Smartphones, Tablets & Wearables

HONOR 400 Pro Review: A lot of smartphone at a fair price

200-megapixel AI camera, lots of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge features at an unbeatable price: with the HONOR 400 Pro, the manufacturer once again aims to ascend the throne of the upper mid-range smartphone segment. Our test clarifies whether the successor to the HONOR 200 Pro (our test) can convince and where the few points of criticism can be found.

Technical data

product 400 Pro
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
CPU
  • 2 x 2.04 GHz
  • 5 x 2.96 GHz
  • 1 x 3.05 GHz
Operating system Android 15; MagicOS 9.0
Display
  • 6.7 inch; 2,800 x 1,280 pixels
  • AMOLED, 60 Hz – 120 Hz refresh rate
  • Up to 5,000 nits brightness
Camera
  • 200 megapixel main camera (f/1.9) with OIS;
  • 50 MP telephoto camera (f/2.4) with OIS;
  • 12 MP ultra-wide-angle camera (f/2.2);
  • 50 MP selfie camera (f/2.0)
Memory 12 GB LPDDR5X RAM; 512 GB UFS flash memory
Network SIM card slot (nano SIM); 5G
Connectivity USB-C; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be; NFC, Bluetooth 5.4
Dimensions and weight 160.8 mm x 76.1 mm x 8.1 mm (H x W x D); Weight: 205g
Battery capacity 5,300 mAh; 100W charging (cable); 55W charging (wireless)
Colors Lunar Grey, Midnight Black
Special features IP69 certification; HONOR AI; HD moving photo
Prices (RRP) € 799.90 *

HONOR 400 Pro Review: Fresh, high-quality look

  • Stylish design
  • very comfortable in the hand, but…
  • … Camera hump wobbles on the table

With the HONOR 400 Pro, the manufacturer has opted for a new, fresh design that looks absolutely classy and doesn’t have to hide behind noticeably more expensive smartphones. The eye-catching grain of its predecessor now gives way to a restrained look, with the back and display blending into the matt silver frame thanks to rounded edges.

The result is an extremely pleasant feel, thanks to which the 6.7-inch smartphone is extremely comfortable to hold. The weight of 205 grams has been very well distributed by HONOR: The HONOR 400 Pro is a real hand flatterer.

The camera module has been redesigned, with the pill-shaped design giving way to a new layout reminiscent of HUAWEI’s Pura 70 model series. The camera module protrudes noticeably from the casing, making the 400 Pro a little wobbly on surfaces.

HONOR 400 Pro

The build quality of the smartphone is excellent. Thanks to the new IP68 and IP69 certification, the 400 Pro is also excellently protected against the ingress of dust and dirt. Commendable: HONOR has already pre-installed a screen protector.

Powerful display and impressive speakers

  • Absolute top display
  • 5,000 nits brightness
  • Excellent speakers

The HONOR 400 Pro has a 6.7-inch display with a resolution of 2,800 x 1,280 pixels. It is therefore 0.8 inches smaller than the screen of the HONOR 200 Pro, which also reduces the height of the smartphone by around 2.5 cm.

Nevertheless, the device has made further improvements to the display. The AMOLED screen impresses with an impressive peak brightness of 5,000 nits, high-frequency PWM dimming with 4,320 Hz and a frame rate that adjusts adaptively between 60 Hz and 120 Hz. The manufacturer has also provided the device with various eye protection technologies. All of this ensures excellent readability, even in direct sunlight.

The 400 Pro also comes with a screen that is slightly curved at the edges, so anyone who prefers curved displays is guaranteed to be happy here. The screen also impresses with rich colors, deep contrasts and an excellent image display across the board.

The optical fingerprint sensor is located under the screen and reacts extremely precisely and quickly. It is also located very close to the bottom edge, which is noticeably beneficial for operation. Alternatively, 2D facial recognition is available for unlocking. Although this is less secure, it also works quickly and reliably.

As with its direct predecessor, the HONOR 400 Pro is also equipped with excellent speakers that not only have a great maximum volume, but also impress with a lively and detailed sound. This makes the smartphone an excellent choice for displaying multimedia content.

Features and performance

  • Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with 12 GB RAM
  • Great system performance

The fact that the HONOR 400 Pro is not quite at home in the flagship class is evident in the chip used, although an improvement on its predecessor can also be seen here. Instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the device relies on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 from last year.

HONOR 400 Pro

However, this is not particularly tragic, as the chip was still the measure of all things last year. The rest of the equipment also leaves nothing to be desired: The HONOR 400 Pro comes with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of system memory. It is complemented by Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 including high-resolution codecs, NFC and an IR blaster. However, the smartphone still relies on the USB 2.0 standard for the USB-C port.

The performance of the HONOR 400 Pro in the benchmarks is impressive. The measured values are only just below those of the Snapdragon X Elite. The system performance is still beyond reproach: Apps open quickly, switching is swift and even demanding multitasking hardly presents the device with any significant challenges.

The gaming performance is also excellent, although the leap to the Elite chipset is noticeably higher. Nevertheless, the 400 Pro also handles Genshin Impact, Call of Duty and much more without any problems, while the smartphone never gets uncomfortably hot.

Benchmark Result
Geekbench 6 single-core 2,115 pts.
Geekbench 6 Multi-Core 6,485 pts.
Geekbench 6 GPU 13,093 pts.
Geekbench AI 2,484 pts. / 2,424 pts. / 3,555 pts.
PCMark Work 3.0 16,038 pts.
3DMark Wild Life Extreme 4,622 pts / 27.68 fps
3DMark Solar Bay 7,686 pts / 29.23 fps
3DMark Steel Nomad Light 1,479 pts / 10.96 fps
3DMark Steel Nomad Light Stress 76.5 percent

However, weaknesses are once again evident in the stress test, in which the 3DMark Steel Nomad Light benchmark is run 20 times in succession. Here, the HONOR 400 Pro “only” achieves around 76% – still significantly better than the HONOR 200 Pro (65%), but far from the top. The performance is therefore noticeably reduced after ten runs.

HONOR 400 Pro

Battery of the HONOR 400 Pro

  • 5,300 mAh
  • 100 watt charging speed
  • Good battery life

The battery of the HONOR 400 Pro is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the capacity of 5,300 mAh is excellent, but the fact that the same device is equipped with a 7,200 mAh battery in the Chinese version is a sour note. According to HONOR, this is due to the new EU labeling requirements, which lead to rising costs. Smartphones in the EU would be equipped with smaller batteries due to these costs.

Nevertheless, this circumstance weighs heavily, as the in-house HONOR Magic 7 Lite also manages 6,600 mAh in the EU version. Well, yes.

HONOR 400 Pro

Otherwise, the HONOR 400 Pro beats its predecessor by around an hour in terms of battery life. The runtimes are roughly on par with the Samsung Galaxy S25+ or Xiaomi 15 Ultra. In the PCMark 3.0 benchmark, the 400 Pro achieves a value of 12 hours and 47 minutes – a good, but not outstanding value.

HONOR 400 Pro

The 400 Pro is charged via cable with up to 100 watts. However, the wireless charging speed has been throttled. Here, “only” 50 watts are possible (compared to 66 watts for the HONOR 200 Pro). Annoying: Unfortunately, a suitable charger is not included in the scope of delivery. This costs an additional 60 euros in the HONOR online store. However, charging is extremely fast. 15 minutes on the cable charges the smartphone to 51 percent. Wirelessly, it is still 36 percent in the same time.

Software: MagicOS 9.0 with AI features

  • MagicOS 9.0 based on Android 15
  • Coherent interface
  • Lots of bloatware

On the software side, the HONOR 400 Pro uses MagicOS 9.0 based on Android 15. HONOR also provides the smartphone with six years of Android and security updates – great! Android 16 is also set to be rolled out this year.

HONOR 400 Pro

And once again I have to say: MagicOS is one of the most pleasant launchers in the Android segment, at least for me, with a structure that is sometimes very reminiscent of iOS. Of course with the typical Android advantages such as the ability to customize the design down to the smallest detail.

HONOR has also given the device some exciting tricks such as the Magic Portal: if you circle content with your knuckle, the smartphone displays suitable apps. These allow further editing or sharing of images and text, for example.

However, there is once again criticism in the area of pre-installed apps. Because the HONOR 400 Pro is packed with bloatware. Temu, LinkedIn, games and so on. At least these can be easily deleted with just a few clicks.

Of course, artificial intelligence also plays an important role. And HONOR is aptly named HONOR AI, but there is also Google Gemini including Google Lens and Circle to Search. The features are incredibly varied and impressive.

For example, it is possible to translate calls, extract texts at the touch of a button, write texts and much more. AI deepfake detection is also offered. However, most of the features are used in the photo area.

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More Information

In addition to the ability to enhance images using AI, the image-to-video function (HD Moving Photo) is particularly exciting. This works on the basis of Google Veo 2 and allows you to animate an image at the touch of a button to create a moving photo.

HONOR 400 Pro

The generation takes 1-2 minutes and is quite impressive – if not perfect. However, I sometimes wonder why the animation turns out the way it does. Because there is no way to customize how the video should be animated. No prompts and nothing like that.

Need an example? No problem. Why are the Funkos sticking out their tongues? We don’t know. But the effect is always cool.

Cameras: 200 megapixels and 50x zoom

  • Great camera setup
  • Main camera with good image quality
  • Ultra wide angle disappoints

The HONOR 400 Pro also makes a leap forward in terms of cameras. The manufacturer combines a rear triple camera with a front camera including a depth sensor.

This results in the following setup:

  • Main camera: 200 MP; f/1.9 aperture; 1/1.4 inch; OIS
  • Ultra wide angle: 12 MP; f/2.2 aperture; 112°
  • Telephoto zoom: 50 MP; f/2.4 aperture; 1/ 2.0 inch, OIS; 3x zoom
  • Selfie: 50 MP; f/2.0 aperture + 2 MP depth sensor

The clear highlight is of course the main camera, which takes really impressive and detailed photos, especially during the day and in good lighting conditions. The dynamic range is convincing and the contrasts are also pleasing, although the colors appear somewhat oversaturated in places.

However, HONOR gives you three different image styles and a professional mode is also available to customize images down to the smallest detail according to your own preferences. Personally, I like the “Authentic” mode best in terms of colors and contrasts.

The telephoto camera also delivers very good image quality up to 3x optical zoom, at least in good lighting conditions. The digital 5x zoom is also impressive. Beyond that, the smartphone can zoom up to a maximum of 50x digital, but the image quickly becomes very blurry and lacks detail.

The ultra-wide-angle camera is not only noticeably weaker on paper and also delivers the least detailed images. Considering the price, however, the image quality is still good, although the color balance is different compared to the other cameras. On the other hand, I like the results of the selfie camera, which produces natural and accurate colors. However, the camera tends to overexpose, especially with bright backgrounds.

The HONOR 400 Pro records videos in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second (4K/30 with the selfie cam). The image quality is also good and the built-in microphones are also impressive.

HONOR 400 Pro Review: Conclusion

With the HONOR 400 Pro, the manufacturer once again delivers a powerful overall package. For the price in the upper mid-range, you get the technology and features of a flagship – at least to a large extent.

The great display and generous storage capacity are particularly impressive, while the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ensures impeccable performance. MagicOS scores with excellent operation and strong AI features, while the battery life is also really good.

The triple camera delivers strong – albeit somewhat oversaturated – photos in good lighting conditions. Only the ultra-wide-angle camera falls far short in comparison. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable drop in camera quality compared to the current flagships.

At the current price of 649.00 euros (there is currently a 150 euro discount), the price-performance ratio is excellent. The HONOR 400 Pro is a good option for anyone who is looking for an excellent smartphone but doesn’t want to dig too deep into their pockets.

PRO

  • Outstanding display
  • Good battery life
  • Very good main camera
  • Elegant design
  • IP69
  • Attractive price
CONTRA

  • Lots of bloatware
  • Digital zoom unusable
  • Disappointing ultra-wide-angle camera

HONOR 400 Pro

Workmanship
Hardware
Multimedia
Performance
Battery
Value For Money

91/100

Powerful and modern smartphone with an elegant design, strong AI features and good cameras at an attractive price.

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