Honor 200 & 200 Pro review: A different kind of bang for buck
Note: This review was first published on 15 October 2024.
Honor has been on a roll the last few years, thanks to some incredible products like the Honor Magic V2, the thinnest folding phone in the world before the V3 recently launched, and the Honor Magic6 Pro, which offered astonishing flagship specs and fantastic all-round performance at just S$1,399.
Now, the company wants to convince you that its midrange category can pack a punch with the Honor 200 series that launched in August. We got our hands on the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro phones, and with prices starting at S$599 and S$799, respectively, it’s not hard to recommend these devices based on what they pack within their svelte frame.
TL;DR: Honor has done a great job balancing hardware and cost in these phones, and the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro have super fast wired charging, nice Harcourt filters for portrait photography and good battery life.
You can check out where to buy the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro here.
There are minor differences, with a slightly larger screen size (6.78-inch Honor 200 versus 6.7-inch Honor 200 Pro), a different processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 versus Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, respectively) and slightly different main cameras.
However, both phones still have an extra edge against midrange competitors. Both pack a 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery that supports up to 100W wired fast charging.
Another feature that might be enticing is that Honor has partnered with legendary French photography house Studio Harcourt to get some of the studio’s portrait magic into these phones thanks to the Honor AI Portrait Engine. We’ll certainly be testing the portrait photography with high hopes.
Let’s see how these affordable phones pan out as we unfold what it offer:-
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How curved do you like your phones?
While most Western smartphone brands are moving towards straight edges and returning to flat displays and sides, we’ve noticed that Chinese phones mainly still stick to a curved aesthetic, which can feel a tad dated (it was popularised by the Galaxy S7 Edge, after all).
The Honor 200 is less offensive in this regard. The phone’s sides stayed flat, and the back and front glass panels both curve inwards, allowing for a better grip.
The Honor 200 Pro’s sides are slimmer but have more pronounced curves. The design is inoffensive and slightly helpful to the grip, but it makes Honor’s powerful midrange phones feel dated against the current trends. However, the converse can also be true in the eye of the beholder where Honor is going against the norm.
Alternatively, Honor 200 has a wider girth and feels more when holding, which might be a better alternative if comfort comes first.
Both phones get an OLED display that can go up to 120Hz refresh rate with a peak brightness of 4,000 nits. There are only options for a “dynamic” 120Hz that just toggles between a fixed 60Hz and a fixed 120Hz option. If you like watching videos and movies on your phone, there’s HDR10 support and 10-bit colour depth too.
The difference is that the Honor 200 gets a 6.7-inch screen while the Honor 200 Pro gets a 6.78-inch display. The difference is miniscule, resulting in the Honor 200 Pro being just a smidge taller than Honor 200.
Each model has a few different colourways, with the Honor 200 Pro coming in Moonlight White and Ocean Green, while the Honor 200 has Moonlight White and Black. The Ocean Green we have is quite pleasant, and both phones have a satin finish on the back to give them a more expensive look.
Honor has placed more attention on the aesthetics here, with the oval camera bump getting a bevelled edge that offers a more exciting look to the camera bump as opposed to a flat edge.
While the Honor 200 Pro has an IP65 dust and water resistance rating, the Honor 200 does not.
There’s not much to talk about regarding MagicOS. It strongly resembles Huawei’s EMUI skin. We’ve already covered some of MagicOS 8.0’s features, like the Magic Portal and Magic Capsule, in our review of the Magic6 Pro. You can refresh your memory here, but aside from a few other apps now being supported for Magic Capsule (like Apple Music), there’s still not much AI smarts in this OS.
Testing out Magic Portal resulted in almost the same outcome as before, with the ability to drag text into maps for directions or open the calendar if you highlight only a date. It would be nice if highlighting an event, date, time, and location would offer a pop-up asking if you want to add this event with additional details to your calendar, but there’s no such function yet.
Imaging Performance
The Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro cameras can deliver on imaging, but you won’t get that from simply their specs.
The Honor 200 Pro has a 50MP (f/1.9 aperture, 1/1.3-inch, 1.2 m µm) main camera, a 50MP (f/2.4, PDAF, OIS, 2.5x optical zoom) telephoto camera, and a 12MP (f/2.2 aperture, 112˚ FOV, AF) ultrawide camera.
The Honor 200 has the same telephoto and ultrawide cameras but a slightly different 50MP main camera with an f/1.95 aperture.
Both phones have a 50MP (f/2.1 aperture) selfie camera on the front, although the front camera doesn’t support the special Harcourt filters.
Regardless of the slight difference, both main cameras perform decently if you take shots under good lighting. As is the standard for most phones these days, the phone’s shots are pixel-binned to 12MP with 4-in-1 pixel-binning technology. Despite their midrange categorisation, they still achieve very vibrant-looking colours (shophouses) and decent detail (seasoning on fries), but they need some work in their image stabilisation.
Main camera 50MP shots
If you want a full 50MP image, a high-res mode can be toggled on, although it doesn’t offer much more than a better resolution to crop into. The 50MP image also seems to have a little less contrast than the pixel-binned image, which could be a plus point for people who want a more neutral image to work with. The 50MP mode also increases the field of view a little, 23mm on the Honor 200 and 24mm on the Honor 200 Pro, compared to the usual 27mm on the pixel-binned shots.
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide camera on both phones can reproduce colours seen on its main camera, although the 12MP resolution is disappointing since details get smudged easily. There’s also a noticeable increase in saturation and contrast compared to images from the primary camera.
2.5x optical zoom
The 50MP telephoto camera offers a 2.5x optical zoom, but Honor has oddly decided to include an option for a 2x digital crop in the camera app. It might provide more flexibility in terms of framing, but we question the decision to offer a 2.5x optical zoom. The 2.5x optical zoom retains more detail when zooming in, so it might be the better option if you don’t mind the extra zoom.
Portraits
@hwztech @Honor Singapore Honor worked Studio Harcourt on the Honor 200 series’ imaging capabilities, bringing “studio-level portraits” for their users. Hit the link to find out where to buy! #sgtiktok #sgtech ♬ original sound – HardwareZone
However, let’s talk about portraits since that’s what Honor says is unique about these phones. If you haven’t already, remember to look at some sample photos we snapped in this video.
The three Harcourt presets are all quite decent, although the black-and-white Classic preset is their strongest suit. Subject separation was also relatively decent, although you do notice a bit of blending when it comes to the hair, which is an area that most smartphones struggle with anyway.
Harcourt Colour offers a little warmth and boost to the shadows, which results in a slightly more impactful image. Harcourt Vibrant feels similar to standard photos, so that might be the best option if you don’t want any specific vibe from your portraits. It also needs a bit more work outside of the focus area, as the shirt gets blurry towards the edges.
Between both phone models, you’ll also notice that the Pro edition continuously captures a better contrast range and depth.
By the way, these Harcourt filters only apply to the rear camera, as mentioned earlier, so if you’re a big user of the front selfie camera, you’re out of luck.
Low light
Low-light photos aren’t too bad. The phones retain relatively accurate colours whether you’re taking a shot in the middle of the night with only streetlamps lighting up the place or in a restaurant that doesn’t have too many light sources inside.
Benchmark Performance
As midrange phones, the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro have decent hardware, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, respectively. Both phones also have 12GB of RAM, and the Honor 200 has either 256GB or 512GB of storage, while the Honor 200 Pro only comes with 512GB storage.
We’ll be pitting these phones against other midrange phones in the same price range and phones that might be using the same chipsets, such as the Vivo V30, Google Pixel 8a and Nothing Phone (2a).
Putting it to the test
To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.
To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we’ve jotted them down here.
Benchmark Performance remarks
The Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro are worthy contenders in their category, and you will notice the slight performance difference between the two different chips used. In most benchmarks, the Honor 200 Pro is near the top of the pack, while the Honor 200 offers numbers similar to phones at around the same price. I did notice the phones heating up after playing Honkai: Star Rail for a couple of hours, but that’s perfectly normal, and they didn’t get exceedingly hot.
It’s also worth noting that the performance difference is also distinct enough from Honor’s own flagship option, Magic6 Pro, which rounds off Honor’s value proposition across its entire product range quite clearly.
Battery Life
Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone’s battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more.
Thanks to the large 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery inside, the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro do quite well, with a whopping 14+ hours of battery life on the Honor 200. The Honor 200 Pro is a little more battery-hungry but still delivers a respectable 12+ hours.
The phones do support 100W wired fast charging, and the Honor 200 Pro took 23 minutes to go from 0-50% and just 50 minutes for a full charge. The Honor 200 also took 23 minutes for a 50% charge and 52 minutes for a full charge.
Only the Honor 200 Pro has wireless charging and it’s relatively quick as well at 66W, although you will need to purchase the Honor SuperCharging wireless charger separately.
Conclusion
The midrange section is very saturated, with plenty of brands looking to make their mark and stand out amongst the numerous options at the $500-800 price point. Wisely enough, Honor is going the collaboration route, which adds extra value to their phones, similar to Xiaomi’s Leica collaboration or Vivo’s Zeiss partnership.
However, phone collaborations are usually reserved for flagship choices, so the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro are among the few that generously add these perks to their midrange category.
The photos and general performance from these phones are pretty good, particularly considering that the Honor 200 only costs S$599. If you enjoy taking pictures of human subjects, the Harcourt profiles (especially the Classic) are very pleasant.
Day-to-day usage is fantastic, with no lag or stuttering, and the battery life is more than enough for moderate users. Even if the battery runs low, that fast 100W wired charging will get the phones back up quickly.
Honor 200 series’ closest rivals are the Poco F6 and Poco F6 Pro (review here). Still, the Honor 200 series comes out slightly ahead in terms of their design, imaging, and battery uptime, even if its raw performance is mildly different. The Honor 200 has the slight advantage of being a better all-rounder than Poco’s offerings, which I think is what midrange buyers are concerned about.
If you’re looking for a phone specifically in this price bracket, the Honor 200 series phones are worth checking out because they try to put their best foot forward in performance and imaging while keeping their price under control. While we can’t say if Honor will stay this way for the long term, it has undoubtedly mastered balancing value for money, as shown in these two phones.
Probably an important question to answer is which of these two phones you should get? The Honor 200 Pro sustains its asking price with improved raw performance, better imaging capability and wireless charging, making it a flagship-lite sort of product. However if you don’t indulge in too much cutting edge games pushing the boundaries, nor can’t really appreciate the imaging differences we’ve noted down, then by all means save up and gun for the Honor 200.
An added point to consider is that while the Honor 200 starts from S$599, the true spec-for-spec comparison point would be the 512GB edition of the same phone which retails for S$699. At this price point, the extra offerings for the Pro edition are just a hundred bucks more (at $S799), which make the Honor 200 Pro the better buy in our opinion.
| Design | Features | User-friendliness | Performance | Value | Overall | |
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| Honor 200 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 |  |
| Honor 200 Pro | 7.5 | 8.0 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 8.5 |  |
The Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro retail in the following configurations at these official prices:
- Honor 200 (12GB RAM + 256GB storage): S$599
- Honor 200 (12GB RAM + 512GB storage): S$669
- Honor 200 Pro (12GB RAM + 512GB storage): S$799
The Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro are available at Honor’s Lazada and Shopee stores. They are also available at our consumer electronics retailers (Best Denki, Challenger, Courts, Gain City, Harvey Norman, Eplanetworld).
