HONOR 200 Pro Review. The Best Smartphone for Portrait Photography

Today we’re reviewing the so-called sub-flagship – not the very best smartphone from HONOR (the Magic line is considered the flagship), but it’s quite capable of covering most tasks of a modern user and delivering good photos – especially portraits. Meet the HONOR 200 Pro, where the ‘Pro’ tag (there are changes without it) hints at decent hardware inside.

It is always fascinating when a device has a beautiful ‘primary feed’. HONOR 200 Pro is one of those gadgets. If the laptop from the same HONOR, which we recently tested, comes in a technical brown box, then the smartphone is packed in a stylish white box with the model name embossed in white gold in the middle and on the sides. You probably want to keep this packaging.

The smartphone itself also gives the impression of not being a cheap device at all, on which industrial designers, and not only component engineers, worked. It is worth noting that the phone seems to be aimed at a female audience. The light green casing (also called “Ocean Blue”, as the manufacturer calls it), smooth curved decorative lines on the back panel and the chrome rim of the camera unit will certainly appeal to girls. Smartphones are also available in black, white and gold.

The overall feel is complemented by the focus on the female audience and the dimensions: the phone is 75.2 mm wide, which means that girls with small hands can easily grab the gadget. The height of the device is not inferior to that of the same iPhone 14 Pro Max – 163.3 mm. It also weighs modestly, 199 g, and will not weigh down your pockets. The 6.78-inch OLED display itself is curved on all four side edges and comes out of the box in protective glass for safety. The case does not have a separate headphone jack (3.5 mm jack), but there is an IR port built in, which many manufacturers forgot about, but in vain: you can control household appliances. Also, a fingerprint scanner is installed at the bottom of the screen, it works flawlessly.

The sound is not bad, the bottom and top stereo speakers do not squeak at maximum volume and work generally smoothly: there is no feeling that one is shouting and the other is muffled. Volume, bass etc. can be fine-tuned in the smartphone settings.

The body is waterproof: the IP65 level forgives spilling tea on your smartphone, but does not guarantee underwater photography without consequences. By the way, about the cameras – they are perhaps the most important thing for which you should consider buying the HONOR 200 Pro.

The main feature of the smartphone is portrait photography. The manufacturer decided to rely on this functionality and allocate the power of the main camera for portrait photos, while usually a telephoto camera is used for this. A 1/1.3-inch 50 MP OmniVision OVH9000 sensor with a static f/1.9 lens aperture is the main module. In human terms, the phone has three cool modes for taking portraits: Harcourt Vibrant – for bright color photos; Harcourt Color – creates a more “lamp”, yellowish tint; Harcourt Classic – generates black and white portraits in the style of Hollywood stars of the 40s. In the 21st century, the fast Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor with 8 cores helps to perfect the received frames and retouch them based on internal algorithms.

And for context: Harcourt is an iconic photography studio that once specialized in shooting movie and pop stars. Marlene Dietrich, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Marais – they all posed for Harcourt’s studio cameras. With HONOR 200 Pro, you feel a moment of connection.

There is also a Sony IMX856 camera with a resolution of 50 megapixels, f/2.0 aperture, optical stabilization and 2.5x zoom. The third camera on the back is a 12 MP ultra-wide-angle camera with support for autofocus and macro photography. The front camera – 50 MP, f/2.1 – assisted by a scene depth sensor

We tested the cameras during the day in natural lighting conditions, as well as in difficult conditions of approaching dusk and against the sun, and at night. We can say that the smartphone copes with all tasks, although the photos cannot be called excellent. The detail and sharpness are high, the dynamic range allows you to shoot without overexposure and shadow blocking, the contrast and volume are good, there is no noise.

As for video, up to 4K/60 fps resolution is supported, and optical stabilization is also available when shooting with the main and telephoto cameras. The videos come out detailed, the picture is contrasty and bright, you can choose between H.264 and modern H.265 codecs. Stabilization works well – we uploaded the demo here . The only drawbacks are the inability to record 4K video in HDR; the functionality is available only in 1080p. Moreover, in terms of video recording, there are differences between the original HONOR 200 and the Pro version: the first can record videos at up to 4K/30 fps. If this is crucial for you, you should take “Prokha”.

The HONOR 200 Pro, as we have already noted, is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip. In fact, this is a slightly improved Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. However, it is in no way inferior to another common MediaTek Dimensity 9300 processor. found in smartphones from competitors. The processor is supplemented with 12 GB of RAM and a 512 GB drive. We tested the smartphone in synthetic tests Geekbench 6 and AnTuTu. Results in images.

We also ran the HONOR 200 Pro in 3dMark – Wild Life Extreme, Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, Sling Shot, Sling Shot Extreme and Solar Bay tests. The results are below.

The device works smoothly and without a hint of stuttering in the menu or when switching between applications on Android 14 with the MagicOS 8 add-on. All the necessary built-in sensors, up to the gyroscope, work stably and without complaints.

The autonomy is decent: a proprietary silicon-carbon battery with a capacity of 5200 mAh offers 7.5 hours of gaming mode. Only gadgets with less powerful processors or fundamentally more capacitive batteries have more. Using the supplied charger with a power of 100 W, the smartphone charges the battery to 100% in ±50 minutes. There is also Honor SuperCharge wireless charging with 66 W.

In games, the device does not get warm and stays warm; it is not a problem to hold it in your hands for a long time. We measured fps in PUBG, Genshin Impact and Call of Duty on medium and higher graphics settings (where you can change the values). As a result, the HONOR 200 Pro turned out to be a great performer, with a comfortable 60-90 frames per second. The smartphone is suitable for mobile games in 2024.

In summary, we can say that the HONOR 200 Pro is a good device that takes decent photos, records video in 4K/60fps, runs the latest mobile games and has a long battery life. We were perhaps only confused by the ‘girly’ decor of the case and the color palette. This could potentially narrow down the smartphone audience.

Perfect construction! A lightweight, well-built smartphone with solid hardware: it fits like a glove in your hand.