The Honor 20 series was launched last month with two model options, the Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro. At the moment, the standard Honor 20 is scheduled to go on sale starting this Friday, 21st June 2019 but we still don’t know when the Pro model will be released commercially.
From the looks of it, it appears that the delay was caused by a certification issue. This is likely hampered by the recent restriction by the US government which was announced just a day before the Honor 20 was announced globally on 21st May.
However, it is now reported from an Italian site that the Honor 20 Pro has finally received its certification from Google after four weeks of trying. As a result, the device may finally go on sale very soon. According to PhoneArena, they have also received an email from Honor which says that an international launch will happen soon.
Honor has yet to make any new announcement for the Honor 20 Pro model just yet but it is possible that the device could be released as early as next month. In Malaysia, we are told that Honor is definitely planning to bring the Pro model into our market and the device was also mentioned during the local launch event, although no pricing details were provided.
The Honor 20 Pro features a better camera, a larger battery and a more refined exterior. Upfront, it shares the same 6.26″ punch-hole display with a Full HD resolution as the standard Honor 20 and under the hood, it also runs on a Kirin 980 processor. Since it’s a higher spec model, it comes with 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage.
The biggest difference is its rear quad-camera setup. The Pro model gets a 48MP main camera that’s paired with a faster f/1.4 lens. There’s also a 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera as well as an 8MP f/2.4 telephoto camera that can push 3X optical zoom. Meanwhile, the fourth camera is a dedicated 2MP f/2.4 macro shooter that allows you to capture objects as close as 4cm. Both the main and telephoto cameras also get optical image stabilisation, which is lacking on the standard model.
The Honor 20 Pro also gets the second highest score on DxOMark Mobile with 111 points. That puts it on par with the OnePlus 7 Pro and it is two points higher than last year’s Huawei Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro.
The Honor 20 Pro also gets a larger 4,000mAh battery which is slightly larger than the Honor 20’s 3,750mAh unit. Because of its bigger battery, the Honor 20 Pro is slightly ticker and it has a nicer four-way curve glass for its rear. It also supports 22.5W SuperCharge fast charging via USB-C but unfortunately, it also lacks a headphone jack.
In Europe the Honor 20 pro is priced at 599 EUR (about RM2,808) but we reckon it could be priced around the RM2,000 marker when it gets here. For example, standard Honor 20 is priced at 499 EUR (about RM2,339) but it is officially priced at a much lower RM1,699 in Malaysia.
