If you look at the current market, most brands seem to focus a bit on their phones’ portrait prowess. Prime examples of this would be the Xiaomi 14 Civi, the Vivo V30 Pro, and even the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra to an extent. Looking at all this, the Honor 200 Pro also looks to have a bite of the pie. It does so by partnering up with Studio Harcourt.
Honor 200 Pro
Rs 57,999
What Is Good?
- Svelte, attractive design
- Fast and vivid 120Hz display
- Good charging speeds, wireless charging support
- Excellent option for portrait photography
- Good daylight camera performance, selfies
- Useful MagicOS features
- Solid performance
What Is Bad?
- Expensive
- No charger in the box
- Bloatware apps
- Could’ve done with longer software support
While cameras are its forte, the Honor 200 Pro also aims to cater to daily requirements with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 at its heart. Can it make a space for itself for Rs 57,999 when there are performance-focused, impressive options like the iQOO 12 and the OnePlus 12? More importantly, is it a good buy for you? Let’s find out in this review.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Pricing and Availability in India
The Honor 200 Pro is priced at Rs 57,999 for the 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant. The phone will be available starting 20th July at midnight on Explorehonor.com, Amazon and mainline stores. The phone will also get multiple other discounts during the Amazon Prime Day sales.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Design and Build
The Honor 200 Pro has a very classy and gorgeous design that catches the eye instantly. The monstrous pill-shaped camera module sets itself apart from a sea of other phones. It somewhat reminds me of the Oppo Reno 10 Pro+ but with more minimalism. The camera island protrudes handsomely, causing table wobbles. The matte finish at the back also has a velvety texture, which makes it susceptible to accidental slip-ups. This can be avoided if you slap on a case. Both the available colours look stunning, so using a case on it feels like a crime. The Ocean Cyan colourway has a dual-tone look with a wavy design that covers about 85% of the rear. This gives it a very elegant and unique look.
| Weight | 199 grams |
| Thickness | 8.2mm |
| IP Rating | IP65 |
| Port and button placements | Bottom: USB Type-C port, microphone, SIM tray, and speaker grille
Top: Secondary microphone, IR blaster, and secondary speaker grille |
Despite tipping the scales at 199 grams, the Honor 200 Pro barely feels heavy. The weight distribution here needs to be applauded. The curved edges at the front and rear make it easier to hold the device, even during one-handed usage. The power and volume rockers are easy to reach and provide good tactile feedback.
While the in-display fingerprint sensor works flawlessly, it’s placed a little too close to the bottom, which took me some time to get used to. The Honor 200 Pro also comes with an IP65 rating. However, considering its price, a higher rating would have offered the users more safety around water bodies. To add more context, the Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus and Moto Edge 50 Pro both offer an IP68 rating at a much lower price.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Display and Audio
The 6.78-inch display is tall and curved on all four sides. The 120Hz refresh rate also ensures a faster scrolling experience when passing your time on Instagram or other apps. You also get to switch the display to 60Hz to save up on battery. Honor seems to really like the pill-shaped design. They’ve even used it at the top of the display to fit in the selfie camera. This is also where you’ll see features like the Magic Capsule come into play (more on that later).
The Honor 200 Pro comes with a bunch of other display features such as Oasis Eye Protection. This settings tab gives you access to the Circadian Night display feature, which turns the temperature of the display warm. Besides that, you also get a Video enhancer and Smart Resolution.
| Display | Specifications |
|---|---|
| Size | 6.78-inch Quad-curved floating display |
| Type | AMOLED |
| Resolution | 1224 x 2700 pixels |
| Refresh rate | 120Hz |
| Peak brightness | Claimed: 4000 nits, Tested: 1691 nits |
| Minimum brightness | 26 nits |
| Display protection | N/A |
| Other features | Adaptive dimming, AI Circadian Night display, 3840Hz Risk-free PWM dimming |
The display produces bright and colourful content. It supports the Widevine L1 certification, so you can enjoy content on OTT platforms at full resolution. Movies like The Batman look splendid on the panel, and being an AMOLED display it handles darker scenes well. The display also gets bright enough for outdoor usage, under direct sunlight.
However, it does not come with any sort of display protection, so you better dress it up nicely with a screen protector. Thankfully, you get one pre-applied. The stereo speaker setup works as expected with clear sounds even at higher volume levels.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Cameras
With the Honor 200 Pro, the focus is on cameras — portrait photography to be more precise. And, it’s safe to say, that it does a splendid job of capturing close-up shots. While other brands are partnering with camera legends such as Hasselblad, Leica, and Zeiss, Honor has taken a different approach. It has collaborated with Studio Harcourt. It’s a French photography studio famous for its black-and-white portraits of celebrities.
| Cameras | Specifications |
| Primary camera | 50-megapixel (27mm), f/1.9 aperture, Portrait Main Camera (OIS + EIS), Super Dynamic H9000 Sensor 1/1.3” |
| Secondary camera | 50-megapixel (68mm) telephoto camera (OIS + EIS), f/2.4 aperture, 2.5x optical zoom, Sony IMX856 sensor |
| Tertiary camera | 12-megapixel (16mm),ultra-wide angle camera, f/2.2, 112-degree FOV, |
| Selfie camera | 50-megapixel(25mm) portrait camera |
| Video recording capabilities | Up to 4K at 60fps |
| Other camera features | Honor AI Portrait Engine, Professional Harcourt Portrait Modes, AI Motion Sensing Capture, and more |
The camera app is particularly easy to navigate around. It has a few settings right on the main screen with a strip at the top that lets you enable HDR mode, AI, and more. The bottom strip is where the show is at. You get different zoom levels as well, ranging from 0.6x to 2.5x as presets, but you can digitally zoom all the way up to 50x. It also has awkwardly placed a 2x digital zoom between the primary and telephoto camera, which did not make much sense to me.
The Honor 200 Pro’s main camera is a fast snapper that clicks detailed and punchy colours in daylight. You get to choose from three different modes: Vibrant, Authentic, and Natural. Weirdly enough, the Authentic mode produces more contrasty images, with a bit of vignette around the edges. The white balance of images clicked in this mode leans slightly towards the warm side. I particularly liked using this mode because of the character it added to the image.
The dynamic range is also handled neatly by the primary camera, ensuring that brighter parts of the image are not overexposed. The performance in low-light situations is also quite commendable, with the image processing doing its best to avoid noise. Night mode kicks in automatically and details are also good, but upon zooming in a bit, you might notice the watercolour effect.
The showstopper is the 2.5x telephoto camera. It clicks great photos and gives you the freedom to take more close-up shots. The colour balance between the primary and secondary cameras is also quite close, if not the same. Images have a good amount of details and the dynamic range is maintained well here too. I mostly used the 2.5x camera for shooting portraits.
The Honor 200 Pro captures excellent portrait shots, that mirror camera-level output. You get to tweak around with the Harcourt presets like Harcourt Classic (black and white), Harcourt Vibrant, and Harcourt Colour. The edge detection was beyond extraordinary, capturing consistent photos despite the lighting conditions.
The blur level is also managed well, not making the image look artificial. The Harcourt Classic mode adds depth to the images, giving it a studio-like look. I took a bunch of photos under studio lights, and the black-and-white shots came out crisp, with character. However, there were some consistency issues with some of the shots overexposing the subject’s face. This was not common, but something that happened once in every 10 photos. The other two modes are also fun to play around with and provide a vibrant appeal to the entire photo.
The ultra-wide shots are not as detailed as their primary counterparts, but the images are still good. It manages to keep the colours balanced, but there’s visible distortion at the edges.
The selfie camera also performs nicely with details, balanced skin tones, and good dynamic range. The face detection is also neat and catches on to the subject quickly. You also get to switch to 0.8x in case your friend wants to photobomb your Instagram story. Portrait mode works well here too.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Performance and Software
The Honor 200 Pro comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, the same chipset can be found on the Poco F6, Realme GT 6, and the similarly priced Xiaomi 14 CIVI. However, at its price, the phone is pitted against the OnePlus 12 and iQOO 12, both of which are performance monsters.
| Hardware | Specifications |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 |
| RAM | Up to 12GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | Up to 512GB UFS 3.1 |
| Storage Test | 103182 |
| CPU Throttling Test | 81 per cent of its max performance |
| Geekbench 6 | Multi-core – 4499, Single core – 1403 |
| Software version | MagicOS based on Android 14 |
| Connectivity details | Dual SIM, Dual-band Wi-Fi, Honor C1 + RF Enhanced Chipset, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, NFC |
While the synthetic benchmark scores of the Honor 200 Pro are good, it slightly falls behind other competitors that come with the same chipset. That said, it goes unsaid that the Honor 200 Pro handles daily tasks with breeze. Multi-tasking or switching between different apps in quick succession does not cause any stutters. The phone comes in a single variant in India, while you get multiple options outside. Moreover, it uses UFS 3.1 storage speeds, which is slower than the UFS 4.0 found in the Xiaomi 14 Civi, despite the higher price.
Gaming is also not an issue for the phone. In BGMI, you can go all the way up to Smooth and Extreme+, which gives you smooth 90fps gameplay throughout. I did not notice any sort of stutters or lags throughout the gameplay. While the back panel can get warm after an intensive session, it does not overheat and handles heat dissipation well. Overall, the Honor 200 Pro performs as expected without any problems.
MagicOS is feature-rich. The UI is very well optimised with smooth animations and appealing visuals. While those are just basic stuff, Honor is focussing more on the Magic Portal functionality. This is actually quite useful on a busy day. It essentially lets you drag a highlighted text or image onto another app like Gmail, WhatsApp, notes, and more. With this feature, I can just simply drag and drop an address from my messaging app straight into Google Maps, making it easier for lazy folks like me. You also get Air Gestures, which is a feature I find useless.
Honor has taken inspiration from Apple’s Dynamic Island for the pill-shaped cutout on the top of the screen. They call it the Magic Capsule, and it is by far the most accurate implementation. As of now, it can be used for background music and timers. I hope we get to see WhatsApp calls also included in this among other apps. The phone also comes with its set of bloatware apps including App Market. Luckily, these do not send any spammy notifications. Honor promises two years of software upgrades and three years of security patches, which is on the lower side.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Battery and Charging
Despite the slim casing, the Honor 200 Pro packs in a 5,200 mAh battery. While the PCMark Battery test was disappointing, given its battery size, my daily usage was more than satisfactory.
It can easily get you through a day’s usage with moderate to heavy usage, and a bit more if you do not use it for Bluetooth accessories and calling.
| Battery | Specifications |
| Battery | 5200mAh |
| Charging Adapter | 100W support, no charger in the box |
| Charging Time | 56 minutes |
| PCMark Battery Test | 10 hours 2 minutes |
It supports up to 100W fast charging, which can take the phone from zero to full in 56 minutes. Here’s the kicker though, you do not get a charger inside the box. The phone also supports 66W wireless charging, however, you’ll need to buy Honor’s SuperCharge to reach those speeds. As of writing this review, HTech does not sell one in India.
Honor 200 Pro Review: Verdict
The Honor 200 Pro is quite an interesting offering. While its focus is mainly on portrait photography, the phone does not shy away from providing other important features.
It’s a phone that will make you the talk of your friend’s group with its svelte design, beautiful curved displays, and solid performance that is on par with similarly-specced competitors. While gaming is not on its resume, the phone can handle intensive titles with ease and cool. Moreover, its portrait photography prowess with the help of Studio Harcourt gives it an extra edge. It’s not entirely perfect, but should provide you with amazing results.
The software requires a bit of time to grow on you, but features like Magic Portal will definitely lure in productivity folks. While the battery life is commendable on the Honor 200 Pro, skipping out on a charger at this price range is a bummer. That said, it’s great to see the phone supporting wireless charging.
Overall, the Honor 200 Pro is an easy buy for people who want a camera-centric smartphone with more emphasis on portrait photography. This could even be used in photography studios for emergencies, and I’m not even kidding. That said, at its price of Rs 57,999, it’s a bit on the expensive side. This opens up the phone to more fierce competition like the OnePlus 12, Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, and iQOO 12.
