ZTE launched the Axon 20 5G (A20 5G) today, capping off 5G phone launches in this rollercoaster of a year. Unlike its predecessor, the Axon 20 5G will not be made available in the United States or Canada, but skip to the end of this section to see which countries it is available in. 

Starting at $449 (£419, AU $589), the A20 5G falls squarely in the mid-range category, but it’s loaded with premium features typically seen in fancier flagships. Those high-end touches include a zippy and crisp display (90Hz, FHD+), fast charging (30W), a large battery (4,220mAh), and a versatile camera module. But what undeniably separates this phone from its peers (even the ultra-premium ones) is its under-display camera. In fact, according to ZTE, the A20 5G is the world’s first commercially manufactured phone with such a cutting-edge camera feature. Despite that, the phone still comes in at a pretty affordable $449 price. ZTE saved on costs by going with a mid-range Snapdragon 765G chipset and built the phone with a plastic frame. Either way, the processor is good enough to let you sail through everyday tasks without any feeling of sluggishness. 

However, one of the clear trade-offs of ZTE’s under display camera is image quality. Photos taken in low-light with the front-facing camera weren’t the best I’ve ever seen. Often times photos were either washed out or grainy. But overall, I think the images are passable, especially when you factor in the price bracket and novelty tech this phone managed to bring to life. Another trade-off is it forces all audio to be outputted through a single downward facing speaker, which makes it difficult to hear. And there’s no IP rating for water and dust resistance, either. 

That said, the under-display camera is truly a unique selling point of the ZTE A20 5G and likely offers a window into the future of smartphone design, even if it doesn’t take the most color-accurate or detail-filled photos. If you’re looking to impress your friends with a phone with an admittedly cool under-display camera, you might consider this phone since the photos are good enough. However, if you’re looking to take crisp and uberly-detailed photos, the A20 5G just isn’t the right phone. Oppo’s Reno 4 Pro uses a midrange chipset too (Snapdragon 720G), but I prefer its photos even if it doesn’t offer the novelty of an under display camera.

Pre-orders, which start today for the black color option, are by invite-only, and those lucky few who have been invited will also get a complimentary pair of TWS earphones (worth $40) from ZTE. The black devices, which have a limited supply of 200 units, begin shipping starting January 4th. By then, a new yellow color option will also be available. There’s just one variant of this phone: a 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage version, which supports up to 2TB of expandable storage if needed.  

Read more: Which phones take the best selfies? We compare iPhone, Samsung, Pixel, OnePlus

As I said earlier, the Axon 20 5G won’t be made available for sale in North America, but because ZTE is focusing on a massive international launch, it should be reasonably easy to import stateside. ZTE is working on a staggered rollout across parts of the European Union, the UK, Asia (Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines) , the Middle East (UAE & Saudi Arabia), and South Africa. 

The Axon 20 5G’s under-display camera 

Using the under-display-camera, you can take pictures using either selfie mode or portrait mode, and shoot video as well. In short, the under-display camera, which uses a 32-megapixel lens, captured decent photographs in brightly lit environments, but had room for improvement in low light scenarios. Daytime selfies showed enough facial detail like tiny freckles, but the camera whitened and air-brushed my face resulting in photographs that weren’t exactly true-to-life. In darker conditions however, the under-display camera showed signs of a struggle. Those photos hardly contained any detail. In fact, they turned out blurry, especially near the edges, and simply lacked the required crispness of a quality image. But because of the phone’s sub-$500 price and the novelty of the under-display camera, I think these imperfections are forgivable even if the technology isn’t quite there yet. As we’ve mentioned earlier, this is the first mass-produced phone to come equipped with an under-display camera. Chinese rival  Xiaomi has launched its third gen under-display camera tech, and Vivo even went as far to launch a concept phone, but none of them have ever gone to market.

ZTE says it used a mix of five technologies to get the camera to work. To balance performance of the display and the front camera, ZTE added a special material using “organic and inorganic film,” which improves light input for the lens. The A20 5G also uses a dual-control chip and driver circuit that synchronize color and the phone’s display to prevent the camera and the display from interfering with each other, and what it calls a “special matrix” for more natural pixel transitions. Finally, ZTE says it spent over a year developing an in-house “selfie-algorithm” that optimizes performance of the camera under dark, bright and glare scenes and intelligently adjusts dynamic range.

Apart from the fancy under-display camera, there were other welcome premium touches on this mid-ranger including a facial recognition and a fingerprint reader. Although I was happy with the overall performance of the facial scanning, the fingerprint scanner was all but dysfunctional. I wasn’t able to unlock the phone a single time during the three days I tested out the device.

The Axon 20 5G’s four rear cameras

The A20 5G is equipped with four rear cameras: a 64-megapixel standard shooter and three 8-megapixel cameras taking the form of an ultra-wide, macro, and depth lenses. I loved the fact that this camera system lets you take a versatile range of photographs. With the macro lens, I could photograph tiny details in subjects that I couldn’t see with my own eyes. On the flipside, using 5x digital zoom let me capture detail in faraway objects. In general, the Axon 20 5G took detailed, crisp photos in both bright and dim places, but most of the time photos weren’t color-accurate, and appeared as if the color was enhanced by a filter.

The Axon 20 5G’s entirely unobstructed display

At first glance, the Axon 5G may look like a run-of-the-mill Android phone. But if you look closer, you’ll notice that its long screen is completely unobstructed. Because of the phone’s under-display camera, there is no need for the notches or hole-punches that would normally house a front-facing camera. Instead, the under-display camera sits as part of its colossal screen (it’s 6.92-inches, by the way). In fact, you can (kind of) see the camera sitting in-screen on the center top of the panel, above which, a small squared portion of the screen looks highly pixelated.  

Speaking of the display, the A20 5G relies on a high-res OLED panel complete with a speedy refresh rate that serves up a smooth user experience whether I was scrolling through news feeds, playing games, or watching YouTube videos. You can choose between a 60Hz or 90Hz screen depending on your needs. 

This phone is a chunky phone (198g) that left me navigating the device with both hands. More specifically, the device is 6.7-inches tall, and surpasses the iPhone 12 Pro Max in height. Surrounding the display is a plastic frame, sandwiched by glass on both sides. The review unit I have given was the black one, which has a glossy finish, that ultimately was covered up by the phone case. 

As I’d mentioned earlier, a tradeoff is that all audio is outputted through one speaker located on the bottom of the device. For music lovers like myself, this is one thing that is tough for me to accept. 

MiFavor 10.5 has dark mode 

The A20 5G runs MiFavor 10.5 on top of Android 10, which brings six new themes, a gaming assistant, and other new features including smart screencasting. It also has dark mode and split screen mode. Like most skins built atop an Android system, I found this one to be intuitive and user-friendly, but overall the experience still felt a cut below skins like OnePlus’s OxygenOS or even Oppo’s ColorOS, which has steadily improved in recent years. Most of my gripes were cosmetic rather than functional. For example, many of the screen savers look amateurish when compared to other user interfaces. There are easy fixes to a lot of these issues.

The A20 5G’s 4,220 mAh battery lasts

Though we’re still putting the phone through lab tests, anecdotally, the battery lasted me throughout the day with mild usage. That means I checked my email, WhatsApp and social media apps, watched YouTube videos for a few minutes, took photos and made a few phone calls and WhatsApp or Zoom video calls, while I had my display set to 50% brightness and 90Hz. In our battery test, which involves looping an HD video on half brightness until the battery runs out, A20 5G lasted around 17 hours, an impressive result. ZTE’s 30W fast-charging didn’t disappoint either, allowing the large 4,220 to complete a full charge in less than an hour.

Under the hood, the Axon 20 5G carries the Snapdragon 765G chipset, which is backed by 8GB RAM and 128GB of (expandable) storage. Although Qualcomm’s mid range processor doesn’t offer the fastest speeds out there, performance was good enough to easily get me through everyday tasks. Compared to other phones that use the same chipset, the A205G stacked up well.