ZTE Axon 20 5G review

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