“The popularity of 5G is too fast. Even mid-range phones will be on 5G.”

This is a netizen comment I saw on Weibo. Indeed, since entering 2020, support for 5G networks has become the standard configuration for domestic mobile phones. Roughly calculated, in the past few months, domestic leading mobile phone manufacturers have launched 12 5G mobile phones.

But at the same time, the price war between mobile phones is also going on in the background.

▲ 2019.12-2020.03 Update list of 5G mobile phones of various brands (domestic mobile phones)

However, unlike previous tactics of using the flagship to dismount bayonet blades, the pricing of 5G flagships this year is on the rise due to rising material costs, and the cheap and affordable mid-end market is left to sub-brands to compete.

After Redmi, iQOO, and Realme successively launched mid-range 5G mobile phones, the Honor Digital Series (HONOR) also ushered in an update today.

From the current product layout, Honor currently has three product lines, V, HONOR and X, to cater to three different positioning and pricing markets. Last year, Honor’s V30 Pro released can be said to be the highest specification product in the series, and this year The 30S of the digital series is a trendy positioning. Although the configuration is mid-range, it is the latest.

So, the Honor 30S debuted with Kirin 820 processor.

How did the first Kirin mid-range processor with integrated 5G baseband perform?

When writing an outline for this review, I have been thinking that I should start with the appearance as usual, or start with the performance first. But in the end I decided to try a new way of writing, starting with performance, after all, the Kirin 820 is the biggest highlight of this update.

From the name point of view, this SoC is an iterative upgrade product of Kirin 810. In addition to integrating 5G baseband, the CPU architecture has also changed from 2 + 6 of Kirin 810 to a cluster of 1 + 3 + 4, but the architecture The A76 + A55 and 7nm processes of the Kirin 810 are still continued, except that an A76 mid-core is added to the Kirin 810 and a large A76 core is added.

In order to facilitate everyone to quickly understand this SoC, I have made a sequence list of the data:

  • 1 x A76 large core: 2.36Ghz
  • 3 x A76 Core: 2.22Ghz
  • 4 x A55 small core: 1.84Ghz

    In other details, although the GPU is not the rumored Mali-G77, it has also been upgraded from Mali-G52 to Mali-G57, which has a performance improvement of more than 20% compared to Kirin 810. Another important NPU part has also been replaced by Huawei’s self-developed DaVinci architecture, which has improved AI performance by 73%.

    With the upgrade of the ISP to the same ISP 5.0 of the Kirin 990, the maximum camera pixels held by the SoC have also reached 64 million and support 4K video shooting.

    The configuration of this test machine is as follows:

    • Processor: Kirin 820
    • Storage: 8GB
    • Storage: 256GB

      In terms of parameters, there are still a lot of upgrade points for Kirin 820. The CPU combination architecture, NPU and ISP have been greatly improved. The combination of large, medium and small cores gives the SoC better performance and power control capabilities. Malaysia can concentrate on pulling the cart, and China and Ma can see the size of the task.Improve energy efficiency.

      NPU and ISP both inherit the advantages of Kirin 990, which reminds me of Qualcomm’s previous practice between Snapdragon 8 series and 7 series. Today’s Kirin 820 is also a mid-range Version of Kirin 990.

      The only low-profile improvement is the GPU. Although the updated Mali-G57 uses the Valhall architecture of the same level as the G77, it is theoretically more power-efficient and 1.3 times faster than the previous generation of the G52, which uses the Bifrost architecture. However, the G57 is still a mid-range GPU, and the performance upgrade is actually relatively limited.

      From the glory of the glory 30S leaked in the network before , the Kirin 820 can already catch up with the Kirin 980 of the previous year in terms of performance. , Higher than the same level of Snapdragon 765G.

      In order to verify these data, I purposely brought in two benchmarks, Kirin 980 and Snapdragon 765G, to compare them with Kirin 820, and run Antutu, GeekBench, 3D Mark, and GFX Bench respectively.

      After a round of testing, the Kirin 820 in my hand is not bad. In both GeekBench 4.4 and 3D Mark test tools, it can achieve results close to Kirin 980.

      In the single-core performance, the results of the three SoCs are very close, and they start to distance themselves in multi-core performance. Similarly, in the graphics performance test, the data of Kirin 820 is also close to that of Kirin 980, but it is still a horse nose ahead of the old flagship and the new mid-range.

      Finally, in the AnTuTu comprehensive running score, the Kirin 820 also opened a distance from the Kirin 810 and the Snapdragon 765G, even a little higher than the Kirin 980. However, the comprehensive running score depends on the system adjustment in addition to the configuration. Therefore, the running score result can only be used as reference data for mobile phone performance, and cannot be drawn with an absolute equal sign.

      In addition to being able to catch up with Kirin 980 in terms of performance, another focus of Kirin 820 is the integration of 5G baseband. Compared to external solutions, the benefits of integrated baseband are mainly reflected in the power saving and high integration In terms of saving space on the motherboard, what could be done with two chips can now be done with one chip.

      But in fact, the Kirin 820 integrated baseband is also an upgrade I expected. After all, there is a Kirin 990 5G predecessor. It is only a matter of time to use the 8 series to integrate 5G.

      After all, is Kirin 820 an excellent SoC?

      From the current Snapdragon 765G and Samsung Exynos 980 two co-located SoCs, Kirin 820 does have an outstanding role, especially after adjusting the CPU architecture, integrating 5G, and updating the NPU and ISP. Kirin 820 Although its performance cannot be said to completely catch up with the high-end flagship, it is at least as good as the Snapdragon 765G.

      However, the advantage of this SoC is not only that it can catch up with the previous flagship in terms of performance, but that Honor has a more flexible initiative under the advantage of mastering the core parts. If this SoC is used in other mobile phones, it can be used in The glory digital series can also appear in the future lower-priced X series or other family products.

      If the Kirin 820 is decentralized to lower-level entry-level products in the future, this will undoubtedly also bring some pressure on mobile phones using old Snapdragon mid-range SoCs.

      The Honor 30S is equipped with a 4000mAh battery. In my day’s high-intensity use (screen brightness is fixed at 50%, 5G / WiFi mixed), this phone can achieve a bright screen time of 5 hours and 40 minutes.

      And even more gratifying is that the Honor 30S also supports 40W super fast charging. Under the 3-100% charge test, the whole process takes 1 hour and 3 minutes, and 30 minutes can be charged to 60%, and emergency charging when going out is basically enough.

      Design details

      The body design of the Honor 30S is not very special, and the points that can be circled are shown in details.

      Although the phone is equipped with a 4000mAh battery and a 6.5-inch screen, the body does not have a noticeable drop because of this. As an adult man who thinks that his palm is not large, this phone can also work with one hand Easy to control, even if I put a clear water case on the phone during the test, the size of the phone is still within the control of my palm.

      This 6.5-inch drilling screen is not an OLED, but an LCD. The picture quality resolution is standard 1080P, the maximum brightness is 450 nits, and it supports HDR 10 and movie color grading. With drilling technology, the screen ratio can still reach more than 90%.

      But look closely at the bottom of the screen, weI can still find that the edge width of the solo step is higher than the top, so this screen is not strictly a four-sided equilateral design, but a three-sided equilateral design.

      The 16-megapixel front camera is hidden in the screen opening, and the three-piece set such as the earpiece and the light distance sensor are hidden between the screen and the edge of the middle frame and the screen frame. They seem to be working hard to put Hide it yourself so that the screen covers the entire front of the phone.

      There are two details of the middle frame part of the phone, one is the craft on the surface of the middle frame, and the other is the fingerprint recognition area on the side.

      The middle frame part looks like the whole part is mirror polished, but in fact, only the front and back parts of the middle frame are polished. The special effect of adding highlights to the matte middle frame is completely unaware of its existence.

      Frame fingerprint recognition is not the first time it appears in a Honor phone. This recognition modeThe block takes into account the power supply and fingerprint recognition functions as before. Since the body itself is not very large, this area is not difficult to touch.

      But I think if the screen fingerprint can be used to replace the side fingerprint after the glory may make the phone more high-end, after all, the LCD can already realize the screen fingerprint, and the trendy positioning of the glory digital series can actually consider replacing the fingerprint recognition.

      Speaking of the fuselage, this time I reviewed the glory 30S of the butterfly feather color, which is also the most recognizable of the three colors.

      What is “butterfly”? Its significance lies in the two-layer coating technology used in the fuselage. One layer is the bottommost color ink, and one layer is a PET coating with a change in light texture. Then, the two layers of coating are covered with hyperboloid glass, and finally the reflection of light creates the effect of butterfly wings dancing.

      Of course, if you don’t like green, Honor will also use the same technology on the white version, there will be a gradation effect of lavender purple, sky blue, and white.

      Flagship ISP with the same performance at night

      The camera module of the Honor 30S is more prominent. That’s because a 64-megapixel main camera is placed inside. In addition to the main camera, this set of cameras also has an 8-megapixel telephoto with 3x zoom, an 8-megapixel super wide-angle equivalent to a 17mm focal length, and a 2-megapixel macro lens.

      Like the previous Honor phone, this phone’s camera also has an AI optimization bonus, and because it is replaced with the same ISP as the flagship, the picture clarity and noise reduction capabilities of the phone will also be better than previous models There are more eye-catching products.

      The main camera ’s focus speed and automatic exposure adjustment capabilities are excellent, but it may be a non-production version of the firmware. The camera ’s white balance may occasionally be overcorrected in unstable lighting conditions.

      For example, the color temperature of the picture under the incandescent lamp will be colder than expected, which will affect the picture color performance. However, at this time, simply turning on the camera and refocusing can solve the problem.

      In terms of production, daytime is basically no difficulty for this 64-megapixel lens. Even after the 16-million regular four-in-one, the details of the picture are very bright.

      In the night environment, we can also see the products with higher definition, and the noise control is in place, which directly makes the performance of the night sky very clean (picture 1 is shot after three times zoom); but in picture 2 , The dark part of the building in the picture also has a slight smear.

      But these flaws are also harmless. The subject seems to be the super standard level of “the friend circle will make people look good” in the same positioning products. Upgrading the new ISP will indeed help the camera production.

      As for the ultra-wide-angle camera, it is superior in distortion correction. There are no embarrassing arcs on both sides, but the hardware conditions are limited. The quality of the ultra-wide-angle lens is average.

      The mid-range 5G market competition has begun

      Honor announced the price of this phone at today ’s press conference. Like the previous Honor digital series models, this phone is also positioned in the mid-end market in the price range of 2000-3000 yuan:

      • 8 + 128GB: 2399 yuan
      • 8 + 256GB: 2699 yuan

        Two versions of glory30S will be available for pre-sale on April 6th and online sale on April 7th.

        With the new chip Kirin 820, Honor has finally entered the mid-range 5G mobile phone market through digital series. Previously, the 2,000 yuan 5G mobile phone market has been exclusively owned by Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G. Through this test, we can see that the gap between the Kirin 820 and the Snapdragon 765G camp is very small, so the entry of the Honor 30S is for the current use of Snapdragon 765G. For mobile phones, it does bring some pressure.

        The more critical point is that Honor can apply these parts to differently positioned products through its mastery of SoC, a key component of mobile phones. Therefore, Kirin 820 is not necessarily only used in Honor 30S. The product may also appear in lower-priced products, reducing the entry threshold for 5G to 2,000 yuan or less.

        In the camp using Snapdragon processors, only two mid-range 5G SoCs, Snapdragon 765 and 765G, are available for selection. There is no room for adjustment, but in the face of the rival Kirin 820 The adjustment is still relatively limited .

        So in a nutshell, the biggest advantage of the Honor 30S as the Kirin 820’s first model is that it provides more choices for 5G mobile phones within 3,000 yuan, and its performance and camera capabilities are also due to the new processor. Obtained a significant improvement, as a mobile phone for less than 3,000 yuan, its performance is worthy of this price.