Honor 200 Pro review: The only portrait camera you need

Honor may not be a well-known Android brand in North America, but the company has been making a name for itself internationally since its split from Huawei, and its efforts are not lost on me with the company's latest offering, the Honor 200 Pro. In fact, the phone has turned a few heads since I began testing it, with some friends inquiring as to who makes the phone, but I'll elaborate more on that later.

The Honor 200 Pro is a flagship-esque phone that puts a particular emphasis on its unique camera system. In fact, Honor is the latest Android OEM to bank on a camera partnership, teaming up with the prestigious Studio Harcourt to give the Honor 200 Pro a more professional take on images. The result is something a bit different than what I've seen with other camera-centric phones like the Pixel, but somehow, it works quite well and really shines when you're taking portrait images.

However, the phone is more than a camera, sporting one of the latest Snapdragon chips, a large battery with very fast charging, an eye-catching design, and the latest software from Honor with a few AI tricks. But is any of this enough to help the Honor 200 Pro stand out from the crowd?

Honor 200 Pro: Price & availability

The Honor 200 Pro originally launched in China in May, but the phone is making its way to Europe as of June 12. The device goes on sale alongside the Honor 200 for £699.99.

The Honor 200 Pro is available in a single configuration with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It is available in three colors: Ocean Cyan, Moonlight White, and Black.

Honor 200 Pro: Design & display

The Honor 200 Pro is one of the best-looking phones I've had the pleasure of testing. In the two weeks that I've spent with the device, I've never had a traditional phone get more attention from onlookers than this one. The only exception has been flip phones such as the Motorola Razr Plus or Galaxy Z Flip 5, but that's really due to the foldable form factor. Compared to other traditional phones like the Galaxy S24 series and even the Pixel 8 to some extent, the Honor 200 Pro really stands out.

The phone is quite slim at just 8.2mm, and it feels even slimmer due to the quad-curved display that almost melts into the metal frame. However, it's not the slimness of the phone that catches people's eyes; it's the beautifully designed back glass panel. It sports a dual texture profile, with a smooth feel on one side around the camera housing and a textured design taking up much of the back panel. The smoother part feels like a newer Pixel, while the textured side reminds me of the frosted glass you'd find on a Galaxy phone. The dual texture looks rather unique, especially with the blue-ish Ocean Cyan color that I have, which itself is quite striking.

Adding to the uniqueness of the design is the camera housing, which Honor says was inspired by Casa Mila in Barcelona, which is full of unique shapes. The result of all these unique elements is a very classy phone that will rightly grab the attention of anyone nearby.

I really like the display on this phone. That's saying a lot because I'm not a fan of curved screens, having had my fill of them with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, LG Wing, and Pixel 6 Pro. That said, despite the Honor 200 Pro sporting a quad-curved display, it's still much subtler than the aforementioned models, and rarely have I found myself dealing with accidental touches (but they're not completely gone).

Honor 200 Pro PWM and dithering measurements - YouTube

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The display is bright, fluid, and packed with pixels, so content looks great no matter what you're viewing and where. Honor really wants users to have a comfortable viewing experience, so the display has a high 3840Hz PWM rate (a huge plus for PWM-sensitive users), AI enhancements, TÜV Rheinland certifications, and other features that promote eye comfort. Outdoor viewing is just fine, thanks to the 4,000 nit peak brightness, and the display is quite vivid, even on the Normal screen color mode.

There's also an in-display fingerprint sensor, which works well, but I find it to be uncomfortably low on the display, nearing the bottom bezel. I would much prefer if it were higher, similar to a Pixel or Galaxy. Interestingly, this is also an issue I had with the Moto G Stylus 5G 2024, so I'm hoping this isn't the start of some trend.

Honor 200 Pro: Hardware & specs

While this isn't exactly Honor's top-of-the-line model, the Honor 200 Pro has some pretty impressive specs that would easily have you thinking otherwise. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, the latest high-end chip from Qualcomm that sits just under the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This is really the only indicator that this isn't a true flagship, but the ship is impressive nonetheless and still provides performance very well.

When things are working, they work well. Opening and juggling apps gives this phone little in the way of issues, thanks to the 12GB of RAM. You sort of get 24GB of RAM thanks to the built-in RAM Turbo feature that adds virtual RAM to the phone, but unfortunately you can't turn it off. Still, it shouldn't matter as it apparently only works when needed, and 12GB is already more than enough for the average user. The phone manages to keep apps open in the background longer than I expect, which is nice when I wanna pick up on a game after switching to a different app for a while.

Speaking of, gaming is a big of a mixed bag on this phone. While graphics-intensive games like Honkai: Star Rail play quite well on the highest settings, less intensive games like Hogwarts Mystery seem to give the phone trouble, with quite a bit of freezing and even some crashing. I can't really tell if it's an issue with the chip or software, although it's worth noting that the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is using last year's flagship GPU instead of the newer Adreno 750 on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 . 

There's no expandable storage, but the phone has plenty of internal storage at 512GB, more than I know what to do with. The stereo speakers also sound pretty phenomenal on this phone, providing a deep, rich sound without the echo-y vocals I'd normally hear on a Pixel.

Keeping the lights on is a 5200mAh battery, which manages to get the phone through most of the day, although if I unplug in the morning, I find myself having to charge the phone sometime during the evening. It's not a big deal, though, because the phone supports 100W wired charging, which tops up the phone pretty quickly. I wouldn't call speeds phenomenal, but I can get from 15% to full in about 50 minutes, and you still get a good amount of charge in about half an hour. There's also 66W wireless charging, although this isn't something I could test as none of my wireless chargers can reach nearly anything close to that speed.

Honor 200 Pro: Software

The Honor 200 Pro runs the new MagicOS 8, which is based on Android 14. As noted in our Honor Magic 6 Pro review, the UI is pretty identical to its predecessor and has a dual-pane control center that separates notifications from quick settings toggles for a cleaner look. However, as is the case for many new products launching in 2024, Honor is boasting some interesting software and AI tricks.

At the most basic level, there's the AI Suggestions widget, which will suggest a number of apps for you to open at any given time based on your usage patterns. It's not a novel idea, but it comes in handy. The Control Center also has a panel with AI-suggested toggles, which I find a bit handier sometimes when I need to turn on the flashlight, enable/disable the auto-rotate function, and more.

Then there's Magic Capsule, which looks and works similarly to Apple's Dynamic Island. The idea is that it's supposed to use AI to surface relevant information based on apps that are in use. It's a fun feature and a handy way to pull up the alarm, use a timer, or even interact with music. Unfortunately, it doesn't go beyond basic tasks with system apps and seems to lack the deep integration with apps that Apple has (for instance, I couldn't get Maps directions to appear on the capsule). I imagine Honor plans to expand on this feature more, but for now, it's just a semi-useful addition.

One of the more useful features is Magic Portal, which allows you to drag and drop text and images into other apps via two invisible shortcut menus on either side of the display. This and the Global Favorites Space—which essentially takes a screenshot of your current screen and tucks it away in a hidden panel—are useful ways to make multitasking a bit easier, especially for someone like me who doesn't care much about using split screen. The idea is that you can easily drag and drop between devices as well, but this is something I could not test myself.

Honor also makes it easy to extract text from images, which can then be used to jump into navigation, calls, or messages. In the Gallery app, Honor will automatically generate memories based on certain criteria like locations (not unlike Google Photos), or you can create an Instant Movie using recommended images, turning your moments into a nicely curated slideshow.

Smart sensing will keep the screen on when I look at it, so when I notice the display dim while I'm looking away, I can turn my head toward the phone, and the display will brighten up again.

One really cool feature is the Air Gestures, which is something like an evolution of the Air Motion feature on the LG G8. With it, I can put my hand in front of the display, and the front-facing cameras will pick up specific gestures, allowing me to scroll, go back, or take a screenshot without touching the display. It's somewhat gimmicky, but it's a fun party trick and can be useful if your hands are dirty.

As for software updates, the Honor 200 Pro will receive three OS upgrades and four years of software updates, which is par for the course for the best Android phones, although obviously behind the latest Pixels and Galaxy phones.

Honor 200 Pro: Cameras

Honor took a very interesting approach to the camera on this phone, and it's taken some time for me to warm up to it. What's interesting about it is that the phone tends to really emphasize shadows and darker parts of the photo instead of trying to brighten them up as much as possible, like what you'll see with many other phones. The result is that images can sometimes appear to have too much contrast and not as much dynamic range. This can be minimized a little with HDR turned on, but it doesn't help all that much.

That said, color reproduction is pretty good and not overly saturated. It also handles low-light situations pretty well, although you'll want to toggle HDR for desired results.

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The phone handles zooming and macro shots pretty well, thanks in part to the 50MP 2.5x telephoto lens and the 12MP ultrawide camera. Details are lost when zooming anywhere beyond, but it's not incredibly noticeable unless you zoom into the image after it's taken, and even scenes with a lot of detail are retained fairly well.

But where the phone really shines is portrait shots. Whether of people or objects, the Honor 200 Pro has a portrait mode that begs to be used to capture the most stylistic shots with very little work.

The phone comes with three different modes that you can toggle between for a different style: Harcourt Vibrant, Harcourt Color, and Harcourt Classic. The latter emulates Harcourt-style black-and-white images, enhancing both the highlights and the shadows for a dramatic shot. Harcourt Color has a similar effect while giving the image a warm, vintage feel, and it's personally my favorite of the three. Lastly, Harcourt Vibrant brightens things up quite a bit and is much cooler and more natural, albeit less dramatic.

When testing this out, I chose to stick with the 2.5x telephoto sensor.

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When in Portrait mode, the phone does a good job at separating the subject from the background, although it can falter when there are too many people behind them. It also captures motion pretty well, and there were few moments when the subject came out blurry, although it may struggle a bit more at night.

You won't find 8K video on this phone, a downside of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, but 4K60 is perfectly adequate and there are even some cool video modes that you can play around with. Selfies are also pretty decent, but don't count on portrait mode too much, as the bokeh doesn't feel as natural and the phone can have a little trouble separating the subject from the background.

Overall, the camera on the Honor 200 Pro is an interesting one, and if you're used to something like a Pixel, you may not like the results. However, for more artistic shots, I think the phone does an exceptional job.

Honor 200 Pro: Competition

The Honor 200 Pro is in an interesting spot where it's a flagship, but not quite. However, it still contends with flagship-level phones, like the Xiaomi 14, which has a somewhat similar camera setup and fast charging speeds. Xiaomi's offering has a better IP rating and a better Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, although the battery is noticeably smaller than Honor's phone and starts with less storage.

You can always go for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus, which also has a great triple-camera setup and is more accessible in North America. You'll find more in the way of AI features and longer software support with Samsung, although that all comes at a higher price. It, too, has a smaller battery and much slower charging speeds, plus a very forgettable design.

Then there's the Pixel 8 series, which is very camera-centric. Each model uses a flagship Tensor chip, although the Pixel 8 Pro might be a more apt comparison given its triple camera system. This phone will give you all the AI features, years of updates, and the benefit of North American availability. The downside, like most other phones, is slower charging and a higher price point, which is where the standard Pixel 8 comes in, but with one less camera and weaker specs.

Honor 200 Pro: Should you buy it?

You should buy this if...

• You like to take photos of people.
• You want a phone with fast charging and decent battery life.
• You live outside North America.

You shouldn't buy this if...

• You live in North America.
• You want the latest AI features from Google.
• You want reliable gaming performance.
• You like brighter images.

Portrait mode is often something I ignore on phones, because the results don't really stand out to me much more than the normal photo mode does. With the Honor 200 Pro, I actually have a reason to use the Portrait mode, which is something even the Pixel wasn't able to convince me to do. The approach to photos may be different than what you're used to with other phones, but it can result in some well-styled images with very little effort.

The phone teeters on the precipice of a premium midrange and a low-end flagship, offering specs that challenge even the best Android phones while compromising in some areas (but not many). Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to like about this phone, particularly when it comes to the camera. Honor clearly put a lot of love into this phone while trying to keep the price down. That said, while I really like the Honor 200 Pro, I don't find myself loving it. However, that won't stop me from recommending it if you're in a region where Honor sells the device, especially if you're someone who enjoys taking photos of friends and family.