tablet) while the 8.1-inch model does not - although both support for face unlock.

Both models get 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB variants and the storage can be expanded to up to 256GB using microSD cards. Additionally, there's support for 4G LTE and voice calling but there's no mention of VoLTE support.

The Tab5 8.1-inch variant is powered by MagicUI 2.0.1 based on Android 9 Pie while the 10.1-inch model runs EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo. The Pad5 also bring a dedicated space for children so that you can selectively allow certain apps.

Both of these tablets have singles cameras on the front as well as the back. The 8.1-inch model gets 8MP sensor on both the sides while the 10.1-inch model is equipped with an 8MP camera on the back along with a 2MP sensor on the front.

Honor 20 Series & Honor Pad5: Price & Availability

The Honor 20 with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage will be available via Flipkart via June 25th for a price of ₹32,999.

The Honor 20 Pro with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage will be available in India very soon and will be priced at ₹39,999. The exact date of availability has not been announced yet.

Meanwhile, the cheaper Honor 20i gets a 4GB+128GB variant and will be available through Flipkart starting June 18th for a price of ₹14,999.

The 8.1-inch Honor Pad5 will also be sold via Flipkart and the prices for the 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB variants will be ₹15,499 and ₹17,499, respectively. The 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB variants of the 10.1-inch model will be priced at ₹16,999 and ₹18,999, respectively.