Typically, the number series from HONOR are mid-range phones, but that’s not the case this year, at least for the HONOR 200 Pro. Everything about this phone screams high-end if not flagship territory. So how can HONOR set this one apart from their other very capable smartphones, like the new Magic6 Pro? Portrait Photography.
HONOR partnered with Studio Harcourt, a popular portrait studio in Paris, to improve the camera setup on the HONOR 200 Pro. While I was in Paris a few weeks ago, I was able to take part in a media pre-briefing at Studio Harcourt to learn a bit more about what they do and how the HONOR 200 Pro puts that into your pocket. I even got a portrait done that was shot on the HONOR 200 Pro. That right there blew my mind. But the important thing to remember is with the right lighting, almost any camera can take incredible pictures.
So what about the rest of the phone? Is it worth buying? Let’s find out in our full review.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Design and Build Quality
As someone that has used HONOR phones for many years, dating back to when they were simply marketed as the “millennial brand” under Huawei, the build quality of the HONOR 200 Pro does not surprise me. It’s a very solid phone with an interesting backplate. The back of the HONOR 200 Pro has a dual-texture. Most of it is a matte sort of finish, with a bit of a glossy finish near the camera module, which HONOR has made the cameras symmetrical this year. The oval camera module houses the 50-megapixel portrait main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide (and macro) camera, with the flash to the right of that camera.
The back of the phone is slightly curved, which does make it easier to hold in the hand. Though, I’m not a fan of the back finish. There’s just something about it touching my hand that feels weird and awkward. Of course, that is likely just a me thing and won’t bother anyone else. The other design choice I don’t particularly like here is the curved display. I’ve never really liked curved displays, and happy to see other OEMs getting away from it. Hopefully, HONOR can, too, soon.
The bottom of the phone houses the USB-C port, SIM slot, and the speaker. The top has another speaker – instead of using the earpiece – as well as an IR blaster. Both of those are things we don’t typically see on smartphones in 2024. So kudos to HONOR for adding that. The right side houses the volume rocker and power button, while the left side has nothing.
It’s a stunning phone. But then again, you expect that from HONOR. They’ve really made a name for themselves with their hardware. And that continues with the HONOR 200 Pro.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Display
These days, it’s pretty tough to come across a phone that has a bad display. Unless you’ve popped into a Boost Mobile or are looking at the prepaid section of any other carrier. Most phones have a great OLED display, and the HONOR 200 Pro is no different. This phone sports a 6.78-inch AMOLED quad-curved display that goes up to 120Hz and has a peak brightness of 4,000 nits. That is a truly incredibly bright display, and while you won’t really ever see it hit 4,000 nits, it does get bright enough to use outdoors in direct sunlight without any problems.
I’ll admit that while I don’t like curved displays, content still looks incredible on curved displays. Especially a YouTube video in full screen. Since this is a quad-curved display, it doesn’t bother me as much as some other phones with curved displays. And I haven’t come across any issues with accidental touches, which is always good to see.
HONOR also includes its Eye Comfort Display here, which uses adaptive dimming and has 3840Hz risk-free PWM dimming. So those who are susceptible can use this phone without worrying about getting sick. It also has a low Blue Light, making it better for use in bed at night.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Performance
The HONOR 200 Pro sports the new(ish) Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor. This is actually the first phone I’ve used with this new processor, and I’m quite pleased with how well it performs. It’s a slightly underperforming version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3; Qualcomm favored AI more with this processor versus processing speed. That did result in it getting slightly lower Geekbench scores, but not crazy low.
In day-to-day usage, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, paired with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, keeps the phone running nice and smooth. During the two weeks that I used this phone, I did not notice any slowdowns or the phone getting hot. That includes using the camera for quite some time, which is rather impressive. Gaming has also been a joy here, playing Genshin Impact a good amount, it does get a tad warm when playing, but it’s not so hot you can’t touch the phone.
Benchmarks
Now, let’s talk about the benchmarks. As always, we put the HONOR 200 Pro through three performance-based benchmarks. This includes Geekbench, 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, and a Capcut benchmark, which simulates video editing and exporting. You can find out more about how we test phones here.
Starting with Geekbench 6, we are going to compare the HONOR 200 Pro to the HONOR Magic6 RSR and the Pixel 8 Pro. That means three different processors are being compared here. For Geekbench, the HONOR 200 Pro scored 1,920 on the single-core test and 4,687 on the multi-core test. At the same time, the GPU test was 8,701. For the CPU tests, the results were lower than those of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but only marginally. You will really see the difference in GPU, where the score is almost half of what the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 scored. Of course, it is still well above the Tensor G3 in the Pixel 8 Pro on all three tests.
Next up is the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. Now this test is going to put your device to its absolute limit. It runs the same 60-second benchmark 20 times, giving us scores for each round, along with the best and worst loop scores and a stability score from that. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 did score significantly lower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – in fact, the lowest loop for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was higher than the best loop for the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. The HONOR 200 Pro hit a best loop of 3,033 and a lowest loop of 2,206. That brings it a stability score of 72.7%. That’s not bad, typically anything over 70% is pretty good, as it shows that the phone is good at managing the temperature.
The final test here is about Capcut. For this test, we load up the same 60-second video and then export it at 1080p 30fps. That’s not always the default option, so we make sure to change that if it’s not. This is the same video and export settings on every phone. For the HONOR 200 Pro, it exported it in 12.94 seconds. Not bad, but that is a good bit behind the Magic6 RSR, but still well above the Pixel 8 Pro’s finishing time of 40 seconds.
Overall, performance is right where it should be on the HONOR 200 Pro with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. These tests also show that the phone is pretty good at dissipating heat as well.
Thermals
Another way that we test devices to see how well they perform is with thermal testing. Now while we don’t have a thermal chamber like some other testing facilities, we do have three tests that we perform, and check the temperature after each one. These are the exact same tests for each phone we’ve reviewed in the past year.
The first test is 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, which is the benchmark we used earlier in this review. That typically gets the device to its hottest point, and you’ll typically never see it reach that temperature again. The HONOR 200 Pro reached a temp of 105.2 degrees. That is actually really good. That’s the exact same temperature as the Pixel 8 Pro, which had a much lower score in the benchmark itself. It’s also 6 degrees cooler than the HONOR Magic6 RSR.
The next test is running Genshin Impact at its maximum settings and screen brightness for an hour. This is another good test since Genshin Impact is quite demanding, and the game is also hugely popular. After an hour, we got a reading of 97.8 degrees. That is pretty much in line with every other phone we’ve tested. Most are between 96 and 98 degrees.
Finally, we have a camera test. Where we record video at 4K30 for 10 minutes, checking the temps at 5 minutes and again at 10 minutes. Five minutes in, the HONOR 200 Pro had a reading of 93.5 degrees, and at 10 minutes, it was 96.8 degrees. That is cooler than the Magic6 RSR, showing that not only are thermals slightly better, but the slightly slower GPU of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is helping to keep the HONOR 200 Pro cooler.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Battery Life and Charging
With the HONOR 200 Pro, the company is continuing its use of a Silicon-carbon battery versus using a lithium-ion battery, which is not only more sustainable but also safer than lithium-ion, which we can all appreciate. But it also appears to allow HONOR to put in larger batteries in its phones. With the Magic6 RSR earlier this year, we saw a 5,400mAh battery; now, in the HONOR 200 Pro, we’re seeing a 5,200mAh battery inside.
So the real question is, how does that translate to battery life? Well, it brings over some pretty great battery life to the HONOR 200 Pro. In my usage, I was able to get a full day out of the phone and still have around 40% left at the end of a 16-hour day. That’s not too shabby. Typically, I can get around 6-7 hours of screen time in that amount of time. Now unfortunately, HONOR’s battery stats page does not show you the stats for the full charge cycle, only for that day – similar to the iPhone. So, I can’t get a full picture that way. But that’s why we have benchmarks. So, let’s talk about how it performed in our battery test.
For each phone that we review, we run the same battery rundown test. Essentially, we are playing a YouTube video that is about 24 hours long, at full brightness and full screen, until the phone dies. We try to get it at 1% before it shuts off, but we can’t always do that. Only a handful of phones have lasted longer than that video, and the HONOR 200 Pro came pretty close, with a time of 22:42. That’s pretty good, but still behind the Magic6 RSR.
Charging speeds are excellent on HONOR 200 Pro
As someone who lives in the US, I know that we don’t get a lot of phones with incredible charging speeds like the HONOR 200 Pro, which is outside of OnePlus. So when I get to review a phone like the HONOR 200 Pro and see how quickly it can charge, it kind of spoils you. HONOR quotes the wired charging speed as 100W, with 66W wireless. Now I do not have an HONOR wireless charger so I could not test that wireless speed, but on wired, it definitely delivered.
When it comes to charging, we were able to get a full charge, using the included power brick from HONOR, in under 40 minutes. That’s actually kind of crazy.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Software
Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of talk about how similar Honor’s MagicOS is to Apple’s iOS. That’s not a surprise, as many Chinese OEMs do the same thing, but in some parts of MagicOS, it looks like a carbon copy. Almost like Apple said, “You can copy our homework, but change it up a little.” Honestly, that doesn’t bother me. MagicOS works pretty well, and everything is basically where you’d expect it to be.
With HONOR 200 Pro, the company is bringing some crowd-favorite MagicOS features to the table. This includes Magic Capsule, Air Gestures, Magic Lock screen, and even some platform-level AI in the Magic Portal – which was announced at MWC earlier this year. Magic Portal is honestly one of my favorite features that HONOR has on its phones. It’s just so easy to take the address you have in WhatsApp and drag it to the left or right to open it in Google Maps, and you instantly get directions. No more long-press to copy, then switch to Google Maps, long-press to paste, and then search for directions. It’s literally half the steps. It also works with Gmail emails and much more. And I’d expect this only to expand and get better.
MagicOS 8.0, based on Android 14, is what is standard on the HONOR 200 Pro. The company has not talked about how many updates you can expect on the 200 Pro, but we do expect it to see Android 15 later this year and likely Android 16 next.
HONOR 200 Pro Review: Camera
This is the star of the show for HONOR 200 Pro, though I feel like we say that about every phone. But it feels even more true with this phone in particular. During our briefing with HONOR in Paris, we were brought to Studio Harcourt, a very prestigious photography studio in France that has done portraits for just about everyone you can think of. Studio Harcourt does some amazing things with lighting and does some incredible black-and-white portraits. Typically, you’d think that you need an expensive camera to do these types of portraits, but not anymore. The HONOR 200 Pro can do just that. And how do I know? I got my portrait taken at Studio Harcourt with a HONOR 200 Pro, and it looks incredible. It’s hard to imagine that it was taken with a camera that fits in my pocket and can watch TikTok.
Obviously, a big part of the camera story here is studio-level portraits. With that, HONOR has included a 50-megapixel portrait main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera that also doubles as a macro camera.
Let’s start with regular, old, plain pictures taken on auto settings. Those came out as great as you’d expect. HONOR is no stranger to producing great images from their phones, and the 200 Pro is no different here. The colors looked nice and vibrant while also being completely in focus or having some bokeh if you are photographing something up close. Of course, a big part of that bokeh is due to the size of the sensor, so it’s natural bokeh and not computer-generated bokeh. Overall, no complaints with the main sensor.
Moving onto Portrait mode, you can actually use this with and without the Studio Harcourt tuning. When you tap on the Studio Harcourt icon at the top, you get three options: Harcourt Classic, Harcourt Color, and Harcourt Vibrant. The Harcourt Classic is black and white and looks truly incredible. At the same time, the others are in color, with the Vibrant option being, well, more vibrant. It’s pretty self-explanatory here. I mostly used the Harcourt Classic option in my testing, as I found it to be more aesthetically pleasing. What I really like about this, is how quickly the camera is able to adjust to the light. Typically, phone cameras can be quite slow at adjusting to the lighting and then blow out some of the background. This is mostly only in portrait mode, but it leaks out a bit in other modes, too. But it’s not nearly as fast.
With the HONOR 200 Pro, taking a new portrait or a headshot for LinkedIn is so much easier. In just a few minutes, you can take a new portrait that looks like it was professionally done, and no one would think otherwise. The only issue here is that this only works on the rear cameras. So, it’s not quite as simple as taking a selfie. But, speaking of selfies, the front camera is also a 50-megapixel portrait camera, and it takes some great photos as well.
HONOR has decided to go a bit niche with their camera setup on the 200 Pro, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Cameras on phones were starting to get a bit stale. With so many companies doing the same old features, better zoom, better macro, larger sensors. HONOR saw that and decided to focus on portraits for the HONOR 200 series. And I think it was a good move. It made me excited about a smartphone camera, which is hard to do in 2024.
Should you buy the HONOR 200 Pro?
That’s a hard question, as always, but it’s even harder right now. Because, at the time of writing this, I do not know the price of the HONOR 200 Pro. I’d imagine it’ll be cheaper than the Magic6 Pro, which is €1299. But how much cheaper is the question? Then there’s the HONOR 100 Pro that it is replacing, that was priced at €449 last year.
Leaving the price out of it, this is a damn good phone. Especially if it comes in much cheaper than the Magic6 series. Typically, the number series are marketed as mid-range phones, but there’s nothing mid-range about this. A flagship processor, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, three incredible cameras on the back, and a big juicy battery to boot. There’s not a lot to dislike about the HONOR 200 Pro.
You should buy the HONOR 200 Pro if:
- You want to take stunning portraits without an expensive, dedicated camera.
- You want fantastic battery life.
- You want a stunningly designed phone.
You should not buy the HONOR 200 Pro if:
- You want the absolute best Snapdragon processor.
- You want a 1-inch camera sensor on your phone.
