The Honor View20: Everything you need to know

The Honor View20, the latest flagship phone from the company that's shaking up the industry, is finally here.

After being shown off to the world in a lavish ceremony in Paris the biggest question for most people is just "when can I get it"! But just in case there were a few other things you were wondering about, here's everything you need to know about the Honor View20. 

Stunning screen

Let's start with the display, which is a massive 6.4-inch screen with a 2310 x 1080 resolution and a high-grade 398 ppi. But that's not the whole story. Honor's All-View Display technology is the key here, providing the basis for the FullView Display 3.0 which the View20 is the first phone to use.

This means you get more screen: the Honor View20 has an extraordinary 91.82% screen-to-touch panel ratio. The bezel is almost non-existent, but the real secret is how Honor has placed the front-facing camera. Rather than use a notch or a strip, the Honor View20 has the camera set into the screen and partially embedded in the 18-layer display stack. A special technique called pixel transition technology has been used to enable light to pass through the display and reach the camera sensor while a proprietary technique stops light from the screen affecting your photos.

World-first Camera

While we're talking camera, that front-facing in-screen camera is a massive 25-megapixels. But flip the Honor View20 over and the rear-camera is a world first 48-megapixels with 3D functionality. 

The camera sensor includes a Quad Bayer colour filter array, which offers higher sensitivity and resolution. When you're taking a photo in low-light environments the Quad Bayer uses the signal from the four adjacent pixels and combines them together producing brighter, low-noise photos and videos.

The 3D capabilities mean the HonorView20 rear camera can sense distance and depth when taking photos – it can even get information about the shape of an object! Not only does this mean a whole new dimension of photography and videography, but it also helps with Augmented Reality (or AR) applications and even with 3D-motion controlled gaming!

Powerful processing

A lot of what's making the camera on the Honor View20 so ground-breaking is the powerful hardware and software that's working with the image sensors. The power behind this is the Kirin 980 chipset, which has dual NPU or Neural Processing Unity, giving the Honor View20 a big advantage in the world of AI. In fact, this hardware has boosted the AI learning capability and image processing speed (by 134% and 46% respectively) offering what Honor say is the world's first 48MP AI Ultra Clarity mode.

Turn this on and the camera will take several photos at once, all at 48MP. The processor then grabs the best details from each of these photos and combines them to create a single image of the best parts. Then, the Kirin 980's dual NPU jumps in, using an advanced AI algorithm to analyse the quality of the photo is assessed, optimise details in dark, and adjust the colours to be brighter and more vivid. The end result is a "Super 48MP Photo" of unsurpassed quality. And that's just a taste of the what the Honor View20 can do.

Delicious Design

Did we mention it also looks amazing? This high-tech powerhouse of a phone definitely has the body to match the brains. Honor has used a technique called nanolithography to etch nanoscopic patterns into the curved, slim glass and metal body.

This creates unusually vivid and beautiful colour gradients. The rear of the phone will reflect light in V-shaped gradient which changes as you angle the phone. Chose from one of the four colours -- sapphire and phantom blue, phantom red, and midnight black -- and prepare to attract a lot of attention when people see the Honor View20. 

While we wait for more details on availability and pricing you can check out more of our first impressions of the View 20 from CES here, or over at the Honor website here.