Honor 200 Series: A New Contender in the Smartphone Market

HONOR 200 Unboxing and First Impressions

HTech launched the HONOR 200 series in India earlier today. Here we have the HONOR 200. This has a quad-curved AMOLED screen, is powered by Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, has up to 12GB of RAM, 50MP rear and front cameras, both with 4K video recording and a large 5200mAh battery. Here we have the first impressions of the phone. Regarding the box contents, the unit we got is the European version, but the Indian retail version will be different, and doesn't come with a charger in the box. The company is selling the 100W charger for Rs. 2,999. The HONOR 200 packs a 6.7-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with 3D curved corners, 120Hz refresh rate and has minimal bezels. It also has 3840Hz PWM Dimming technology that minimizes flicker, reducing eye strain and ensuring a comfortable viewing experience. Since it has up to 4000 nits peak brightness, the display looks great even in outdoors and for HDR content. It has a tiny punch-hole that houses the 50-megapixel camera with Sony IMX906 sensor that supports 4K video recording. The earpiece is present on the top edge, and acts as a secondary speaker, which was missing in the HONOR 90. The phone has an in-display fingerprint scanner, and comes with a minimal bottom bezel. The HONOR 200 is powered by Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC, which is a good upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 in the HONOR 90. It has up to 12GB of RAM with addition up to 12GB of virtual RAM. It runs Android 13 with MagicOS 8.0 that has several AI features such as Magic Portal, MagicRing, Magic Capsule and more. The company has promised 3 years of software update and 4 years of security patches for the phone. You can see the glossy frame, which is plastic. The phone has a power button and volume rockers on the right side. The dual SIM slots, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the speaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is present on the top, along with the IR blaster and vents for the secondary speaker. The phone has triple rear cameras that include a 50-megapixel main camera with 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX906 Sensor, OIS, and 4-in-1 pixel binning technology. There is a 12MP autofocus ultra-wide camera with 2.5cm macro option and a 50MP 2.5X Telephoto Camera with a Sony IMX856 sensor and OIS. There are a lot of camera features such as AI video, multi video, HDR video, solo cut, story mode and lots more. Check out the camera samples below. The phone has a glass back with nice pattens on the Moonlight White model that we have. It is a bit slippery to hold, but the sides have a good grip. The phone has a 5200mAh silicon-carbon battery with AI power-saving, and the 100W Wired HONOR SuperCharge. The HONOR 200 starts at Rs. 34,999 for the 8GB + 256GB model. There are bank discounts offers, so the effective starting price is Rs. 29,999. It will be available from Amazon.in, offline stores and Explorehonor.com starting from July 12th.

Honor 200 Pro Review: Pros, Cons and Verdict | MySmartPrice

The upper mid-range segment is now brimming with camera-centric options. While players like Xiaomi and Vivo have already entered this market, Honor also wants a bite of the pie. Their recent offering, the Honor 200 Pro aims to be a portrait powerhouse while sitting in a sleek and slim form factor. 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. 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 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 a bit 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Honor 200 Pro easily goes head-to-head with the likes of the Xiaomi 14 CIVI and the Vivo V30 Pro in terms of portrait photography. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.