Each year, the mid-range smartphone segment becomes more and more competitive. I’m not just talking about between themselves either. Some of the mid-range smartphones are inching ever closer to that of flagship smartphones in terms of performance. One good example of this is the new Honor 200 Pro.
For the longest time, Honor’s flagship model has been the Magic series such as the Magic 6 Series launched earlier this year. It sported an OLED display, the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and a very capable set of cameras.
To compare, the Honor 200 Pro packs the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset and great cameras as well. Sure the Magic 6 Pro has more RAM and storage to name a few, but the biggest difference? The price.
With a starting price of PHP 29,999, you get a lot with the Honor 200 Pro, at least on paper. The question is, how does it perform in real life? Well, I suggest you read on to find out.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
First, let’s talk about how the Honor 200 Pro looks. In terms of design, the phone looks great featuring a two-tone back panel, especially on the unit we have which is in the Ocean Cyan colorway. The most distinguishing feature is the camera island located in the upper left corner which is rather large and pronounced.
The area where the camera lenses and flash are finished in glossy black to give the phone some contrast. Despite that, you can easily see the three individual camera lenses along with the LED flash. Meanwhile, the camera island is surrounded by a smooth chrome bezel which gives the phone a bit of classiness.
As for the rest of the back panel of the Honor 200 Pro, you get this subtle two-tone design. While the colors might be the same, it’s two-tone in the sense that the materials feel different. The upper portion where the camera housing is located is smooth and glossy. The larger portion features a matte texture with a wave-like design.
It might not be too obvious in the photos, but once it is in your hands, you can feel the difference. I also like the matte finish since it makes the phone easier to grip when you are not using a case. Not to mention it is quite smudge-resistant too. The smoother area also feels great but is not as smudge-resistant as the other portion. So if you are OC about fingerprints, you might end up wiping down that part often.
As for the rest of the phone, you get a nice metal frame with a chrome finish. The volume rocker and power button are located on the right side and are positioned within reach of your fingers. At the bottom, you have the dual-sim card slot, the USB-C port, and a loudspeaker. At the top, you’ll find another loudspeaker, an infrared port, and a secondary mic.
In terms of practicality, if you don’t factor in the camera module, it is quite slim. But because of the large and protruding camera island, it comes in at 8.2mm thick. It’s not the lightest phone either weighing 199 grams. Overall, the Honor 200 Pro is a nice phone to use and does feel quite premium.
Display and Multimedia
Flip the Honor 200 Pro over, and you are welcomed by a FHD+ 6.78-inch AMOLED curved display (2700 x 1224) capable of 1.07 billion colors. Since this is an AMOLED panel, you get really beautiful colors that are also vivid. Not to mention the blacks can become deep, especially when you are watching dark movies. You also have the option to adjust the color saturation and temperature to your liking in the settings.
There is no need to worry about using the phone outdoors too. The screen can get bright, and by bright I really mean it. It has a maximum peak brightness of 4,000 nits, making it possible to see everything happening on the screen even during the brightest summer days. Just be careful not to max it out when you are in bed at night because you might get flashed.
The gamers out there won’t be disappointed either with the Honor 200 Pro. The screen features a 120Hz refresh rate, giving you smooth gameplay for whatever game you might be playing. But aside from that, this also gives you smooth animation all around whether you are scrolling through the menu or watching videos on the phone.
Speaking of watching videos, the audio quality is rather decent too. You get dual stereo loudspeakers that give a great sound stage for a smartphone. It does lack bass for my liking, which is typical of most phones. However, the mids are quite clear, and more importantly, they are loud.
The only downside I have with the display is its curved design. I’m not the biggest fan of curved screens because my fingers accidentally touch apps or the keyboard, but most of the time they don’t register.
On the Honor 200 Pro, it does happen quite a lot. I accidentally end up touching apps or a key that I don’t need when I’m using the phone with two hands, which makes it quite a hassle. If you have smaller hands or fingers, I’m sure this won’t be that big of an issue.
Cameras
One of the strongest suits of the Honor 200 Pro are the cameras. There is a reason they call it “The Portrait Master” after all. That large camera island isn’t just for show either. This phone takes amazing photos.
The triple rear camera is highlighted by a 50MP main shooter with PDAF, OIS, and EIS. In addition, you also have a 50MP telephoto with OIS and a 12MP Ultrawide. As for selfies? You have a 50MP front shooter.
Honor didn’t disclose what sensors were used, but after digging around we learned that the main shooter uses a Super Dynamic H9000 (OmniVision OV50H) sensor, while the telephoto is a Sony IMX 856. Given the high-quality lenses at your disposal, you can effectively take great photos of nearly all subjects you can think of. Portrait, street, landscape, you name it. Just frame the subject well, and you can take photos similar to that of DSLR and mirrorless cameras.
As you would expect, the photos are all very sharp, and more importantly, the colors end up very accurate to what you see with your eyes. Out of the box, the colors aren’t too saturated or vivid, giving you a more natural look and feel. However, if you want more contrast and saturation, you can adjust the shooting mode to your liking.
Even at night or in low light, you can capture nice images with little to no grain. The highlights aren’t blown out and you can still make out most of the details in the shadows. I didn’t find the need to edit the photos anymore. Although the color temperature does appear off sometimes.
With the telephoto, the images are still sharp even when you are at 10x zoom. Anything beyond that, and the quality drop is quite severe, making the photo almost unusable. However, that’s to be expected. It would be best if you also very had very steady hands to capture those subjects that are very far away.
The ultrawide does lack performance when compared to the main and telephoto cameras. While it is still sharp, you don’t get the same clarity as compared to using the other two lenses. Still, if you aren’t OC with photos, it should be decent enough for social media.
There are multiple camera modes that you can play with including multi-video, night, and aperture modes. But I ended up using video, photo, and portrait the most since the camera already does a great job doing things automatically.
There is one thing I do need to point out about the Honor 200 Pro’s cameras – it’s mostly AI-enhanced. It’s the reason why you get amazing balanced photos without the highlights or shadows being too prominent, whether at night or in the day.
In terms of video, the Honor 200 Pro can record up to 4K@60FPS using the rear camera. If you turn on AI, you are limited to only 4K@30FPS. Interestingly, the ultrawide (0.7x) is not available in 4K@60FPS either. While the front camera can record at 4K@30FPS, there is no AI feature available.
To give you an idea of how well this phone captures images, you can check out the gallery below.
As you would expect, the video comes out nice and clear especially during the day or in well-lit areas. There is also some form of stabilization even when AI is turned off, allowing you to capture nice footage. There is no standalone stabilization button and appears to be mixed with the AI function. Once you turn it on, you get smoother footage, making it perfect if you want to take some cinematic videos.
At night, the video quality isn’t as great as the photos, but it still looks great. There is not a lot of grain and noise, and the subject is still clear. The AI does help a lot when capturing video at night though. Even with the zoom, the drop in quality isn’t that noticeable.
We’ve included a sample video below for your reference.
OS, Apps, and UI
The Honor 200 Pro runs on Android 14 skinned with MagicOS 8.0. If you have ever used an Honor phone before, you will feel right at home. Other Android users will also enjoy the numerous personalization options available. As mentioned earlier, you can adjust the colors but also the themes to your liking. Change the icons, lock screen styles, and more.
Of course, you have the usual lineup of smart features including the multi-window, floating window, split screen, and even the smart sidebar (called Multi-Window dock). You also get some AI features too, but they’re quite simple for the time being. You have AI suggestions for apps and Magic Text that extracts text from photos. In addition, you also get air gestures if you are into that.
What I really liked about Honor is the lack of bloatware. Aside from the usual suite of Google apps, the only other apps pre-installed are My Honor and Honor’s own App Market. You do get WPS Office too, but at least that is useful for typing and productivity.
Performance and Benchmarks
Under the hood, the Honor 200 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset with an Adreno 735 GPU. Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM with an additional 12GB via HONOR Ram Turbo and 512GB of internal storage.
As you would expect from this chipset, it can handle very much whatever you throw at it. That means going through day-to-day tasks and even multitasking is no issue for Honor 200 Pro. You won’t find this phone lagging or slowing down. This means you can and will be productive if you plan to work using this phone.
In terms of gaming, it can handle light games with ease. Even more graphic intensive titles like Genshin Impact is no issue for the Honor 200 Pro. I was able to max out the settings of Genshin, and I did not encounter any framerate drops whatsoever.
There is no issue with overheating either. I played Genshin for around 1 hour, and it was only after 40 mins did I feel the phone starting to heat up. Specifically, the phone only became warmer, but it isn’t what I would consider hot. More importantly, it did not affect the gameplay whatsoever.
For the benchmarks, you can check out below. And as we expected, it scored great results.
Battery and Connectivity
In terms of battery life, the Honor 200 Pro packs a slightly larger 5200 mAh battery pack. With that, we expected it to last longer than other smartphones that only come with a 5000 mAh battery. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. After a day of use to shoot video, take photos, and play games, the phone only had around 25 percent of battery life left.
This was further substantiated by the battery test we did. We ran PCMark’s Work 3.0 Battery Test, and it only scored 12 hours 28 minutes. For reference, this test was done in airplane mode, with Wi-Fi off, at 50% brightness, and zero volume.
It is still a decent result, but we expected better results considering the larger battery pack. We assume this might have something to do with the high peak brightness of the display. Thankfully, it does have really fast charging speeds. If you use the included power brick and cable, you have 100W fast charging at your disposal. It also comes with 66W Wireless Supercharge, provided you have a fast wireless charger available.
For connectivity, you have the usual suite of 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and infrared to boot.
Conclusion
Overall, the Honor 200 Pro is a great mid-range smartphone, and easily one of my favorites this 2024. Not only does it look good, it has the performance to match as well. It caters to users who want a phone with a very capable camera, but can also handle its games well. This then makes it great for content creators or those who want to try and dip into photography and videography.
The only downside of the phone is the battery life. Despite having a larger 5200 mAh battery pack, it doesn’t last longer than other phones. In fact, it’s around the same or even uses more battery than its competitors.
Speaking of competition, the Honor 200 Pro retails for PHP 29,999 for the 12GB + 512GB variant. It’s not the most affordable, but for the price this phone offers a lot on the table. However, it does have some serious competition like the Realme 32 GT 6 and the POCO F6 (which has the same chipset), and the F6 Pro in terms of pricing.
Overall, as someone who loves taking photos, I wouldn’t mind the added premium of the Honor 200 Pro with its amazing cameras. But what do you think of this phone? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
What we liked:
Amazing Cameras
Beautiful Display
Great Performance
What we didn’t like:
Short battery life
Accidental touches using the curved screen
HONOR 200 Pro specs:
6.78-inch FHD+ Curved OLED @ 2700 x 1224 pixels
120Hz Refresh Rate, 4000 nits local (peak) brightness
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 octa-core, up to 3.0GHz
12GB, 16GB RAM
256GB, 512GB, 1TB internal storage
Triple rear cameras:
– 50MP f/1.9 H9000 main, OIS
– 50MP f/2.4 telephoto, OIS
– 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide/ macro, AF
50MP f/2.1 selfie shooter, 3D depth camera (pill-shaped notch)
Dual nano-SIM
5G, 4G LTE
HONOR C1+ (RF enhancement) chip
Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth 5.3
GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, AGPS, Galileo
USB Type-C (USB 2.0)
NFC
Fingerprint sensor (in-display)
Dual stereo speakers
MagicOS 8.0 (based on Android 14)
5,200mAh battery, 100W wired fast charging, 66W wireless charging
163.3 x 75.2 x 8.2mm (dimensions)
~199g (weight)
Black, Pink, White, Green (colors)
