With the HONOR 200 Pro, which was launched at the end of May 2024, the manufacturer is once again venturing into the upper mid-range smartphone segment. The device aims to impress in the field of portrait photography in particular and scores points with its strong features. Find out more in our test.
Technical data
| The product | 200 Pro |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 |
| CPU |
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| Operating system | Android 14; MagicOS 8.0 |
| Display |
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| Camera |
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| Memory | 12 GB LPDDR5X RAM; 512 GB UFS flash memory |
| Network | SIM card slot (nano SIM); 5G |
| Connectivity | USB-C 2.0; Wi-Fi 6E; NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Dimensions and weight | 163.3 mm x 75.2 mm x 8.2 mm (H x W x D); Weight: 199g |
| Battery capacity | 5.200 mAh; 100W charging (cable);66W charging (wireless) |
| Colors | Black, White Green |
| Special features | IP65 certification; Studio Harcourt portrait modes |
| Prices (RRP) | € 799.00 * |
HONOR 200 Pro test: A fine work of design art
- very elegant design
- impeccable workmanship
- very slippery; only IP65
You have to hand it to the Chinese smartphone manufacturers: Their devices look extremely classy and high-quality. This also applies to the HONOR 200 Pro, which we took a closer look at as part of the test in the Ocean Cyan color, which is exclusively available in the manufacturer’s store.
The visual highlight is of course the matt glass back, which comes with a wavy, non-slip pattern. HONOR calls this a “beach design” and the device looks particularly elegant in reflective light.
The back is thus very well protected against fingerprints, although it is very slippery, which is further enhanced by the rounded edges. I wouldn’t want to use the 200 Pro without a protective cover.
Regardless of personal impressions, the smartphone measures 163.3 mm x 75.2 mm x 8.2 mm and is therefore slightly longer and wider, but thinner than the Xiaomi 14 Ultra (our test), for example. Compared to the OnePlus 12 (our test), however, the HONOR device is shorter and narrower – its thinness in particular ensures that the 200 Pro is very comfortable to hold, even in smaller hands.
At 199 grams, the weight is also somewhat lower than that of the aforementioned competitors, which makes it comfortable to use. HONOR places the camera setup with a rounded silver frame in the top left corner.
This is a clever idea, as it allows the index finger to be placed exactly on the lower edge, making the smartphone very comfortable to hold. Even if the camera unit protrudes quite far from the casing and the device wobbles a lot when placed on the table.
In combination with the silver frame, the HONOR 200 Pro looks great. The volume rocker and power button are located on the right-hand side, while the speakers are installed at the top and bottom. The USB port for charging and the SIM card slot are located on the bottom, while the left side remains empty.
Too bad: The HONOR 200 Pro only accepts one nano SIM card. However, it is possible to use a second SIM card via eSIM. The build quality of the smartphone is excellent, as everything feels very robust and high-quality. It’s just a shame that HONOR has only given the 200 Pro IP65 certification as protection against dust and splash water, so the device is unfortunately not completely waterproof.
Bright top display, good speakers
- 6.78 inch with 2,700 x 1,224 pixels
- 4.000 nits in HDR; 1,000 nits in SDR
- highly colorful display; good speakers
Another feature highlight of the HONOR 200 Pro is the display. The AMOLED panel has a size of 6.78 inches and a Full HD resolution of 2,700 x 1,224 pixels. This results in a pixel density of 437 ppi, which is below that of more expensive devices and is slightly inferior in terms of sharpness – but this is not really a negative.
The refresh rate can be dynamically adjusted between 60 Hz and 120 Hz. Unfortunately, the device does not offer an LTPO panel, which allows dynamic adjustment between 1 Hz and 120 Hz. On the other hand, the screen scores with rich colors, strong contrasts and an impressive brightness of up to 4,000 nits.
A top value that is otherwise only achieved by more expensive flagships. But even with SDR content, a peak of 1,000 nits is possible, which enables very good readability in direct sunlight.
The color space coverage is also pleasing, as the DCI-P3 color space is fully covered. PWM dimming at 3,840 Hz and TÜV-certified Flicker Free and Low Blue Light technologies round off the display perfectly. All in all, the HONOR 200 Pro really is a great display.
The stereo speakers are almost as powerful and come with an amplifier that boosts the sound up to 200 percent. They are really very loud and are therefore well suited for music playback, although the mid-frequency range in particular gets a little buzzy, which is a bit of a negative point, especially with spoken content.
Features and performance
- modern chip with 12 GB RAM
- 512 GB system memory
- very good system performance; good gaming performance
In terms of features, the HONOR 200 Pro leaves little to be desired. The SoC used is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, which was unveiled in March and should be positioned between the current top model and last year’s 8 Gen 2 chip in terms of performance.
The octa-core CPU combines a Cortex-X4 processor core (3.0 GHz) with 4 Cortex-A720 (2.8 GHz) and 3 Cortex-A520 (2.0 GHz). In addition, there is 12 GB of RAM, 512 GB of non-expandable system memory and an Adreno 735 GPU, which should be able to cope with even the most demanding mobile games.
In fact, the performance at system level, i.e. when multi-tasking or scrolling, is at a very good level. I didn’t notice any stutters or dropouts. However, the gaming benchmarks in particular show that the performance does not come close to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
While you can still keep up very well in the PCMark Work 3.0 test, the results from the gaming benchmarks in particular are somewhat sobering. But please don’t get the wrong idea: The results are still so good that even the most demanding titles can be played without any problems.
| Benchmark | HONOR 200 Pro | Xiaomi 14 Ultra |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 16.681 pts. | 17.161 pts. |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme | 3.105 pts; 18.60 FPS | 4.697 pts; 28.31 FPS |
| 3DMark Solar Bay | 5.098 pts; 19.39 FPS | 8.435 pts; 32.07 FPS |
| 3D Mark Steel Nomad Light | 1.066 pts.; 7.90 FPS | 1.677 pts; 12.42 FPS |
| GFXBench Manhattan 1440p | 115 FPS | 153 FPS |
| 3DMark stress test | 65 percent |
95.2 percent
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However, the stress test shows that even the HONOR 200 Pro is not protected against throttling and even if the smartphone does not get too hot under continuous load, the performance drops noticeably after a very short time. Although not quite as much as measured on the OnePlus 12.
There is nothing to complain about in terms of the remaining features. Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax is on board, as is Bluetooth 5.3 including support for high-resolution codecs such as aptX, aptX HD and LDAC, NFC and 5G. Unfortunately, the USB-C port only supports the slow USB 2.0 standard, which means it takes longer to transfer files.
The operating system is Android 14 with Magic OS 8.0, which is a highly customized skin. Whether you like this is certainly a matter of taste, but I personally much prefer the interfaces from Xiaomi and OnePlus.
A practical feature is the Magic Portal, which allows you to simply move text or images to the side of the display and quickly share them with another app. HONOR installs a little bloatware, including TikTok, Facebook and AliExpress, but this can be easily removed.
Battery life of the HONOR 200 Pro
- 5.200 mAh
- 100 watt charging power, but no power adapter included
The HONOR 200 Pro comes with a 5,200 mAh battery and therefore offers a higher capacity than most current flagships. The smartphone is charged with up to 100 watts via cable or 66 watts wirelessly, while reverse wireless charging is also supported.
Unfortunately, the manufacturer does not include a power adapter in the scope of delivery, which – unlike OnePlus and Xiaomi, for example – must be purchased separately. This should make it possible to fully charge the smartphone in under an hour.
However, I was unable to achieve these speeds with my 120-watt power supply from Xiaomi. A full charge took around two hours. However, the battery runtimes are somewhat disappointing: At just 11 hours and 25 minutes in PCMark Work 3.0, the HONOR 200 Pro is well behind Xiaomi or the OnePlus 12, which lasted a full seven hours longer.
Cameras: Master of portrait photography?
- Main camera with good image quality
- three portrait styles
- oversaturated colors; somewhat heavy post-processing
HONOR advertises the 200 Pro as a “Portrait Master”, which is why the smartphone is said to excel in portrait shots in particular. But what about the other features? Let’s first clarify the basics.
On the back, the smartphone combines two 50-megapixel sensors with a 12 MP ultra wide-angle camera:
- 50 MP wide-angle camera (f/1.9 aperture, OIS)
- 50 MP telephoto lens (f/2.4 aperture, OIS)
- 12 MP ultra wide-angle camera (f/2.2 aperture)
The front camera also has a very high resolution of 50 megapixels and offers an aperture of f/2.1. All cameras record videos in a maximum of 4K quality with 60 FPS (rear) or a maximum of 30 frames per second (front camera).
While other manufacturers work with Leica or Hasselblad, the HONOR 200 Pro was developed in collaboration with the French studio Harcourt and focuses exclusively on portrait mode.
There are three special image styles to choose from, which are intended to deliver studio quality. However, this only works for portrait shots taken with the main cameras. Selfie portraits do not benefit from this. I really like the portraits, although I wouldn’t say that the image quality is noticeably better than that of current flagship smartphones.
The image quality of the HONOR 200 Pro’s cameras is really impressive. Not only in portrait shots, but generally across all four cameras. Nevertheless, it is not enough in all respects to really threaten the best current camera smartphones.
Images from the HONOR device score points, especially with the main camera, with fine details and little image noise in low light conditions. However, the photos appear heavily post-processed and the colors are a little too saturated compared to reality.
Although this looks really nice, it doesn’t really have much to do with the real image, as you can see from the example of the sunrise. The device also digitally sharpens some fine details a little too much. Nevertheless, the picture quality is really good.
Unfortunately, the ultra-wide-angle camera, which also functions as a macro lens, is the weakest link in the chain. Although it still produces quite good results, it lacks a bit of sharpness due to the lack of autofocus, while the reproduction of colors is not quite as good.
The telephoto camera offers a 2.5x optical zoom and delivers good results, but the magnification is significantly lower than that of some of its competitors. There is also a 50x digital zoom. I really like the quality of the videos, which are recorded in a maximum of 4K at 60 FPS.
HONOR 200 Pro test: Conclusion
The HONOR 200 Pro delivers a very strong overall package in the upper mid-range. Of course, it doesn’t (quite) match the flagships in all respects, but it also costs considerably less.
The design is elegant and the build quality is absolutely top-notch. The processor is fast, which is particularly evident in everyday tasks, and the gaming performance is also absolutely impressive.
A real highlight is the display, which impresses with its high brightness, great colors and rich contrasts, while the good-sounding speakers are also pleasing. The HONOR 200 Pro also delivers good results with the cameras, although the gap to the flagship class and the OnePlus 12 is more pronounced here.
The IP certification and the slow USB 2 standard have also been cut back. The fact that the maximum charging speed, which is actually excellent, cannot be achieved with capable power adapters and the manufacturer does not include one in the scope of delivery is also annoying.
HONOR 200 Pro
Workmanship
Hardware
Multimedia
Performance
Battery Life
Value For Money
90/100
High-quality and elegant smartphone with impressive features, good cameras and a fast-charging battery. The IP certification is a little disappointing, as is the battery life.
