Honor 200 Pro Review: Honourable Cameras That Are Pricey
Honor has always had a mastery of its cameras and it seems like it can now do it at lower price points. Its triple camera array is a phenomenon.
Honor's return to India was only facilitated by the fact that Huawei relinquished its share of its subsidiary, which is now run by venture capital. It was also facilitated by ex-Realme India boss Madhav Sheth's H-Tech venture, which has the licence for the Honor brand in India. So Honor doesn't have India operations of its own. This is a huge advantage and disadvantage. It is able to avoid the scrutiny other Chinese firms in India have gone through, but it also means its products are somewhat pricey because they are not made in India. The new Honor 200 Pro is symptomatic of this issue — not just on paper, but in use, there are many aspects of this phone which are exceptional and showcase Honor's engineering might, but then there are aspects which show this phone is not fully tuned for India, and there are rough edges which might be forgiven but at its price are very hard to ignore.
For starters, we are talking about a phone which exudes a very premium feel. It looks and feels like an expensive phone. Diamond-cut metal edges, a gargantuan curved glass panel and an aesthetically designed back panel made out of glass and a rather stealthy and discreet camera island. I received the matte black review unit, which feels really nice to hold from the back, though it is a wee bit slippery. This is also an IP65-rated phone, which makes it splash-resistant and not prone to damage from dust.
But this phone loses out a bit in ergonomics — the diamond-cut metal frame digs into the palms of your hands. It's like a small piece of shrapnel hidden in your mitts, which is not good at all. And when you add up the size of the phone, its ergonomics feel lopsided, especially when working in tandem with the curved glass panel on the front, which admittedly is very nice. What's strange is at 8.2mm and 199 grams, this phone is actually only a smidgen thicker and lighter than something like the OnePlus Nord 4, but it feels less ergonomic because of the lack of symmetry.
But wow, this screen is indeed gorgeous. 6.78 inches of gloriousness is stunning to behold even though it just has a full HD+ resolution. It gets ultra-bright at up to 4,000 nits of brightness. This is an exceptionally good panel on which watching films and shows is an absolute treat. The curved edges do hinder the ergonomics a bit, but that's an occupational hazard of getting a phone with this kind of a panel, but it also lends into the aesthetics of the device as it looks and feels slimmer than what it actually is.
Performance is also good on this phone. If you'd ask me about benchmarks and works that geeks would throng towards like bees to honey, then this phone isn't a spec sheet monster. It has the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chipset that we have seen before in the Xiaomi 14 Civi. It does the job reliably, but it isn't a chipset that will be rivalling the latest iPhone. It will not be even rivalling the best of Android from last year. But it enables fast performance for daily tasks that everyone does — WhatsApp, email, web browsing, photography, mild video editing and photo editing, multimedia and the works. And Honor has optimised its Magic OS so well, Android 14 feels fluid in almost a languid way, the way you'd think of Jenson Button as an F1 driver or Rohit Sharma as an ODI batsman.
You don't realise how smooth and fluid this phone is. And this never used to be a trait of Honor phones, Magic OS whose skeuomorphic iOS routines still are inherent, but back in the day it felt lethargic, now it feels languid. There is a lazy elegance to the way you navigate through the user interface which admittedly is very user-friendly without breaking a sweat. That being said, at times the software does seem buggy — the camera shutter button freezes at critical moments and you're not able to take the shot you desired.
But when the camera fires, oh boy, it shines. Honor has always had a mastery of its cameras and it seems like it can now do it at lower price points. Its triple camera array is a phenomenon. It's easy to recommend the phone if you're looking for a great camera phone under ₹60,000. This is possibly the best one for a shutterbug.
How? Well, for starters there is a 50-megapixel omnivision sensor which is the very same one that's there on the Xiaomi 14 and the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro. It has an f/1.9 aperture and an optically stabilised lens. It takes captivating photos with exceptionally good portrait shots building up the legacy of what Huawei and Honor managed to achieve in the fag end of the 2010s. The photos are often cinematic and very vivid. Natural colours may not be the forte of this camera system, but it will take photos that will make people click on the like button on Instagram. Then there is a 50-megapixel telephoto lens which does 2.5x optical zoom, another excellent lens for taking portraits in particular, much like the iPhone, but anything beyond that is not its cup of tea. There is also a 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens which takes stunning landscape shots in good lighting but its performance falls away in darkness. Thankfully, it has autofocus so it can home in on the subject pretty rapidly. Video is also an area where this phone is surprisingly good.
Of course, it can take 4K video at 30 frames per second, but it is the quality of the captured video at even lower resolutions like 1080p that makes it a very usable camera phone. The quality of the audio even in loud nightclubs was quite impressive as I was able to discern the songs that were being played in the background with little to no distortion.
Talking about selfies, this phone is unique because there are twin cameras on the front. There is a 50-megapixel sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor which again is a play towards its focus on portrait photography. And it is safe to call this phone the best selfie taker in its price segment.
As good as the cameras are, perhaps, it's the battery life that steals the show. It uses a unique industry-first 5,200mAh silicon lithium composite battery which just refuses to run out of juice. The system is so well optimised that you can potentially use this phone for 2 days on a single charge if the usage is not very heavy duty and even when the day is hectic and you have to do all kinds of things like edit video, play games and it will last you upwards of 12 hours with more than 5 hours of screen-on time. But its charging speeds are said to be even more impressive. Honor claims that a 100W fast charger which is sold separately can fully charge the phone in 41 minutes. I didn't manage to get the charger so I was charging the phone with the OnePlus SuperVOOC charger. While I didn't measure exactly how fast the phone charged on a third-party charger, it did charge fully in under an hour which is commendable. Then there is 66W wireless charging which to my knowledge is the fastest implementation of the technology in India.
Call and network quality was largely on point. I tested the phone in France, Italy and in India, Delhi NCR to be particular on a Jio SIM. There is nothing out of the ordinary to report. Call and network integrity was pretty normal and I experienced excellent call quality.
The Honor 200 Pro leaves us torn. If the phone was even priced Rs 10,000 cheaper, it would've been a slam dunk even in front of phones like the OnePlus 12R. But then the fact that its price almost touches the Rs 60,000 mark (Rs 57,999) with it having just the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3, it's a hard sell. Of course, content creators and shutterbugs who are aware of Honor's former glory under Huawei will appreciate this phone for its exceptional fundamentals out of which its camera and battery life shine like a shooting star. It really will delight photographers, but if you don't care about the cameras it will be a hard sell.
Rating: 7.6/10
