Honor 200 Pro review: a portrait-focused all-rounder

If you don't want to pay top dollar but still want a great smartphone camera, loads of storage, decent gaming power, and all-day battery life, the Honor 200 Pro is poised to take pride of place in your palm and pocket.

At £699 (roughly $880, AU$1,330), the Honor 200 Pro certainly isn't cheap, and going up against phones like the Nothing Phone (2) , Google Pixel 8 , and iPhone 14 , it also needs to be more than just a great spec sheet.

To help it stand out, Honor has partnered up with Studio Harcourt, a French photography house behind an iconic black and white portrait style. The Honor 200 Pro emulates this style in its portrait mode, with tuning created in partnership with the studio.

The phone also features one of the largest primary camera sensors on any smartphone at its price, benefits from an ultra-wide camera with autofocus – typically reserved for flagships – and is powered by the mighty new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.

There are a few grumbles out of the gate: unlike most phones at its price, the 200 Pro's frame is plastic, not metal. Some might also take issue with its curved screen – though this isn't something we mind – and the phone's cameras can be inconsistent. Despite some niggles, though, we'd say the Honor 200 Pro does just enough to be one of the best cameras of 2024 , at least at its price, and here's why:

Honor 200 Pro design and screen

Honor's number series – the Honor 70 and Honor 90 being the last two that launched in the West – all have a trademark style: a curved front, curved back, and a slimline profile, plus an elegant flourish here and there. The new Honor 200 Series carries this aesthetic forward; however, unlike past number series launches, the West is also getting a Pro model for 2024.

If you thought Pro meant glass and metal, unfortunatley, you're only half right. The Honor 200 Pro does have a glass front and back, but its plastic sides do make it feel a little bit less premium than its price suggests it should.

On the plus, the Honor 200 Pro isn't too heavy despite its high-capacity battery. It's also relatively thin at 8.2mm, and the curved back and rounded corners make for a comfortable hold.

You can choose between three Honor 200 Pro colors: Black, Moonlight White (the version pictured), and Ocean Cyan. The two-tone/texture Cyan option didn't do it for us, but the white option has an elegant pearlesque shimmer, while the black one looks super-accessible, with both sporting frosted glass backs.

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The phone is IP65 dust and water resistant and it has a pre-fitted screen protector. Whether or not you get a case or charger with your phone will depend on where you're buying it. In the UK, it doesn't look set to ship with one.

The Honor 200 Pro's screen is a 6.78-inch, 1224 x 2700 resolution panel with a pixel density of 437 pixels per inch. With a crisp picture and a quality AMOLED screen tech doing a great job of showcasing content, it's exactly what we would expect at the price.

The screen's official peak brightness is 4000 nits for HDR content, though full-screen brightness caps out at around 1200 nits in bright environments, making it relatively easy to see on a sunny day.

The Honor 200 Pro's adaptive refresh rate is also smooth at 120Hz, and there are extensive display color options and eye-care features in the settings, as well as 3840Hz PWM dimming for reduced screen flicker and eye fatigue at low brightness levels.

Some reviewers consider the curved screen sides a mark against the phone, though in our time with it, we didn't encounter any accidental presses, and it adds to the phones slim in-hand feel. Visually, it also gives the impression the Honor 200 Pro's bezels are tiny, making the picture more immersive. All things considered, therefore, as far as we're concerned, the 200 Pro's display is a quality panel for the price.

Honor 200 Pro camera specs

Honor’s partnership with the Paris-based Studio Harcourt is credited for its updated AI Portrait Engine debuted on the Honor 200 series - which introduces AI Shadow and Light, Optical Effects and Artistic Style Enhancement. The phone also packs Honor's latest photo processing, and it's the first time we've seen this hardware mix as well:

Main camera : The Honor 200 Pro’s main camera features a large, nearly iPhone 15 Pro Max-sized 1/1.3-inch Omnivision sensor matched with an f/1.9 aperture lens with OIS.

Telephoto camera : With a 1/2.51-inch, 50MP Sony IMX856 sensor and an f/2.4 lens with OIS, matched with a 2.5x zoom, the Honor 200 Pro's telephoto camera captures at a 68mm equivalent focal length.

Ultra-wide camera : With autofocus as close as 4cm, the 200 Pro’s ultra-wide camera combines a 12MP resolution with an f/2.2 aperture and a 112º field of view.

Selfie camera: Finally, the high-resolution 50MP front camera is set alongside a depth sensor, has a fixed-focus f/2.1 aperture lens with a 21mm focal length, and supports 4K capture at up to 30fps.

In addition to the new Studio Harcourt Portrait Mode, the Honor 200 Pro's shooting modes cover the standard bases – Photo, Night, Video, Panorama – while also including some more off-the-wall options like Solo Cut for motion-tracked and cropped vertical video from a landscape recording.

Honor 200 Pro camera review

The Honor 200 Pro’s camera system is generally reliable, regardless of the camera you use. However, there is one caveat: ultra-wide lowlight photos and videos were the weakest categories in our tests.

Typically, Honor’s auto-processing is saturated with a healthy amount of contrast. The 200 Pro's photos don't always look the most natural, dialing up processing to Instagram-ready levels, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, with output typically looking good.

As you can see below, detail is abundant across all photos when light is ample, the scene has a breadth of tones, and the hybrid zoom telephoto shot holds up well despite the Honor 200 Pro's optical reach capping out at 2.5x.

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Focusing on the primary camera, it impressed us with its large sensor, which creates rich depth when capturing close-up objects and is relatively quick to focus. Unlike the Honor 90, which had a woefully underpowered processor, the 200 Pro is quick to take a photo, and processing won't leave you waiting too long. Its RAW photos also give you plenty of range to work with, not common in non-flagship phones, making for a good impression at the price.

Some lowlight and extreme mixed lighting examples below illustrate how capable the zoom is, and also how the ultra-wide camera struggles to keep pace with the primary and telephoto cameras.

Typically, midrange camera phones forfeit zoom, with the OnePlus 12 being the entry-level to a quality, periscope telephoto camera. The Honor 200 Pro might well be the next best option despite missing out on a periscope, fitting given its lower price.

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Despite its lowlight limitations, the ultra-wide camera is handy for macro photos in bright environments thanks to its autofocus, though we still found ourselves leaning on the primary and telephoto cameras whenever we could.

The telephoto camera shines in Studio Harcourt's portrait mode. The black-and-white photos, in particular, strike a compelling balance. Honor also does a great job of combining classical with modern by enabling HDR on/off in portrait mode, not typically available. You can, therefore, choose between higher-contrast portraits or shots with a broader tonal range and a more modern look.

It's worth noting that the Portrait Mode can get depth separation wrong, so you'll need to get to grips with it to get the best from it, possibly dialing back the effect at times to create a more natural-looking image. Also, the color balance across cameras can be slightly inconsistent, though interestingly, we experienced less of this with the Honor 200 Pro than the flagship Magic 6 Pro.

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Video is also impressive from the main camera, competing across lighting conditions, likely thanks to its sensor size. This is where the telephoto camera starts to struggle when the lights drop, and the ultra-wide is out for the count. Nevertheless, in bright environments, all three cameras capture solid footage.

Honor 200 Pro additional features

Powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor, the Honor 200 Pro delivers 2023-grade flagship performance, and with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, it's ready for multi-tasking and packs plenty of space for apps, files, photos and videos.

Gaming on the Honor 200 Pro is a generally smooth experience, with the phone able to playback Genshin Impact at maximum graphics settings for around 20 minutes before it starts to struggle. Drop the graphics settings and frame rates will steady quickly, making the phone a good shout for gamers who want a quality camera without spending too much.

Running Honor's Magic O 8.0 and Android 14, the Honor 200 Pro’s interface is smooth and stable. However, it is lumbered with too much bloat out of the box: Honor's App Market and the Google Play Store, Honor Docs and Google Drive, and third-party apps like AliExpress and Booking.com. Some of these are uninstallable and the UI definitely isn't a dealbreaker, but the bloat does detract from the phone's polish.

The interface experience is generally smooth. Honor brings back the Magic Capsule introduced on the Honor Magic 6 Pro. This means the pill-shaped selfie camera gives big Apple Magic Island vibes, displaying useful information and easy access to music controls, navigation, and other background apps.

App support is great with the phone having full access to the Google Play Store, and you can choose either an application tray homescreen setup like a Google Pixel, or all your apps laid out for you to organise, like an iPhone.

The Honor 200 Pro’s 5200mAh battery lasts for a full day with heavy usage, even with a fair bit of gaming and photography. It supports 100W wired charging for a full charge in around 45 minutes, as well as 66W wireless charging. To take advantage of those max speeds, you'll need to pick up an Honor charger or Qi wireless charging stand, however, as neither is included with the phone.

Honor 200 Pro verdict

Anyone who doesn't need a flagship but wants their phone to last for a few years should consider the Honor 200 Pro. Powerful enough to keep pace with the latest games and tools, loaded up with enough storage for your apps, photos and videos, while lasting more than a day on a single charge, its hardware is relatively future-proofed.

It's also hard not to be impressed by its camera. We were able to get great-looking photos from all three cameras around the back, with the primary camera shining. The Studio Harcourt Portrait Mode also impressed us, not because it was a revelation, but because it tastefully added a classical portrait style while giving us the flexibility to tune results to our tastes in-camera.

Of course, there are aspects of the 200 Pro we would change given the chance: the plastic frame, busy interface, and occasionally inconsistent characteristics across photos. All things considered, though, at its price, the Honor 200 Pro delivers a nuanced camera system, impressive specs, and a great real-world experience.