Gadgetory

(upbeat music) - In 2018, bad notches happened to good Android phones. But in 2019, the notch will be succeeded by the hole-punch camera, such as on the brand-new Honor View 20, which I have in my hands. This is my first experience with the hole-punch display, and I've got to tell you, it's no where near as bad as the notch and, in fact, I think I'm going to like it. (upbeat music) So as I say, this is my very first time with a hole-punch display in my hands and the experience compared to my Google Pixel 3XL is an absolute revelation. The massive notch, the massive cut-out on the top of the display is gone. This is honestly as good as it gets. If you want the camera, it's going to be as small as this. So even though this is probably one of the very first fractured phones to feature hole-punch display, it is as optimized as you can get it. I do love the fact that you get this clean, minimal bezel at the top. Some people will complain about there still being a chin and there is a larger bezel at the bottom, but I'm not one of those people. I appreciate the fact that this chin exists because in order to remove it, the phone will probably cost tons more. The only people who've really achieved it is Apple with the iPhones, and that's done by folding the OLED display underneath. This isn't even an OLED display, this is an LCD display on this device. It includes the Kirin 7nm processor from the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and such. And also includes quite a few pieces of Huawei software such as this wallet, which includes Huawei Pay. And this actually illustrates one of the things: there'll be quite a few apps which haven't accounted for the spot of the hole punch. But in terms of the software adapting to this, most software is already adapted to not using the very top of the display anyway. So I've been looking at things like calendar, that's fine. All your notifications and status cycles, they just shift to the side of the hole punch. Most apps are just perfectly fine with it, gallery, et. Taking a look at photos, taking a look at videos, comparing this to having a notch is much more discreet, much more out of sight. And in fact, if you choose to use a darker wallpaper, I'm using a brighter one at the moment just to demonstrate the position of the hole punch, but if you choose to use a darker wallpaper, it pretty much disappears. (upbeat music) Now, as I say, this is an LCD display, it has a resolution of 2310 x 1080, which isn't all that high given that its 6.4 inches. But looking at it, it's one of the better LCD displays. It can actually be confused for an OLED display except for when it's outdoors such as now, and I've got it at brightness maxed out. That being said, I think this is very decent display. I think Honor has done a terrific job creating this "V" pattern under the glass on the back of the phone. This is the blue version, but there's also red version and that one is quite hypnotic, it's even more impactful. So it's a pretty design, it's a handsome design, there's not much of a huge camera bump. Honor is still sticking with having a headphone jack. It's actually quite a nice package. You can get this device with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, as I say, the Kirin 980 processor. So it's got really good performance as well and it's got this absolutely minimal bezel all around the place. Oh, also 48-megapixel camera on the back. I've taken just a couple of sample photos with this and it's encouraging, it's promising. So the View 20, even though it's already been announced in China, we'll get a formal announcement on January 21st in a big gala event in Paris. The hole-punch display is going to be the trend of 2019. And this being my first experience and my first look at it, I have nothing to worry about and I don't think you should be worried either. 2019 is going to be a much better year for smartphone design than 2018. To keep track of how things do develop in the mobile world in 2019, keep track of the verge.com and youtube.com/the verge.