HONOR 200 Pro Review – The Near-Flagship Experience

HONOR 200 Pro Unboxing

Kicking off the HONOR 200 Pro review with the unboxing, it’s different from the Magic6 Pro as it’s clad in white. It’s still simplistic in nature as you only get the model name being front and center with nothing else. Inside the box, we found the following items:

• USB-C to USB-C cable
• 100W HONOR SuperCharge charger
• SIM ejector pin
• Documentations
• Clear protective case
• The HONOR 200 Pro itself

Specifications

SoC	Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, 4nm 1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3 GHz + 4 x Cortex-A720 @ 2.8 GHz + 3 x Cortex-A520 @ 2 GHz Adreno 735 GPU
RAM	12GB + 12GB
Storage	256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 4.0
Display	6.78″ 1.5K (2700 x 1224) Quad-Curved Floating LTPO OLED Display, 1.07 billion colors, HDR, Curved tempered glass 3840Hz PWM dimming, SGS Certified, Nature Tone Display, TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light, 436ppi 4000 nits (peak) 120Hz Adaptive Refresh Rate
Rear Camera	50MP f/1.9 wide angle camera, PDAF, OIS 50MP f/2.4 telephoto camera, PDAF, OIS, 2.5x optical zoom 12MP f/2.0 112˚ ultra-wide LED flash, HDR, panorama
Selfie Camera	50MP f/2.1 wide-angle selfie camera HDR
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth 5.3, A2DP, LE, aptX HD NFC USB-C 2.0 with OTG support
Battery	5200mAh HONOR Second Generation Silicon-carbon Battery 100W wired HONOR SuperCharge 66W wireless HONOR SuperCharge 5W reverse wired charging Power Enhanced Chip HONOR E1 HONOR Power Management System
Dimensions	163.3 x 75.2 x 8.2 mm 199g
Ingress Protection	IP65
Software	MagicOS 8.0 based on Android 14
Colours	Black, Green, Silver, Pink

Performance

Starting off our benchmark suite with Antutu v10, we can see that the HONOR 200 Pro had a rather strong showing for a midrange device. The performance seems to be almost on par with the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Keep in mind that this is the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, not to be confused with the 8 Gen 3 which is the true flagship chip of this year. It’s essentially a watered down version that still packs a punch.

Then on Geekbench 6, it’s clearer to see how it matches up with the older flagship chip as it sits between two Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 devices. While the single core performance is pretty decent, it might be lacking in the multi core department based on the above data.

Moving on to 3DMark, this is where you can see the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip suffering a bit as its GPU is not up to par with this year’s and last year’s flagship chip in all three tests. It seems that while the CPU performance is still kept up well, the GPU might struggle but do keep in mind that it should still be capable of playing most mobile games well enough. One caveat here is that it has a better stability rating than most Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices, with a rating of 70.3%, so you should get a more consistent experience on this.

Lastly on PCMark’s Work 3.0 benchmark, the HONOR 200 Pro managed to get a pretty good score as it’s more on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This at least shows that it can perform just as reliably as it’s more expensive counterpart as a daily driver at a noticeably lower price, which is a great sign.

For those of you who are wondering about the battery life, the HONOR 200 Pro lasted 10 hours and 37 minutes (637 minutes) in PCMark’s Work 3.0 endurance test. This is with Dynamic Refresh Rate enabled, a feature that will provide an optimized viewing experience without killing off battery life. While I was expecting a little better as I thought this chip would be noticeably more efficient, it’s still far from bad. You should be able to enjoy a full day’s use without worrying about finding a charger unless you’re heavily gaming on it.

If you ever need to charge, the HONOR 200 Pro comes with a 100W HONOR SuperCharge brick inside the box, and it’s blazing fast. From my own experience, here are the speeds I get from 2%:

• 15 minutes = 59% battery life
• 30 minutes = 85% battery life
• 38 minutes = 100% battery life

We couldn’t put the wireless charging capabilities to the test as the fastest wireless charger we have is only 15W, a far cry from the 66W supported here for wireless charging.

Camera

The HONOR 200 Pro is capable of taking pretty good photos. The main camera is on par with their own flagships, capturing wide dynamic range and crisp details with good lighting but low light photos also turn out pretty decently. It’s AI-based features like the AI Portrait Engine can help with making your subjects really pop with its blurred background look but the results can be mixed as the background could look odd at times.

The ultrawide camera on the other hand seems to be a couple of steps behind the main camera in terms of quality as pictures often come out rather soft and bland in comparison. Telephoto comfortably sits in the middle point of the two cameras, where it can capture a good amount of colors, contrast, and details but not something you’d want to use past 10x zoom as it starts to looks more like oil painting. I do wish the optical zoom was longer, like 3x or 5x at least.

Selfies are rarely disappointing as it’s quite consistent with its performance, though its understandably more light-dependent than the other cameras, but do adjust the settings accordingly as you might end up with extremely softened skin.

In case you want to compare it with its predecessor, check out our HONOR Magic6 Pro review by clicking right here.

The Good

There are a number of good reasons to consider getting the HONOR 200 Pro. For starters, it has a rather unique look compared to most other smartphones out there, and it feels premium too. While not at the standards of the Magic6 Pro, the rear has this design that resembles water waves at the coastline and the oval-shaped camera cutout is inspired by the form of Gaudi’s “Casa Mila”, adding an artistic touch to it. The pill-shaped cutout isn’t the most endearing but with the Magic Capsule feature highlighting notifications and adding UI elements around it, it’s definitely something many will like, even if inspired by competition.

Moving over to the front and you get a 6.78-inch 1.5K Quad-Curved Floating LTPO OLED display with a 437ppi, adaptive refresh rate going from 1Hz to 120Hz and 3,840Hz PWM dimming. HONOR claims that it has a peak brightness of 4,000 nits but from our use case, it hasn’t come close to that as we get about 1,300 to 1,500 nits at most with adaptive brightness enabled, which is still more than adequate. This is the kind of display you would only see in true flagships, so to have this in a midrange device is great.

While not on par with the Magic6 Pro, it does have a satisfying dual-speaker setup here consisting of a top and bottom-firing ones with a balanced output. Volume is still rather loud though you’d get slightly better quality in flagships as it’s not as detailed in the mids and highs. Lows are nearly non-existent but that’s common for built-in speakers.

In terms of security, you do get both under-display fingerprint and face recognition, so you can opt for whichever is more convenient for you. The fingerprint scanner itself works lightning fast and I’ve only ever had issues with it after washing my hands since my fingers are still somewhat wet. Face recognition works well enough, just not as fast as the fingerprint option and kind of an annoyance if you often wear a mask.

One major plus point is that you get a decent suite of connectivity options with the HONOR 200 Pro. You get 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 with aptX HD support, dual SIM, and NFC. Interestingly, I didn’t see this being listed in the specifications (unless I’ve completely missed it) but it does have an IR Blaster on the top. This means that you can use it as a smart remote for your TVs, air conditioners and more via its Smart Remote app.

Lastly, and this is the biggest attraction point of the HONOR 200 Pro, is its price. It’s retailing for RM2,699, and that gets you an experience that is almost on par with 2024 flagship smartphones at nearly half the price (or half the price you compare with top-of-the-line Ultra / Pro Max models). Sure, it’s not the best smartphone around but if you’re not willing to shell out RM4,000 to RM6,000 for a smartphone, it’s hard to find something that gives you as much value as this.

The Bad

The HONOR 200 Pro is a pretty solid flagship but it does have its share of drawbacks. For starters, while the screen itself is wonderful, the pill-shaped cutout for the front camera is not pleasing to the eyes. It somewhat feels like we went back in time about 4-5 years ago given the look, and we get the same pill-shaped cutout as last year with the position changed to the center of the display’s upper portion. The only solace I can find here is that you can purposely make use of that cutout for some funny, immersive wallpaper ideas.

Next up, it feels like HONOR is falling behind in terms of software updates compared to its competitors. It’s not just about how fast you get an update but also that it comes with 4 major Android OS upgrades with 5 years of security updates. It’s the same with recent HONOR phones so if there were to be any changes, it would likely be next year at the earliest.

Lastly, the HONOR 200 Pro doesn’t have any screen protection other than its curved tempered glass on the display. There is no HONOR NanoCrystal Shield nor Gorilla Glass here. On the bright side, HONOR Malaysia is including a 365 Days Front and Back Crack Replacement plan so if anything happens within the first year, you can get it changed for free. Beyond that, it’s all on you to take good care of it.

HONOR 200 Pro Verdict

The HONOR 200 Pro has arguably the best value in any midrange this year. It has its drawbacks here and there but it also brings so much to the table. It’s a near-flagship experience at practically half the price, and that’s hard to say no to unless you’re willing to spend more or you want something even cheaper. If my phone ever dies on me and I don’t want to splurge, this will be my go-to solution for this year unless something better pops up.

At the end of our HONOR 200 Pro review, I award this flagship smartphone with our Silver Pokdeward.

Big thanks to HONOR Malaysia for sending us this smartphone for the purpose of this review.