The Honor 200 Pro is the terminal with which Honor is once again taking its numerical family to the high end and I have thoroughly enjoyed its bombproof power, its design with personality and its camera that excels at portraits.
Honor already has a long history as an independent brand of Huawei – it has been operating in Spain since 2021 – and is taking more and more steps towards being considered a fully established manufacturer.
The Chinese company is enjoying notable commercial success in Europe, and is already in fifth position among the best-selling brands on the continent, with a 3% market share in the first quarter of 2024 and growth of more than 100%, according to Canalys data. For the moment it is not in the top 5 in Spain in 2024, but it is growing fast.
The latest move by Honor is to expand its number range — the brand’s most successful in Spain and the very range with which it decided to enter the European market back in 2021 — with a model that until now it had only launched in China.
Honor used to only launch the standard model of its numerical family in Spain, as happened with the Honor 50, Honor 70 and Honor 90, but this year it has decided to launch the Honor 200 Pro also in Spain: a high-end model but with a starting price in the upper-middle range, below its 2024/2025 flagship, the Honor Magic 6 Pro.
Design and connectivity: one of the few curved screens left and love-hate relationship with its camera
Two years ago, practically all high-end mobile phones had to have a curved screen. Today, the situation has changed radically and very few brands use these panels in their premium phones, following in the footsteps of iPhones, which have always been flat and have ended up setting the standard.
Honor has been one of the few brands that have remained faithful, as the Honor 200 Pro is one of the few high-end models of 2024 that maintain the waterfall screen, as it already did with the Magic 6 Pro.
The screen curved on all four edges is one of the hallmarks of this terminal, which offers a very elegant design and maintains the aesthetic line of Honor’s numerical series, with a fairly compact format.
However, there are differences. This year it is less light and thin (199 grams and 8.2 mm), with a gentler curve and somewhat flatter edges, which make it easier to grip. I also think it gains in premium feel.
In the white model Moonlight White that I have tested, Honor has opted for a design with a ceramic-like texture that is very pleasant to the touch. I really liked it but I have friends who don’t agree, so I guess it depends on taste.
I think the prettiest color this year is Ocean Cyan green, also with a mix of ceramic and glass texture, and the more discreet ones also have a third version in matte black (which has no reflections!).
On this symmetrical curved back, its oval-shaped rear camera module stands out, surrounded by a silver ring, with which I have a love-hate relationship: at first I thought it was really ugly but I’ve gotten used to it and over time I’ve come to like it because I see it as different from the rest and not too outlandish.
In terms of connectivity, Honor 200 Pro offers everything a high-end mobile phone needs: 5G, Bluetooth 5.3. The only thing missing is Wi-Fi 7 because it’s stuck on Wi-Fi 6, but nowadays routers with Wi-Fi 7 are almost non-existent, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.
The most interesting new feature in this sense is Honor’s own C1+ chip, with which the company claims to have improved connectivity through radio frequency and which has allowed me to make phone calls and connect devices more smoothly.
Screen: the experience is well-rounded (literally and figuratively)
The screen has long been one of Honor’s strengths and in this Honor 200 Pro the Chinese firm shows off its prowess with one of the most comprehensive panels I have seen in a mobile so far.
Its 6.78-inch AMOLED screen feels somewhat smaller than it actually is thanks to the curves at its four corners. Another benefit is that the image stands out more and has a more immersive effect than flat panels.
I’m not a fan of curved screens but this one avoids most of the problems they usually have.
One of the problems is light leakage and image distortion, which I haven’t noticed at all. And the other is accidental clicks when holding the phone, something that hasn’t happened to me at any point in the two weeks I’ve been using it.
The screen stands out for its maximum brightness of up to 4,000 nits peak – with HDR activated – which allows the image to be seen clearly even outdoors on sunny days. In general, it adapts well to ambient light thanks to its light sensor.
Honor also provides a refresh rate of 120 hertz, which allows for smoother image movement and is noticeable when scrolling. Another positive detail is its PWM frequency of 3,840 hertz. Although I must admit that I haven’t noticed it, according to the brand, this makes it less likely to interfere with sleep and protects vision.
Sound is not what is most valued in a mobile phone today, but the Honor 200 Pro manages to pass thanks to its speakers at the top and bottom, which have an acceptable quality but are too easy to play with when you hold the phone horizontally, like when playing video games.
Performance: Honor 200 Pro makes its high-end debut with power to spare
In terms of performance, it’s safe to say that the Honor 200 Pro is the first purely high-end handset in the Chinese brand’s numerical series.
It is sold in a very powerful single configuration, with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage, so it has more than enough capacity to use multiple applications at the same time and to store documents, photographs and videos without having to worry too much. I am missing Honor’s RAM and storage technology, something it doesn’t usually do and which I find unforgivable in the high-end range.
It runs on Qualcomm’s highest-end processor from the second half of the year, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, and thanks to this it achieves a performance well above what its predecessors had achieved, which surprised me in a good way.
And that shows when it comes to downloading, opening applications in the blink of an eye and even playing video games. Accompanied by a screen to match, the Honor 200 Pro achieves very good performance in video games, with very short loading times and minimal latency.
It is also a terminal that hardly heats up even if you play for a long time. I haven’t noticed any heat after several consecutive 10-minute battle royale games of Pokémon Unite and that’s not something that all mobiles can say, not even the high-end ones.
Static tests show that the phone is high-end and that it leaves its predecessor far behind, especially in those that measure graphics performance, although in raw power it still lags behind other traditional high-end handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S24 standard.
Software: MagicOS continues as always with a new AI that I still find not very useful
In terms of software, the Honor 200 Pro runs on the MagicOS 8.0 interface, which is based on Android 14, the most recent stable version of Google’s operating system.
In general, the experience with MagicOS 8.0 is very similar to what I have experienced with previous phones with the Honor interface, with a somewhat ornate design but with smooth transitions and with the already known virtues of Android 14, such as more customization, notification flashes, more ways to share and predictive gestures to go back.
As a major novelty, Honor 200 Pro has new artificial intelligence functions, following in the footsteps of most technology manufacturers today.
One of the main things you’ll see is an app widget on the main screen that collects AI-suggested apps that change as the phone learns about your usage. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t seem very different to the classic frequent apps on other phones.
But most of the Honor 200 Pro’s AI functions revolve around the Magic Portal of MagicOS, a promising tool but one that I still see as having limited usefulness. The tutorial that Honor shows you is limited to telling you how to send text from one app to another, which may save you a few clicks but doesn’t change much compared to the clipboard.
The brand offers intelligent suggestions through its Magic Portal to facilitate actions in a predictive way, such as ordering an Uber, but in my day-to-day experience I haven’t found it useful at all so far, so we’ll have to see how the brand develops this in the future. The Magic Portal is activated and deactivated from the settings app.
Camera: a versatile configuration in which portraits stand out
Its oval-shaped camera module hides a versatile and quite ambitious image configuration which, although somewhat below what was seen in the Honor Magic 6 Pro at the beginning of the year, becomes one of the best cameras of the brand so far.
Without a doubt, the great attraction of the Honor 200 Pro in terms of the camera is the portrait feature, the result of a collaboration between the Chinese manufacturer and the professional photography studio Harcourt in Paris, known for its portraits of celebrities and influential personalities since the 1930s.
Harcourt is responsible for the three portrait modes available on the Honor 200 Pro, although its essence is particularly noticeable in Harcourt color and Harcourt black and white, with a vertical 4:3 format reminiscent of traditional cameras and an effect that I love because of its similarity to studio light with a higher contrast.
Taking portraits with Harcourt black and white mode is very easy, even for those of us who are not very good at posing, as is my case. It will be hard for you to come out looking bad, believe me.
As a third option you have the Harcourt Vibrant mode, which has a 16:9 format typical of current smartphones and although it has good results, I think it is more similar to what you can find in other current phones. The background cutout is quite accurate, as you can see in the hair, and the bokeh blur seems correct and natural to me.
Despite this, the cut-out passes with flying colors, thanks to the additional depth sensor perforated in the screen, which also enables good facial recognition.
As for the rest of the sensors, I really liked the Honor 200 Pro’s ability to reproduce very vivid and fairly balanced colors, with a very similar experience in both the main camera and the telephoto lens, although the ultra-wide angle suffers from a bit of oversaturation.
The zoom is a point on which the Honor 200 Pro does not excel too much for an almost high-end mobile of almost 800 euros to have a telephoto lens, as it remains at 2.5x optical magnification. With it, you can reach 10x quite easily, and if not I recommend that you reach the maximum, 50x digital, because the watercolor effect is excessive.
I really liked the macro mode on the Honor 200 Pro because it is one of the few currently available that works with all its sensors, not just the wide-angle that almost everyone uses nowadays, but the main camera and especially the telephoto lens allow you to get even closer to tiny details like these flowers.
It is usually one of the brand’s best camera modes and Honor 200 Pro is no exception: night mode shines especially.
Thanks to a longer exposure time, this feature helps to bring light to dark scenes or to soften bright lights at night, as you can see in the street lamps, the sign and the car headlights.
It is worth highlighting the good performance of the Honor 200 Pro when recording video, as the light input and autofocus are very good, but I especially liked how well the optical stabilization works.
And another classic feature of Honor phones is the aperture mode, which simulates the focal length of an SLR camera and is quite a cool function, as you can see, although the background cropping sometimes leaves a lot to be desired (look at the leaves).
Another interesting image function is the capture of memories, a button always available at the bottom of the camera app that, when activated, allows you to take photos automatically if it detects smiles or noteworthy moments.
Although it’s a good idea, be careful, because some camera modes are not compatible and you will have to deactivate it manually, which I found a hassle and a somewhat confusing user experience.
Battery life: lasts almost two days and its 100W fast charge is convincing
The battery is usually one of Honor’s strong points, one of the few companies that use an alternative technology: carbon silicon, which complements lithium ion. And Honor 200 Pro is no exception to this good trend.
With its 5,200 mAh capacity, its autonomy is considerably better than most mobiles in its range, something especially remarkable for a mobile with a high-end Snapdragon 8 series chip. Added to this are the MagicOS functions, which are particularly effective in protecting battery life.
After a day of heavy use, most of the time I’ve come home at night with around 50% battery. Although it doesn’t last two days of use, it’s pretty close, and if I were one of those people who push things to the limit, I might even have made it.
Its fast charging also gets top marks, with 100 W wired and 66 W wireless. The only negative point is that the power adapter is not included in the box, but in most cases it is included in the pack at no additional cost. If you have any doubts: buy it, because you can charge it 100% in about 30 minutes.
Is it worth buying an Honor 200 Pro?
For all the above reasons, I found the Honor 200 Pro a delightful mobile that, it is true, is not cheap at 799 euros, but I am grateful that it has finally arrived in Spain because it makes things difficult for the rest of the current high-end mobiles priced below 1,000 euros. It really doesn’t fail in practically anything.
With a design that divides but in the long run convinces, perhaps the curved screen despite its good quality is the aspect that can be most criticized since it is an element that is falling into disuse, but if you still like it, it is one of the few options you have left.
But above all, the Honor 200 Pro is a delight in terms of power, with a very fast and fluid performance that compares to more expensive phones and leaves its predecessors in the numerical series far behind, as well as a portrait mode developed together with Harcourt that will make your Instagram reel much more professional with minimal effort.
With a price tag of 799 euros you might have to think about it, but considering that you can already get it for 699 euros on their website and that there are probably offers throughout the year, it becomes a very interesting phone if you are looking for a complete phone that will last you, perform well and take great photos.
