Introduction
The ZTE Axon family has a long-standing history of industry firsts. Now, they bring us the world's first commercially available device with an under-display selfie camera, the Axon 20 5G. That's something we've been waiting ever since the first notched phones arrived.
One would expect that such a breakthrough feature will be paired with top-notch hardware. However, ZTE wants to play it safe this time around, and the under-display camera has been coupled with a mixture of high-end and midrange hardware. But the main selling point here is clearly the display. If you are making rid of the cutouts, it only makes sense to use a proper display as well.
ZTE Axon 20 5G specs at a glance:
- Body: 172.1x77.9x8.0mm, 198g; Glass front, glass back, aluminum frame.
- Display: 6.92" OLED, 1B colors, 90Hz, 1080x2460px resolution, 20.5:9 aspect ratio, 388ppi; Always-on display.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM7250 Snapdragon 765G (7 nm): Octa-core (1x2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1x2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver); Adreno 620.
- Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot, up to 2TB).
- OS/Software: Android 10, MiFavor 10.5.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 25mm, 1/1.72", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚, 16mm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
- Front camera: 32 MP, f/2.0, (wide), under display.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS, HDR, 10‑bit video; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 4220mAh; Fast charging 30W, Quick Charge 4+.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); NFC; Sound on Display, under-display selfie camera; only 8GB/128GB available in Europe.
The full-screen panel checks all the boxes - HRR up to 90Hz, HDR support, OLED, and 10-bit color depth. And it's actually one of the biggest in town too. The display measures 6.92" in diagonal, making the phone a bit unwieldy even for users with average-sized hands.
The mid-range part about this phone, though, is the chipset. The Snapdragon 765G offers 5G connectivity and more-than-adequate performance, and it is paired with 128GB of internal storage as a base configuration. The camera setup also leaves something to be desired as it doesn't offer a telephoto camera, and the ultra-wide unit is just 8MP. Also, no stereo speakers.
So is this the typical first-gen product with its own quirks that need fixing, and people will pay the price of early adoption, or there's a lot more to it than a huge, cutout-less screen? We'll see.
Unboxing the ZTE Axon 20 5G
The handset comes inside a standard box containing the appropriate charger with the USB-A to USB-C cable used for charging and data transfer. As a bonus, ZTE has included a transparent silicone case and a 3.5mm to USB-C dongle since the phone doesn't have a headphone jack.
Design and ergonomics
Let's address the obvious thing first, and that's the size of this thing. It's hard to fit a 6.92-inch screen in a compact body, so don't expect miracles. The side bezels aren't the thinnest ones around, with the bottom chin sticking out quite a bit. There's really no way around it, it's an unwieldy phone, and it's almost impossible to operate with just one hand. However, we were surprised that the weight is just 198g, which for a phone at this size is rather impressive.
The camera isn't the only thing ZTE was able to tuck under the display. The fingerprint reader is under there, and a couple of other sensors like the proximity and the ambient light sensor. The earpiece is nowhere to be found too, so there's a piezoelectric vibrator taking its place. It taps into the display, making it vibrate and produce sound. We've seen such solutions from Xiaomi and Huawei before. In any case, we will talk about the display, camera, and sound quality in the next pages.
The overall build of the Axon 20 5G feels premium. The side frame is made of metal, and the front and back sheets are glass. Sadly, no Gorilla Glass - just plain old glass. And the first thing we've noticed is how slippery the phone feels. For a phone at this size, slippery means bad. At least smudges on the back aren't as visible, at least on the black color we received.
We like the clean look of the back, though. There's just the ZTE and Axon 5G branding on the back, but they are rather subtle and definitely not "in your face." The camera bump too. It's not the thickest we've seen, and it looks just right. It houses all four cameras along with the flash. Of course, leaving the phone on a flat surface will wobble because of the camera protrusion. Slapping a case fixes it.
The button positioning on the side is excellent. The power button is subtly textured and hits the right height. Your thumb falls exactly in place. There's no volume rocker because the volume up and down buttons are separate. Maybe that's a good decision as it gives you even more clarity on where exactly you place your thumb without having to look.
Moving to the bottom side of the frame, we find the loudspeaker grille, the USB-C port, and the SIM card tray, which is a hybrid one. You can either go with a SIM + SIM configuration or a SIM + microSD card.
The Axon 20 5G from the side
All in all, we liked the Axon 20 5G design with just a couple of things that we feel need improving. And we are not talking about the size of the phone because that's strongly subjective. Obviously, anyone looking for a small phone wouldn't go for the Axon 20 5G's humongous 6.92-inch screen. But we feel like the bezels need a bit of trimming and the slippery nature of the back glass makes handling the phone even harder than it already is.
Full-screen 10-bit OLED
Arguably the best thing about this phone is the huge OLED display. It measures 6.92" in diagonal and offers a tall 1080 x 2460px resolution. The display also supports 90Hz refresh rate, but we will talk about the HRR behavior later on. First, we would like to assess the overall performance of the panel.
The maximum recorded brightness in manual mode isn't impressive, hitting 406 nits. Sadly, there's no Max Auto mode either, so there's no way to light up the panel brighter than this. Don't expect great sunlight legibility.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0 | 406 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 323 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 756 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 373 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 677 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 516 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 854 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 522 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 854 | ∞ | |
Color accuracy isn't stellar either, which we think it's a missed opportunity on behalf of ZTE. This vibrant, 10-bit color (supports over 1 billion colors) OLED is capable of reproducing lively images and accurate ones too but the average dE2000 tuned out to be 5 with whites and grays being a bit blue-ish. But there are some things you need to consider.
Firstly, an average deltaE of 5.0 isn't all that bad and can often go unnoticed by the untrained eye. Secondy, you can adjust the color temperature to your liking with the provided color wheel. There's also an optimized mode that boosts all colors and, as a result, bumps up the average dE2000 number to 6.6, but if you are using that mode, you most likely aren't concerned with color accuracy anyway.
Now to talk about the elephant in the room - the under-display camera. The panel accommodating the tech is manufactured by Visionox. It's compiled of a high-transparency cathode, an OLED matrix, and a transparent matrix beneath it all. A special integrated circuit and matrix have been used to minimize the impact of the selfie camera on the viewing experience. And we think ZTE has done a pretty good job at doing so, for a first-gen product that is. ZTE explains that delivering sufficient light into the camera sensor is the biggest challenge, so the small square patch of the OLED matrix is of lower resolution. And that's why UI elements passing through that patch may look a bit jagged.
The camera "cutout" can be seen from an angle as long as there's a bright color displayed. Otherwise, you won't notice it unless you know what and where to look for. For important stuff like playing games or watching movies, the implementation looks fine. And if you find yourself looking at the square at the top a bit too often, switch to dark mode, and the camera will be impossible to see.
And in case it's too much to bear, there's an option to move the content down and leave the status bar black, and when it's black, it's impossible to see the camera.
Even though ZTE doesn't mention the HDR support, it is there, at least on YouTube. It seems to be working, but it's not supported in the Netflix app, which, by the way, we had to sideload. We were surprised to see that the Netflix app wasn't available for download via Play Store, but it worked fine when sideloaded. It even supports WideVine L1 and up to Full HD streaming quality.
As far as refresh rate control is concerned, there is none here, unfortunately. While most manufacturers try to find the sweet spot between high refresh rate and efficiency, ZTE is just using a standard 90Hz refresh rate, which occasionally drops to a little below 80Hz for no apparent reason. Otherwise, no matter if you are viewing static content or watching a video on YouTube or Netflix, the refresh rate stays at 90Hz.
Battery life
For a phone carrying a 4,220 mAh battery and an OLED panel, one would expect higher screen-on runtimes. But the exceptionally low web browsing score and the unsatisfactory video playback time, are what brings the overall score down to just 82 hours. The standby test didn't return great results either - competitors had done better with the same chipsets and similar battery specs. We also checked if lowering the display's refresh rate down to 60Hz would help, and we didn't find any substantial gains by doing so.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the ZTE Axon 20 5G for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Charging speed
The phone ships with a Quick Charge 4+ compatible charger rated at up to 30W. Of course, the Axon 20 5G is also drawing 30W but we are not sure about which voltage and amperage are used. The label on the charger says it can work with 12V/2.5V, 20V/1.5A or 10V/3A. Either way, the charging speed is slightly faster than its competitors, but most of them sport bigger batteries too.
30min charging test (from 0%)
- ZTE Axon 20 5G
62% - OnePlus Nord
60% - Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
60% - Samsung Galaxy M51
35%
Time to full charge (from 0%)
- ZTE Axon 20 5G
1:00h - OnePlus Nord
1:05h - Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
1:05h - Samsung Galaxy M51
1:47h
Speaker
ZTE advertises the DTS:X Ultra sound capabilities and the 3D surround-like listening experience. Unfortunately, that's an impossible effect to achieve on just one bottom-firing loudspeaker. It's okay for music but don't expect deep bass or sufficient clarity at higher volume levels.
Perhaps this is where we should talk about the supposedly piezoelectric vibrator under the display (a vibration motor that vibrates the display, which in turn produces sound). It's a cool tech and saves up on some bezel space at the top, but this solution comes with its own set of drawbacks. Right off the bat, you will notice the rather robotic-sounding reproduction of voice, and secondly, it doesn't get loud enough for noisy environments. It's a bit of a struggle to hear the other side if there's ambient sound around. And then there's the privacy issue that pretty much all phones like this one have. Even though the display doesn't get loud, it can be heard from people sitting nearby if the room is quiet. That's because the whole display emits the sound and the 6.92-inch panel is pretty big on its own.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Audio output quality
We've recently discontinued our audio output quality test.
The reason for that is that most phones that arrived for testing were already excellent in this regard. Whatever difference there was, it was marginal and probably indistinguishable to anything but our lab equipment.
ZTE's MiFavor 10.5 on top of Android 10
The Axon 20 5G runs on the latest iteration of ZTE's MiFavor, version 10.5. It looks and feels a lot different than the Nubia UI we've reviewed a while back, but they do have one common thing. Both launchers try to deliver a vanilla-like experience with a couple of neat tweaks to enhance the overall usability.
The first things we've noticed are the app drawer, notification shade, and the recent apps menu. Few are the differences between the stock look and the current state of MiFavor. The quick toggles in the notification shade are round and pretty stock-ish looking, but the icons are what gives them away. To improve usability with one hand, a second swipe brings down the quick toggles lower, within thumb's reach, leaving a big blank space at the top for the current date and time. Much like Samsung's One UI and OnePlus' OxygenOS. We definitely like how this feature is implemented, except that it's only there. The rest of the settings menu isn't optimized for one-handed use.
Home screen, recent apps, app drawer, notification shade
We've also noticed something unconventional. The dark mode switch has been duplicated to the Battery sub-menu, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. The biggest appeal to the so-called Dark Mode is the potential battery gains you'd make on OLED smartphones, such as the Axon 20 5G. And, of course, there's the aesthetic.
Battery settings
Interestingly, the Display sub-menu has been moved down a little, coming after the home screen settings and the battery menu. You will find a more sophisticated version of Dark Mode to schedule it and switch it off on per-app basis.
Display settings
Moving on to the Sound menu, we can't miss mentioning the granular sound control. One of the few custom Android skins to offer a separate volume slider for notifications and incoming calls. That's something Android has stopped supporting natively a long time ago. The volume keys can also be assigned to move the volume slider of the media or the ring volume as a default.
Sound settings
The Features menu contains a couple of neat gestures and functionalities. You can use the good old software buttons if you like, or turn on and off certain gestures. We found the "Auto answer", "Change to earpiece", "Shake to turn on flashlight" and "Pocket mode" to be particularly useful on a daily basis. Some of them are pretty self-explanatory, while others aren't as much. Luckily, the system allows you to test them out before turning them on.
Special features and gestures
If you have your hands dirty, "Auto answer" answers as you bring the phone to your ear without having to touch the phone. "Pocket mode", the phone boosts the incoming call volume when it detects that it's being carried in a pocket. "Change to the earpiece" is also petty neat when you are connected to a Bluetooth speaker, for example, and you need to take the call on the phone's earpiece. You just pick up the phone as you normally do, and the phone will switch over to the earpiece instead of routing the call through the Bluetooth speaker.
The Always-on display setting isn't as customizable as the Nubia UI's, but it still has an abundance of options to choose from. Of course, the scheduling option is in there, along with several clock styles for the lock screen. Definitely not as customizable as nubia's AOD.
Always-on display settings
Speaking of the lock screen, there are a couple of fingerprint reader animations to choose from, while the scanner's performance itself is just okay. Definitely not the fastest one around, but it was accurate and reliable most of the time. We've just seen better implementations from competing brands. Also, MiFavor 10.5 borrows a nifty feature from OnePlus' OxygenOS. Unlocking the phone with the fingerprint and leaving your finger there for a second or so, will open up a pop-up menu with shortcuts to apps of your choice.
Fingerprint reader options
All in all, we found MiFavor to be fluent, fast, and highly-customizable while keeping a bit of that vanilla Android feel at times. Honestly, this is one of the few burden-less Chinese takes on Android with most of the features that actually matter. We would have appreciated more granular control over refresh rate and a bit faster fingerprint reader, but you can't have it all, can you? We also didn't notice any major translation issues, which can often be seen in nubia and ZTE's software. There were the occasional strange translations but nothing major.
Performance
The Axon 20 5G runs on a competent Snapdragon 765G built on the 7nm manufacturing process. The SoC itself employs an octa-core CPU with 1x 2.4GHz Kryo 475 Prime core, 1x 2.2GHz Kryo 475 Gold core, and 6x 1.8GHz Kryo 475 Silver cores used for less demanding tasks and to save on some power. The Adreno 620 GPU takes care of the graphically-intensive tasks. Memory configurations start at 6GB/128GB and go up to 8GB/256GB. We start to see 128GB becoming the mainstream base option on mid-range phones, so it's good to see that ZTE is keeping on with the times.
Another important thing to note here is the 5G connectivity but, more importantly, the smartphone's 5G performance. ZTE is proud of its so-called PDS (Print Direct Structuring) antenna that surrounds the device. It's super thin, and the tech improves the antenna's performance by 50%. Signal stability is also supposed to be 50% up along with efficiency, which is allegedly 30% up. Ultimately, this should affect download and upload speeds as well. And for better connection stability during gameplay, there's a special 5G + Wi-Fi mode that makes both antennas work simultaneously. It's not necessarily a new feature, but it's nice to have for gamers. Unfortunately, we weren't able to test the 5G performance since it's still not available in our area, so we have to take ZTE's word on those claims.
Lastly, ZTE has tried to improve sustained performance by using several heat-dispersing components. There's a graphite sheet, a standard vapor chamber cooling system, and a carbon nanofiber thermal pad to keep things cool and running.
Now off to the benchmark testing to see how it stacks against its rivals.
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
3332 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
2009 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
1957 - OnePlus Nord
1953 - Samsung Galaxy M51
1774
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
916 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
661 - OnePlus Nord
610 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
605 - Samsung Galaxy M51
546
AnTuTu 8
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
538221 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
320399 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
318882 - OnePlus Nord
312794 - Samsung Galaxy M51
266620
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
51 - OnePlus Nord
21 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
20 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
19 - Samsung Galaxy M51
17
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
40 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
19 - OnePlus Nord
19 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
16 - Samsung Galaxy M51
15
GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
28 - OnePlus Nord
13 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
12 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
11 - Samsung Galaxy M51
10
3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
6660 - OnePlus Nord
3067 - ZTE Axon 20 5G
3061 - Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
2595 - Samsung Galaxy M51
2290
Four cameras on the back, one hidden on the front
The camera doing the heavy lifting on the back employs the popular 64MP sensor with native pixel binning, producing effectively 16MP stills. This sensor is pretty big - 1/1.72" in size and features 0.8µm pixels. It's paired with an f/1.8 lens.
The ultra-wide unit is fairly low resolution - just 8MP with f/2.2 aperture and offers a 120-degree field of view, which fairly wide. And as for the other two sensors - there's one for depth information, and the other is used solely for macro photography.
The selfie camera sitting behind the display is also high-resolution, but this one isn't binning the pixels, unlike the main sensor. It outputs 32MP images and is paired with an f/2.0 aperture.
Camera menus
The camera app is pretty straightforward, and we didn't see any noticeable deviation from the usual navigation. Swiping left and right switches between modes, and there are the ones that have additional sub-modes, such as Video, for example. The additional settings are accessed by tapping on the gear icon at the upper part of the viewfinder.
Camera menus
Switching between different focal lengths is a bit tricky, though. Oftentimes when tapping on the ultra-wide, for example, the zoom wheel pops up. The three-camera modes are either too close together, or the hitboxes are a bit off.
Camera menus
Daylight samples
Main camera
As long as the light is sufficient, the main camera can produce sharp and detailed images with pretty accurate colors as well. Noise is a frequent sighting, however. The good news is that it's hard to notice if you aren't looking close enough, and it can be visible only on uniform backgrounds. There are also some sharpening halos here and there, but again, they can only be noticed if you are pixel-peeping. Overall, we like the added sharpness during processing as it gives the images a much cleaner look.
Main camera daylight samples
Another rather consistent issue we had with the main camera is the soft patches on most photos. You can see that in some of the scenes where there is foliage, the grass gets murky towards the left half of the picture.
Main camera daylight samples
Unfortunately, the conditions in which we took the daylight photo samples don't allow us to comment on the camera's HDR capabilities. The phone is doing a rather good job of balancing out the highlights and shadows given the thick overcast from what we see.
2x zoom
We are mostly satisfied with the 2x zoom photos, even though they are a crop from the main sensor and then upscaled back to 16MP. Of course, don't expect super sharp photos, but for general social media posting and if you are looking at them mostly on the phone's screen, they will do just fine. Zooming in on these samples reveals that the 2x zoom mode amplifies the main camera's pitfalls - the sharpening halos are more visible while noise is aplenty.
2x zoom daylight samples
Ultra-wide camera
Just like all midrangers with an 8MP ultra-wide camera, the Axon 20 5G isn't turning any heads. Even in broad daylight, shots come out muddy, lack detail, and often bring too much noise into the scene. There's a bit of sharpening happening during processing, like on the primary camera, but this time around, it doesn't introduce any significant changes to the overall picture quality. In fact, sharpening halos stand out quite a bit.
Ultra-wide daylight samples
The overall color processing is the same as on the main camera, though, so expect close to real-life colors. The distortion correction algorithm is doing a really good job too. Objects closer to the edge of the frame appear fairly upright.
Macro camera
The macro camera has a fixed focus distance, which poses its own limitations, but the biggest one is the low resolution, 2MP sensor. Still, if you are patient enough, you could get some good close-up shots. Colors are vibrant, and the level of detail is surprisingly high. Just make sure you are shooting with enough light around for optimal results.
Macro samples
Here's how the Axon 20 5G fares against the competition in a more controlled environment.
ZTE Axon 20 5G vs OnePlus Nord and the Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro in our Photo compare tool
Low-light samples
Main camera
The first thing we've noticed is the competent HDR algorithm working even if there's no Night mode turned on. The light sources are well-contained, there's plenty of detail in the shadows, and the highlights are balanced quite well. Of course, like most midrangers in this price category, sharpness isn't great, and there's quite a bit of noise around. Interestingly, the level of detail is pretty high across the scenes.
Main camera low-light samples
Additionally, we found the contrast just right, color reproduction is once again on point, and the color temperature just as accurate.
Main camera low-light samples
Night mode
To our surprise, the Night mode didn't bring any substantial benefits and only made us wait a couple of seconds to finish up the stacking and processing. The Night mode shots are rarely sharper and clearer, but they do look a lot brighter and with a bit less noise. There's no noticeable change in how the highlights are handled while the shadows are considerably brighter. Quite honestly, we liked the non-Night mode photos better, and the sky looks more natural there.
Main camera Night mode samples
2x zoom
There's not much to talk about the 2x zoom photos as they are a crop from the main sensor. The noise is more visible in this mode; sharpness and detail deteriorate fast as the light drops.
2x zoom low-light samples
Ultra-wide camera
As expected, the ultra-wide camera's night performance isn't breaking anyone's expectations. The low-light photos with this camera lack detail, sharpness and look generally muddy. The biggest problem is the abundance of noise all around the scenes. Sadly, there's no Night mode for the ultra-wide camera available either. Hard to recommend using this camera when the light drops.
Ultra-wide low-light samples
Selfies
As one would expect, the Axon 20 5G's front-facing camera performs just like a first-gen product. It gets the job done but not very well. All of the selfies are fuzzy-looking, taking us back to the era of VGA cameras when this was standard.
Normal selfies
The 32MP camera in this particular implementation struggles to deliver a sufficient amount of detail and it doesn't look sharp. While the subject's face might not look all that bad in some rare cases, the background always looks like a water-colored painting. The exposure metering is also a bit off and can sometimes make the subject's face too dark or clip it, depending on the ambient light. The skin color looks natural, though.
The portrait mode will reduce the size of the photos down to 5MP and will make them fuzzier. It makes it hard to distinguish the background from the foreground, and the subject just looks rough around the edges. Literally.
Portrait selfies
Portraits
Portraits are a bit on the soft side and look a bit noisy too. Skin tone looks natural, and colors in general pop. However, the bokeh effect itself isn't very convincing and oftentimes blurs the subject's hair in the process too. Even with not so challenging backgrounds.
Portraits
Video recording
The video recording in 4K is looking good and smooth. It's sharp, it's detailed, and there's virtually no noise. The contrast isn't over the top either. And given the thick layer of clouds above, the phone does a pretty good job of balancing the shadows and highlights too. Those are some challenging conditions.
Electronic image stabilization, or EIS, is available for 4K videos at 30fps, and it does a pretty good job too. However, support for 2160p@60fps is non-existent.
We also did a non-stabilized 2160p@30fps video just for comparison purposes.
If you are done with the real-life footage, look at how the Axon 20 5G compares to some of its competitors.
4K: ZTE Axon 20 5G vs OnePlus Nord and the Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro in our Video compare tool
Competition
Price-wise, there's plenty of competition to consider, but feature-wise, the Axon 20 5G is a unicorn. In several aspects, even, not just the under-display selfie camera part. For instance, Axon 20 is one of the few devices with a display that big. And they are usually flagships. ZTE's contender impresses with a 6.92-inch display that makes use of an OLED panel supporting 10-bit (~1 billion colors) color depth. Still, if you ended up here because the Axon 20 5G fits your budget, we have some other viable offerings for you to consider.
Let's start with the more obvious one - the OnePlus Nord. The original Nord asks €40 less than the Axon sitting at €410. And excluding the under-display selfie cam novelty, the Nord is better in almost every way too. The screen gets brighter, which is probably more important than 10-bit color depth, the overall camera performance is superior, battery life is longer, and the software is more mature as a whole. ZTE's offering has a bigger screen, the cool new tech, and the all-glass and metal build on its side.
Moving closer to the 6.92-inch mark, we have the Galaxy M51. A slightly less powerful midranger but with an excellent 6.7-inch display on its side, although limited to 60Hz. As long as you like Samsung's new, more streamlined One UI 2.5, you will probably get along with the M51. Expect record-breaking battery life and obviously slower charging too. In fact, the battery is so big that it can be used as a power bank to recharge your other devices on the go. The best part is that it's lighter on the budget, too - just around €360-370.
OnePlus Nord • Samsung Galaxy M51 • Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro
The Poco F2 Pro is still far from the almost 7-inch behemoth Axon 20, but it hits right in the spot when it comes to budget. Going for about €450, the only thing that the F2 Pro compromises on is the refresh rate. You do get a bright OLED with HDR10+ support, though. A considerably more powerful Snapdragon 865 sits behind the wheel and is in charge of a more competent camera configuration. Battery life is longer, MIUI is more customizable and mature, and the build quality is on point. Sure, there's no fancy under-display camera, but there's a more reliable under-display fingerprint reader and unobstructed viewing experience, even if it's done with a pop-up mechanism. One would argue that this is probably the better way to approach full-screen display because it doesn't compromise with the selfie and the picture quality.
Verdict
Someone has to be the first, and in this case, it's the Axon 20 5G. A phone with a first-gen tech that makes it really cool and also disappointing at the same time. The issue is that the under-display selfie cam is too blurry and not up to the standards in 2020. There's also a visible square where the camera is located, but we can let that one pass as it's barely visible.
It's still a unique phone but not only because of the new tech. It's also because it offers one of the biggest displays in town. A 6.92-incher is hard to beat, making it excellent for content consumption. The 10-bit color depth and the 90Hz refresh rate are a nice bonus; however, the lack of brightness boost feature keeps us from giving the screen an excellent score.
The most notable drawbacks remain the relatively short battery life and the unacceptable selfie camera. All other aspects of the phone are pretty much in line with our expectations. Even the more refined MiFavor 10.5 felt pretty good. That's what tech showcases like the Axon 20 5G do. They rarely impress from the very first go, but it's important to have trailblazers like ZTE.
Pros
- Large 6.92", 90Hz, 10-bit display
- Good build
- Fast charging
- Mostly dependable main camera performance, especially at night
- Nice videos
- The software is a big improvement over previous iterations
Cons
- Battery life could be better, mostly web browsing
- No brightness boost outdoors equals poor sunlight legibility
- The selfie camera is bad and you can see the patch on the display
- The Sound on Display tech has its trade-offs-
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