Honor 400 Pro: A Mid-Range Powerhouse with Advanced AI Features

I Tested the Honor 400 Pro Phone and This Feature Blew My Mind

The Honor 400 Pro phone stood out to me for one big reason during my testing time. It has an AI-powered tool that turns still images into moving video clips. The AI created videos felt at times like magic and took me on an emotional journey that I didn't expect. But this phone has plenty going for it beyond its AI skills. Its screen is bright and vibrant, it's packed with power and at £700 in the UK, it's relatively affordable and offers some serious competition to both Samsung's $650 Galaxy S24 FE and arguably even Google's $1,000 Pixel 9 Pro. The downside for many of you is that the Honor 400 Pro won't be officially on sale in the US. And that's a pity because at a time when nearly every phone release comes with AI features (most of which feel like gimmicks), Honor proves that it's possible for phone AI to really capture your attention. The 400 Pro's £700 price converts to $938. There's also the base Honor 400, which uses a lower-end processor, has a smaller display but still packs the same AI skills. It'll cost only £400 in the UK, or $537, converted. I've been testing the phone for the past week so here's what's good -- and not so good -- about the Honor 400 Pro. The 400 Pro has a 6.7-inch screen that offers tons of room to do your favorite mobile games or YouTube videos justice. It's bright enough to counter midday sun and its colors are vibrant. It's got a maximum 120Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling around look nice and smooth. The phone runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor that was a mainstay on most 2024 flagship Android phones and which put in some decent scores on our benchmark tests, considering the price. Its scores are in line with last year's Galaxy S24 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which is no surprise as all three phones use the same chip. It's got more than enough power to handle all of your everyday needs while tackling demanding games like Genshin Impact and PUBG at max settings without breaking a sweat. Navigating around the Android 15 interface is a breeze. Honor's skin of the UI is pretty standard, though I'm irked by the number of preinstalled apps the phone comes with. Temu, TikTok, LinkedIn, Booking.com, Amazon and something called ReelShort are all on the phone -- along with various others -- as soon as you turn it on making it feel quite cluttered from the off. I get that Honor probably makes a healthy bit of cash from these companies by forcing their apps on customers by default, but I'd like to see the phone be even cheaper given that it's essentially ad-supported. You can uninstall these apps and I advise you to have an immediate clear-out once you get it out of the box. Honor says the phone will receive six years of software and security support, which is quite good, though it's a year behind the seven years of security support offered by both Samsung and Google. I'd like to see Honor (and other mobile companies) continue to battle to see who can support their phones for longer -- it's better for your wallet and it's better for the planet. No phone worth its salt in 2025 would launch without some form of AI, and the Honor 400 Pro is no exception. You'll find a variety of the usual AI tools that range from a speech-to-text tool that transcribes dialogue in real time and a real-time language translation tool to a function that can rephrase, expand or summarise blocks of text. Most of these are things you'll find on most AI-enabled phones these days. They work about as well as the ones I've tried elsewhere. Google's Gemini Advanced is also built in, another standard part of the Android experience. The one feature that took me by surprise though was the image to video tool which creates a 5-second video out of a photo you provide. It's simple: Open the Image to Video tool in the gallery, choose your source image from your camera roll and hit go. It takes around a minute but then you'll be presented with an animated version of your still photo. It uses Google's VEO-2 AI model, and it seems essentially random in how it decides to bring your image to life as there are no options to provide prompts in what you want to see. Some results are quite bland while others have a lot more going on. The results can be hit and miss in their quality but it's fun to play around with, though it's arguably pointless beyond the sheer novelty of it. That said, I was conflicted when I fed it an image of my dad who died when I was a young child. Right now the tool is available as part of a "free trial" although Honor has yet to confirm how long this trial lasts or how much it will eventually cost. AI is clearly a big part of the phone and while you can use it without using any of the AI tools, it feels like you'd be missing out on a big part of the equation if you chose to. On the back is a triple camera setup consisting of a 200-megapixel main camera (yes, I did mean to put two zeroes there), a 50-megapixel telephoto camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. Shots from all three cameras can look solid, with decent overall exposure (if sometimes a little on the bright side for my taste) and plenty of detail. I say "can" as while I have taken plenty of good images with the phone, I've also taken various ones that have disappointed me. The 6x telephoto camera seems to struggle with exposure at times, with blown-out highlights visible in multiple test images I took. It doesn't happen all the time though and there have been various occasions in my testing when its results look great. I can best describe it as "hit and miss." The cameras certainly aren't the best around -- you'll need to splash more cash for the S25 Ultra or the iPhone 16 Pro if you want that -- but they're good enough for those of you looking for quick snaps on your travels to share with family and friends over WhatsApp or Instagram. Inside the phone is a 5,300-mAh battery which should see you through most of a day of mixed use. It didn't do great on our demanding battery drain test, but I've certainly seen worse. It does support 100W wired charging though so getting the juice back in is a speedy business. The phone's vibrant display, powerful processor and solid camera setup make it a decent overall option if you're looking for a phone that's more affordable than today's flagships. The AI skills are the cherry on the top, especially the image to video tool which I found genuinely fascinating to use. Will the novelty wear off? Yes, absolutely, but it's certainly fun to play with for a while.

'The very definition of photography is changing all the time': Honor's camera chief on embracing AI, exploiting the cloud, and taking on Apple and Samsung

Honor's Chief Imaging Architect, Luo Wei (left) and the Honor 400 Pro (right) (Image credit: Honor / Future) For all the acronyms and developer jargon thrown around at Google I/O 2025, it quickly became clear that artificial intelligence (AI) is - or soon will be - even more deeply embedded into the experience of Google-using consumers all over the world. If you aren't yet a believer in the promise of AI, now is the time to board the hype train. From AI-powered search engines to bespoke online shopping tools, AI feels genuinely useful in 2025 in a way that it didn't even 12 months ago. And it's only going to get more popular as public sentiment towards the phenomenon eases. Honor, for its part, has been a believer for some time, so much so that it was willing to rebrand itself as an "AI device ecosystem company" earlier this year. But where other smartphone companies are doubling down on AI's potential as a personal assistant, Honor is committed to using AI to revolutionize mobile photography, particularly at the more affordable end of the smartphone spectrum. To find out what that means, exactly, and to talk more about the price-defying camera capabilities of the new Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro, I sat down with Honor's Chief Imaging Architect, Luo Wei, who is utterly convinced that AI is - and has always been - a force for good when it comes to photography. "If we look at the history of photography, it went from film-based to digital, and now we're in the age of algorithm-empowered photography," Wei explains. "So, the very definition of photography is changing all the time. Even in film photography, films were developed in different ways with different effects. In the digital era, ISP (image signal processing) was processed in a different way by different companies, which alters the output. "The introduction of AI into photography actually began in 2016 with CNN (convolutional neural network)'s large-scale application of AI in processing images. At that time, the process was limited by traditional image system processing. Now, thanks to generative AI, the image processing goes beyond the limitations of traditional image sampling. "We [Honor] believe generative AI is very effective in improving image restoration and enhancement. Of course, in some scenarios, the algorithms deliver different [results] to what the naked eye sees. But looking forwards, we believe the output will grow closer and closer to what we see in the real world. We don't want to set any restrictions on the introduction of generative AI technologies." When Wei says "different results to what the naked eye sees," he's referring to the occasionally janky solutions churned out by software-based photography features like AI Super Zoom, which uses generative AI to 'fill in' details at 30x zoom and above on the best Honor phones. Having debuted on the flagship Honor Magic 7 Pro in January, AI Super Zoom returns on the mid-range Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro - it works at up to 30x zoom on the former and 100x on the latter - but Wei is keen to stress that the feature is being improved every day. "I agree that if you look at the current algorithms, they can generate some unrealistic details," he admits. "That's why we have some limitations as to what kind of scenarios users can activate in AI Super Zoom. Users are recommended to use AI Super Zoom when it comes to landscape and urban scenes, but not when it comes to faces and text, which our algorithm does not currently support. But the cloud-based algorithm is [being] updated every two weeks, so you can see that AI Super Zoom has significantly improved since it was first launched. "We identified that users mainly want to use telephoto photography during their travels to capture famous attractions, so we are updating our algorithms based on Lora and RAG technology. But what I would like to emphasize is that we have been upgrading our algorithm quickly to make the images more and more real, in order to better meet the needs of our consumers. [...] Also, it's hard to say that any one company can define the real world; there is no definition of the real world." Photographers might disagree with that sentiment, but Honor isn't here to kick the hornet's nest. Instead, it hopes features like AI Super Zoom will empower users to embrace photography in more situations, especially those which previously required expensive camera hardware. "With AI, we want to democratize photography, especially for users who are not skilled but want to express themselves," explains Wei. "For more advanced or professional photographers, AI can ease their burden and do some of the heavy lifting around editing. We believe that when taking pictures becomes more convenient through AI, more users will fall in love with photography, and fewer husbands or boyfriends will be scolded by their partners for being lousy photographers. Photography skills are here to stay, but for average users, we can raise the bar using AI." To bring AI-based photography features to lower-spec devices, Honor - like many other smartphone manufacturers - leans heavily on the cloud (specifically Google Cloud), which shoulders much of the processing burden for intensive generative tasks like AI Super Zoom and Image to Video. The trade-off is that the cloud can only be accessed via an internet connection, meaning Honor's best AI software features won't work in certain situations. For Wei, the pros of this arrangement outweigh the cons: "The computing power in the cloud is much greater than what's [available] on devices. In the cloud, our parameter size is about 12.5 billion for the telephoto enhancement [feature], while it's already difficult to run a model with just 3 billion parameters on-device. "We'd like to use AI to democratize photography, so by using AI we bring a great experience to mid-range and low-end mobile users. The cloud-based algorithm is decoupled from the device, so we can make continuous improvements. [...] And regarding privacy, Honor will always get consent from users for any data stored in the cloud, and we don't store any pictures uploaded by our users. They are deleted after processing." At £699.99, the Honor 400 Pro arrives as a competitor to the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE and iPhone 16, but its camera hardware - specifically a 200MP wide lens, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom - is objectively more capable than the equivalent hardware on both of those big-name devices (heck, the cheapest iPhone with a telephoto camera costs $999 / £999 / AU$1,849!). Is that a deliberate strategy on Honor's part? And does it risk denting the appeal of its highest-end models? "If I had to single out one difference between Honor and competitors like Apple and Samsung," Wei says, "we want to use AI to democratize technology and allow all users to take good pictures regardless of price point. [...] We will not deliberately limit the ability of mid-range models just to differentiate between flagship models. We want to deliver the best experience for all users. "This brings the question of what kind of hardware we should put into our flagship models so they can be really worth their price [tags]. Our idea is to develop flagship models that really stand out when it comes to AI. For example, we're working on a flagship model with 100x zoom. Going forwards, we want to wow you with our flagship cameras." It's clear, then, that Honor still believes true camera fans will be best served by the best camera phones on the market. But it's also true that casual mobile photographers no longer need to spend three figures on accessing flagship-level features. For our full verdict on the newly launched Honor 400 Pro, check out our Honor 400 Pro review.

I spent a week testing the Honor 400 Pro, and it's a powerful almost-flagship with some fancy AI tricks

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test. 'Flagship killer' would perhaps be too strident a term to apply to the Honor 400 Pro. Rather, it seeks to subtly undermine the premium crowd with competitive specifications and a slightly lower asking price. This is a well-built phone made of flagship-grade materials, with the kind of IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating that puts many a full-priced handset to shame. Its 6.67-inch OLED display, too, is about as bright, sharp, and accurate as you could reasonably expect. While you won't be getting the absolute best performance the smartphone market has to offer, you simply won't notice that Honor has opted for last year's top processor unless you take a glance at the spec sheet. The 400 Pro performs very smoothly indeed. The headline feature here is an all-new 200MP main camera, which captures good photos in a range of lighting conditions. You also get a decent dedicated 3x telephoto camera, which can be further boosted through the use of AI. Another impressive AI camera trick is Image to video, though its ability to turn stills into brief videos is a party trick that probably won't see much practical use beyond showcasing the latest artificial intelligence gimmick. No matter - the Honor 400 Pro is a thoughtfully balanced phone built on solid specifications, which includes a larger-than-average 5,300mAh battery and speedy 100W wired charging support. You also get 50W wireless charging, though both speeds are reliant on you having the necessary charger to hand. Honor's Magic OS 9.0 continues the brand's slightly tiresome obsession with iOS, and it remains a somewhat busy UI. However, it's also fast and flexible, and Honor's new six-year update promise is one of the best in the business. All in all, the Honor 400 Pro is part of a compelling group of in-betweener smartphones, offering less compromise than even the best mid-range smartphones while still costing much less money than your average flagship. It's not unique, nor is it without its flaws, but it's a very accomplished option for those willing to leave the usual suspects behind in pursuit of a bargain. The Honor 400 Pro was launched globally, alongside its brother, the Honor 400, on May 22, 2025. It won't be receiving a launch in the US, as is customary from the brand, and there are no plans for Australia at the time of writing. Pricing for the sole Honor 400 Pro model stands at £699.99 (around $930 / AU$1,450), which isn't a figure we see all that often. This pitches it well above the Google Pixel 9a and the Samsung Galaxy A56 (both £499), and just short of the Google Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25 (both £799). This isn't quite a full-on flagship phone, then, but it's also far too expensive to be classed as a mid-ranger. It's one of those 'affordable flagship' phones like the OnePlus 13R, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, or the Nubia Z70 Ultra. Incidentally, an even cheaper version of the Honor 400, the Honor 400 Lite, launched on April 22 at a cost of £249.99. With the Honor 400 Pro, Honor has dropped the distinctive Casa Milá-inspired camera module of the Honor 200 Pro in favor of a kind of rounded trapezium shape (a trapercle?). It's a little wonky-looking, though I quite like the unorthodox camera configuration. Otherwise, Honor has retained the basic look of its affordable flagship range - unlike the regular Honor 400, which has contracted a serious case of the iPhones. This means that the Honor 400 Pro retains its gently rounded look, with 2.5D glass to the front and back - the latter in a pleasingly silky-to-the-touch finish. The aluminum frame, too, curves around gently, resulting in a phone that sits comfortably in the hand. These curves also serve to disguise the fact that the Honor 400 is a fairly big phone, with a thickness of 8.1mm (the Honor 400 is 7.3mm) and a relatively heavy weight of 205g (vs 184g). This time around, Honor has fitted its almost-flagship with both IP68 and IP69 certification. That's quite an advance on the Honor 200 Pro, which only managed an IP65 rating. The Honor 400 Pro is available in just two colors: Lunar Grey and Midnight Black. Not the most inspiring selection, it has to be said, but they do look nice and professional, which is kind of the name of the game here. Honor has really knocked it out of the park with the displays in the Honor 400 range this year. In the Honor 400, you're getting a 6.7-inch OLED with a just-so 2800 x 1280 resolution and a 120Hz peak refresh rate. That's fractionally smaller than last year's 6.78-inch screen, but I defy anyone to portray this as meaningful. Not when the peak brightness has been boosted from an already-excellent 4,000 nits in the Honor 200 Pro to 5,000 nits here. This top-end figure applies to limited HDR scenarios, of course. With autobrightness switched off, I recorded a maximum brightness of around 600 nits. That's decent enough, though it's about half what the Pixel 9 can manage. Color accuracy is superb, at least when you drop the slightly over-the-top Vivid color mode and select Normal instead. The Honor 400 Pro display also supports an elevated PWM dimming rate of 3840Hz, just like the Honor 200 Pro before it. This helps reduce eye strain by lowering flicker at lower brightness levels. That's something Samsung and Google continue to overlook. The main differences between this screen and the Honor 400's relate to small aesthetic choices. The Pro Display curves away at the edges, though this didn't interfere with content in any way, nor did it lead to any unintended presses. Slightly more bothersome is the longer display notch, which crams in depth-sensing capabilities at the expense of a little real estate. If you like to take your video content full screen, you're more likely to be bothered by this, but it didn't trouble me too much. Honor has really ramped up its camera offering with the Honor 400 series this year. The headline event for the Honor 400 Pro is a new 200MP AI Main Camera, which packs a large 1/1.4-inch sensor, an f/1.9 aperture, and OIS. We'll get into the 'AI' part of that main camera soon enough, but at a basic level this camera takes sharp, contrasty shots in most situations. You can choose from three basic looks depending on whether you want your shots to look natural, punched up for social media, or to take on a certain artful film camera aesthetic. Shots from this main sensor are slightly less impressive here on a £700 phone than they are on the £400 Honor 400, which shares the same component. There's simply a lot more competition at this level. With that said, they're still more than serviceable. Unlike the Honor 400, this main sensor isn't pulling double duty to provide all of your zoomed shots. There's major assistance on that front from a dedicated 50MP telephoto camera, utilizing a Sony IMX856 sensor and aided by OIS, which grabs nice, sharp shots at its natural 3x zoom length and usable shots at 6x or even 10x. Beyond that, you'll find too much noise for this to be a viable option, though Honor's AI image enhancement technology is one of the most impressive around. Stray beyond 30x, and the phone should offer you the chance to activate AI assistance. Head back into the picture after shooting and, after a minute or so of processing time, you'll be given a much clearer shot. The results here can vary wildly in effectiveness, and it certainly does no favors to the human face, while it can really miss the target with some fine details, particularly at the 50x maximum range. However, there's no denying that this can turn out much improved hybrid zoom shots given the right subject and shooting conditions. What I will say is that this 3x telephoto camera does change the tone of the shots from the main sensor. Moving from 2x (which crops in on the main sensor) to 3x sees a slightly jarring shift from a more natural look to a more vivid, dare I say exaggerated one. It's not ruinous, but you don't get the seamless transition of the truly top-level flagship phone cameras here. The 12MP ultra-wide is the weakest camera of the three, bringing with it a marked drop-off in detail and contrast. Still, it remains a viable camera. Going back to the matter of AI, perhaps the most attention-grabbing - if not exactly useful - feature of the Honor 400 Pro's camera is Image to video. The Honor 400 series is the first to utilize this Google AI-driven feature, which essentially turns any normal still photo (it doesn't even need to have been taken on the phone) into a five-second mini-video. As with so many AI-driven features these days, the results aren't universally brilliant, but some prove to be alarmingly convincing. Using one shot that was sent to me of a chicken and a cat facing off under a table, this AI tool caused the chicken to strut forward while the cat casually twitched its ears. Another chicken scuttled in from off camera, while a second cat was revealed to be lying down behind that original chicken. Neither of those last two creatures even existed in the original shot. It's undeniably impressive, and even a little scary. But I have to ask myself when I'd use this feature beyond showing off the power of AI to my friends and family. So far, I've got nothing. The 50MP front camera takes decent selfie shots, aided by an additional depth sensor for better portraits with nicely blurred, clearly delineated backgrounds. Video capture extends to 4K and 60fps, which is another way in which the Pro stands out from the Honor 400 (which only hits 4K/30fps). Performance has ostensibly taken an incremental bump over last year's Honor 200 Pro. Out goes the stripped-back Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, in comes Qualcomm's full-fat Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. However, that Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip turned out to be much less capable than its name initially suggested, dropping behind Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in graphical terms. What we have here, then, is a phone that performs as well as the 2024 flagship crowd. That works out to be a pretty good level for a £700 phone, and indeed, this is the same component that runs the excellent OnePlus 13R. It also means that the Honor 400 Pro comfortably outperforms the entire Pixel 9 range. Benchmark results are precisely what we've come to expect from this well-established chip, as is gaming performance. Genshin Impact will run fluidly on high settings, while demanding console racer GRID Legends speeds by at an appreciable lick. The existence of the Nubia Z70 Ultra and the Poco F7 Ultra means that the Honor 400 Pro isn't top of its weight class. Both of those rivals run on the superior Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, and only charge £649 for the privilege. However, Honor's phone remains a very capable runner, backed by 12GB of RAM and a generous 512GB of internal storage. The Honor 400 Pro runs Magic OS 9.0, which is the company's bespoke Android 15 skin. It's the same basic software provision as that of the Honor Magic 7 Pro. I think I can speak for the extended TechRadar family when I say that Honor's UI isn't our favorite. Bloatware continues to blight it, with unwanted preinstallations of Booking.com, Temu, ReelShort, and much more besides. Honor itself gives you duplicate App Store and email apps, and a stack of its own tool apps. While this is a take on Google's Android, Honor seems to be far more inclined towards Apple's iOS. Everything from the split notification pane to the Settings menu and the lack of a dedicated app tray (by default) speaks to a fondness for Apple's mobile operating system. Even the icons and the Settings menu are designed in a way that will be familiar to anyone who's used an iPhone recently. You even get a version of Apple's Dynamic Island, here called Magic Capsule, which offers little widget-like bubbles of information around the extended selfie notch. With that said, it's an undeniably useful way of surfacing media controls, timers, and the like, and Honor is far from the only Android manufacturer to follow Apple's lead in this way. Indeed, Magic OS, for all its clutter and bloat, remains a very functional and extremely snappy UI. Magic Portal is a power user's dream, providing an easy way to drag text and images between apps. The knuckle gesture shortcut for circling text in this way isn't 100% reliable, but you can get used to it. Topping off Honor's somewhat mixed software provision is a commendably strong commitment to six years of OS updates and security patches. Only Google and Samsung do this better with their respective seven-year promises. What's more, Honor has committed to providing an Android 16 update before the end of 2025, which isn't something you see too often. Honor seems intent on pushing battery and charging technology in its phones. The Honor 400 Pro gets a meaty 5,300mAh battery, which falls comfortably north of the 5,000mAh average - if not quite as far north as the OnePlus 13R and the Nubia Z70 Ultra, both of which hit the giddy heights of 6,000mAh. It's sufficient to get the Honor through a full day of heavy use with remaining charge to spare. Indeed, a moderate day with around four hours of screen-on time left me with more than 60% left in the tank. Average use in a fairly consistent network environment will get you two days on a single charge, no problem. Talking of charging, Honor goes harder than it probably needs to here. There's 100W wired charging support that's seemingly able to get you from empty to 51% in just 15 minutes. I say 'seemingly' because Honor, like most modern manufacturers, no longer bundles in a charger. Without one of Honor's SuperCharge chargers to hand, I was unable to put those claims to the test. Ditto for the claim of 50W wireless charging support. It's good to see, but you'll need one of the brand's own SuperCharge wireless chargers to hit that maximum speed. The Honor 400 Pro isn't the only affordable flagship phone on the market. Here are some of the better alternatives to consider.

Honor 400 Series With 200-Megapixel Main Camera Debuts

Honor 400 series runs on Android 15-based MagicOS 9.0 Honor 400 series ships with several AI-based imaging features The standard model has an IP66-certified build Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro have been launched in select global markets on Thursday. The base Honor 400 runs on a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, while the Honor 400 Pro has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC under the hood. The vanilla model has a 6.55-inch display, whereas the Honor 400 Pro gets a bigger 6.7-inch display. They flaunt 200-megapixel rear camera units and offer multiple AI-based features. They have 5,300mAh batteries with support for 100W wired charging. The Pro model has an IP68 + IP69 dust and water resistance rating. Price of Honor 400 Pro is set at GBP 699 (roughly Rs. 80,000) for the 12GB RAM + 512GB storage model. It is available in Lunar Grey, Tidal Blue, and Midnight Black shades. Meanwhile, the Honor 400 is priced at GBP 399 (roughly Rs. 48,000) for the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant and GBP 449 (roughly Rs. 51,000) for the 8GB RAM + 512GB option. The standard model comes in Desert Gold, Meteor Silver, and Midnight Black shades. Both handsets are currently available for purchase in select global markets. Honor 400 series will be unveiled in China on May 28 at 7:30pm (5:00pm IST). The dual SIM (Nano+eSIM) Honor 400 Pro runs on Android 15-based MagicOS 9.0 and features a 6.7-inch full-HD+ (1,280x2,800 pixels) display with up to 120Hz refresh rate and a DCI-P3 wide colour gamut. The screen is touted to deliver 5,000-nits peak brightness and 460ppi pixel density. It runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with Adreno 750 GPU, up to 12GB RAM and up to 512GB storage. The Honor 400 Pro has a triple rear camera setup, headlined by a 200-megapixel 1/1.4-inch main camera with an f/1.9 aperture and OIS support. The camera unit includes a 50-megapixel Sony IMX856 telephoto camera with OIS and 3X optical zoom and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. It carries a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera on the front for selfies and video calls. Connectivity options on the Honor 400 Pro include Bluetooth 5.4, GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, NFC, Galileo, USB Type-C, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be, and OTG. Sensors onboard include an ambient light sensor, compass, fingerprint sensor, gravity sensor, IR control and proximity light sensor. The phone is IP68 + IP69 certified for dust and water resistance. It offers dual stereo speakers. The Honor 400 Pro carries a 5,300mAh Silicon-Carbon battery with 100W wired and 50W wireless charging. The wired charging technology is advertised to fill the battery from zero to 51 percent in just 15 minutes, while the wireless charging feature is claimed to charge the battery from zero to 33 percent in 15 minutes. Honor states that the battery will retain a minimum 80 percent of its original capacity even after four years of use. The standard Honor 400 has the same SIM and software specifications as the Pro model. The Honor 400 ships with a 6.55-inch full-HD+ (1,264x2,736 pixels) AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 5,000-nits peak brightness, and 460ppi pixel density. It is equipped with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset coupled with Adreno 720 GPU, up to 12GB of RAM, and a maximum 512GB of onboard storage. Honor 400 has a dual rear camera unit comprising a 200-megapixel 1/1.4-inch main sensor with f/1.9 aperture and OIS support and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with up to 30x digital zoom. It boasts a 50-megapixel selfie shooter. Connectivity options and sensors on the Honor 400 are identical to the Pro model. It has an IP66-certified build. It uses the same 5,300mAh Silicon-Carbon battery but gets only 100W wired charging. It measures 156.5x74.6x7.3mm and weighs around 184g. The Honor 400 series ships with several AI-based imaging features like HD Moving Photo, Moving Photo Collage, AI Eraser, AI Outpainting, and AI Portrait Snap, among others. It includes an "Image to Video" feature backed by Google Cloud, which can convert an image into a brief video. The series also comes with Google's Gemini AI assistant.

Honor 400 Pro review: "It's streamers, content creators, and gaming video makers who will get the most bang for their buck here"

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy. The Honor 400 Pro is the first phone I've used in 15 years that isn't made by Samsung. I owned the first ever Galaxy S phone, and ever since, I've been upgrading exclusively to the latest Samsung devices. I'm telling you this straight from the off because it's absolutely going to inform a lot of my thoughts on Honor's latest handset. For the record, I don't think it'll impact my thoughts in either direction, but if anything, it's important to know that it's been a bit of an adjustment period for me while testing. What I will say immediately is that Honor is really changing the game in terms of what a non-flagship phone can be. This brand's "Magic" product line is its star attraction, with the new 400 series taking more of a niche approach in the affordable market. Having always used Samsung's flagship devices, I've always been a little hesitant to step down into this area of the smartphone landscape, but after three weeks or so of testing it every day, and comparing it to the best gaming phones, it doesn't feel like anything less than a flagship product. For £699 for the Pro model, you're getting an awful lot of pocket power. A 200MP camera, a 5300mAh silicon-carbon AI Battery, a 120Hz OLED display, and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor are all standout features, and they amount to a great all-round package. It's no slouch when it comes to gaming either, but I think content creators are really going to be the market this phone hits home with. Giant camera arrays seem to be an inescapable part of smartphone design in 2025, with everything from the latest iPhone to the Poco F7 Pro sporting rather inelegant lenses on their backs. The Honor 400 Pro might be the most guilty of all of them, and although this has been an issue in the market for years now, it is getting a bit silly that a smartphone can't lie even close to flat on its back thanks to these massive cameras. If any modern smartphone feels like it needs a case, it's this one. A giant 200MP camera is very in your face both when you look at the device and when you hold it in your hand. I've been sent the black model to test, which has a really velvety, muted back panel on its back. The glossy, shiny camera lenses then totally juxtapose that, giving the phone a very flashy "extra" aesthetic. It's hard to really complain about a camera that overexerts itself if that's what you're coming to it for. I'll talk more about the camera capabilities on offer here in a bit, but as amazing as they are, I do think to be considered as anything more than a camera phone, Honor should try and downsize a bit. Maybe the camera feels so in your face because the rest of the phone's design is shockingly slim. Honor has opted for a silicon-carbon battery to really enhance the thin design of this phone, and it's seriously paid off. The sleek edges of the display and subtle curvature of the back plate lean into that too, creating an impressively powerful yet very slight product at just 8.1mm. The Honor 400 Pro is available in Midnight Black, Lunar Grey, and Tidal Blue, meaning you can personalize slightly. The Pro model I've tested is flanked by the 400 Lite, which arrived on the shelves a few months ago, and the mid-range Honor 400, which launches alongside the Pro SKU. For those who aren't in the know, Honor is known for making Android devices that align themselves as an alternative to Apple's iPhones. At least, Honor's version of Android, MagicOS, can certainly feel that way if you want it to. I think that comparison is a little dishonest, though, because although MagicOS isn't as open-ended as Samsung, it does have plenty of ways for you to customize it to your liking. Honor's last outing, the 400 Lite, definitely caught a lot of attention for offering similar camera specs and software features as Apple's latest iPhones. Like any phone launching in 2025, though, this thing is crammed full of AI gubbins that's impossible to ignore. There are AI editing tools for photos and videos, there are AI camera features, there's AI in the 5,300mAh battery, and there's integration with HonorAI, Gemini, and Bixby. In fact, Google Assistant is actually buried by all of this to the point where an "Ok Google" does nothing. If you hold down the power button, you don't even get a turn off or restart option come up - you get a Gemini bubble asking you "what's up". This was even the case after I removed the Gemini app from the phone entirely, so it's been annoyingly baked into the experience from the word go. I do find it a real shame that Honor felt obliged to follow the AI pied piper that's whistling its way through the phone market right now. As someone who has always been loyal to one of the biggest brands in the space, part of the reason I was now open to switching camps was because I saw where the AI obsession was taking Samsung. I completely understand that AI features are where the big tech companies are placing their bets just now, but smaller brands like Honor would be a much more appealing alternative for me if they'd just offer me the smartphone experience I've had up until this point, and check all of the additional, compulsory, and quite suspicious AI fluff at the door. Thankfully, it's not all AI doom and gloom. The Honor 400 Pro features a 6.7-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate - which is perfect for gaming and watching content on the go. With a 2800 x 1280 resolution and 500 nits worth of brightness, there's a great screen to enjoy on this phone. I particularly like the sunlight display enhancement feature, which has been particularly useful during the sunny Spring weather we've been enjoying in the UK this year. Powering that impressive light show is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile processor and a Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU, which allows this phone to be a pretty great gaming competitor. The 400 Pro runs on MagicOS 9.0, and Honor has committed just before launch to supporting it with six years of Android updates at a minimum. If you plan to use this phone for that long, you might want to opt for the Pro model, since it comes with a rather massive 512GB of storage. This is yet another reason I think the 400 Pro is going to hit home, and hit hard with content creators, because that's so much room for high-definition filming and photographing. The regular 400 version comes with 256GB, which is still going to be plenty for a couple of years of use. As much as I'd love to just review the Honor 400 Pro just in terms of its gaming prowess, it's hard to do so. That camera array really does overplay its hand, so much so that it feels like a statement of intent from Honor. This is absolutely a camera phone that can play games. This isn't a gaming phone like the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is, for example. Still, that's not actually a bad thing, because it's very difficult to find anyone these days who only uses a phone for one select purpose. Sure, you might specialize in one task over another, but the Honor 400 Pro lets you save a bit of cash versus an enthusiast-grade gaming phone (The Asus one I mentioned costs well over a grand), and get a bit of everything. So, who does the Honor 400 Pro suit best, if not mobile gaming enthusiasts? For my money, content creators are the ones who need to know about this device when looking for their next upgrade. If, by that, you think I mean TikTok makers and Instagram influencers, you're not too far off pace, but as a gaming content creator for YouTube, I'm bloody impressed with the package on offer for the money here. For reference, the best webcams, like the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra, for example, are 4K beasts with that Razer flagship offering the largest sensor ever put inside a webcam. It captures images at 8.3 megapixels even when recording at 4K 30fps. Short of going for a very pricey DSLR camera, you're going to be very hard pressed to find anything that outshoots the Honor 400 Pro's camera system. For the next video essay I make, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I swapped out the Kiyo Pro Ultra that's currently residing in my Elgato Prompter to exchange it for this phone. The camera is just ludicrously extra for what most everyday users and mobile gamers need, but at a lower price point than a lot of flagship camera-first phones, it's hard not to recommend it. It doesn't matter if I was pointing right at my Dad's cat's face, or if I was taking a massively wide landscape shot. It didn't make a difference to the quality if I zoomed in x3, and my shaky hands were disrupting things. The Honor 400 Pro produces excellent photos every time I ask it to, and I'm not even that good a photographer. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of AI features, even if being able to remove and replace things within images comes in handy. But when playing around with the camera both in videos and photos, I felt like I had enough control and that AI wasn't getting in my way. Still, if you want a pure, non-AI-diluted camera experience, maybe a DSLR is the way to go. The battery life of the Honor 400 Pro is impressive. Coming from a three-year-old Samsung Galaxy S22+, it was hard to ignore such a strong battery life that lasted me well over a day when I began testing the 400 Pro. I do think there's more etiquette to be wary of here, though, because Honor has opted for the type of battery it has. This isn't one to leave on charge at 100% for longer than you need to. To begin with, I was getting down to only 60% at the end of a full day of use, but now, a few weeks on, I get down to about 40% at the end of one day. Fortunately, some AI features learn from your usage and charging habits to optimize things for you, so take a look at these things if you get one for yourself. Either way, I'd argue that a phone this powerful that can last well over 24 hours is a good thing. Although I still think there are more quality of life wins and a couple more convenient features in Samsung's OS, MagicOS has impressed me. As someone who has never enjoyed Apple's iOS, I was a tad worried that this version of Android was going to feel a bit too close to Tim Cook's door. I was happy to see plenty of options and layout settings at my fingertips, though, and although it took a little while to find things and adjust, I'm happy with the way my phone is now set up and how it all runs. I do think there's room for improvement, though. The feature where you swipe down the way on your homescreen is needlessly complicated compared to Samsung's phones, for example. It sort of feels like it's being different for the sake of it. Swipe down on the right-hand side of your screen, and you'll get your phone's settings and quick functions like device connections, brightness, torch, and aeroplane mode. To see your notifications and other reminders, you swipe down on the left. With Samsung, wherever you swipe down, you get a consolidated menu where you can access everything. This is a small example, but there are a few things like that with MagicOS that I don't feel really provide enough help to really warrant being rooted in. Gaming benchmarks via 3DMark are pretty impressive for a phone that isn't trying to make this its go-to use case. As you'll see from the graph, the Honor 400 Pro slots above the Poco F7, but below the more specialist range of gaming-oriented phones. For an all-rounder that really puts an emphasis on its camera, that's great value for money for anyone who spends a lot of time playing games natively on their mobile device. In Call of Duty Mobile, I was pleased to see a pretty smooth gameplay experience, and Honor's gaming bar let me give it an FPS boost that didn't seem to kill too much clarity. In cloud streaming games, the bright and vibrant display was perfect for portable gaming on a smaller device. If anything, I actually felt as though the Cloud Streaming services I was using weren't giving me enough juice to make the most of this phone's smooth clarity. Both in nostalgic 2D platformers like Celeste, and in more graphically dense games like Far Cry and Hunt: Showdown, the Honor 400 Pro conveyed every detail with ease. It sounds strange to say, but I like the USB-C port on the bottom of this phone, too. Compared to my older Samsung phone, it was so easy to slot the 400 Pro into the best mobile controllers and have them feel secure. Although I do wish the sound quality from the speakers was a little better. They're plenty powerful, but they really feel lacking in detail when at lower volumes, and when you do boost them up, the higher frequencies really pierce through and can feel a bit uncomfortable on the ol' eardrums. I think that if you're coming to your next phone upgrade looking for a decent camera, you're going to be missing out if you don't consider the Honor 400 Pro. This is easily a camera phone first and foremost, but it's not one that will be an extravagant waste of money for those users who might not need such a solid quality camera. There's great versatility and solid gaming performance to be had here which I think anyone who plays on the go will appreciate. The innards and display both lend themselves to mobile gaming. That said, I think it's streamers, content creators, and gaming video makers who will get the most bang for their buck here. With such an excellent camera in their pocket, they'll be consolidating costs of other parts of their setup, and as someone who reviews the best gear for streaming, that's always going to be a win in my book. I used the Honor 400 Pro as my phone for close to a month before this review was written. In that time, I used it for everything from work, to general scrolling, to photography, to voice and video calls. I also used it for plenty of gaming, both natively and streamed from the cloud. I also put it through some formal benchmarking in 3DMark. I compared my experience closely to my decades of using Samsung phones, and to the gaming phone reviews my colleagues have done recently. For more on how we test the latest tech, check out the full GamesRadar+ hardware policy.

My test found the Honor 400 Pro's image to video AI a bit freaky, but I still think it's a fantastic mid-ranger | Stuff

A little less pre-installed bloat should be standard at this price Honor's mid-season smartphone launches have been blurring the line between mid-range and flagship for a while now. The formula is largely the same: show up roughly six months after the firm's tip-tier Magic model, packing the sort of spec you'd usually expect to pay a lot more for. The Honor 400 series also continues the firm's trend for starting with a cut-price Lite version, before following it up with a more potent bigger brother. The Honor 400 Pro feels like a very different proposition to the Honor 400 Lite, though. The iPhone-imitating styling is gone, replaced with more a bespoke look; photography is even more of a focus, with an extra-large helping of AI; and the price has put it closer to big-name rivals - while still staying the right side of affordable. At £699 (there's no US release planned, as is usual for Honor) it undercuts the Google Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25, and slips between the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16. With hardware that has all three beat in places, could it be 2025's first genuine upper-midrange model surprise? My first thoughts after taking the Honor 400 Pro out of its box? "Now this is more like it." I'd been disappointed by the 400 Lite's "Me too" styling, which tried way too hard to be an iPhone at pocket money pricing; the Pro feels far more unique, with a slightly rounded frame, subtle quad-curved glass up front, and a distinctive rear camera housing. There really are three sensors underneath the three lenses this time, and it's glass on the rear rather than polycarbonate, which wraps neatly into the frame. OK, Lunar Grey and Midnight Black aren't the most exciting two colour choices, especially compared to some of Honor's more out-there offerings lately, but the materials feel suitably luxe for the money. Honor hasn't included the AI camera button found on the 400 Lite, which only further highlights how different the two phones are, despite sharing a name. I feel it would've made a lot of sense to bring it back here, given the better camera setup; maybe next year. At 8.1mm it's not the slimmest mid-ranger around; nor is it the lightest, tipping the scales at 205g. But it sits very comfortably in the hand and those subtly protruding camera lenses mean it slips easily in and out of a trouser pocket. It's also impressively durable, with both IP68 and IP69 resistance ratings. Protection from high pressure water jets probably isn't something you'll need on the regular, but it's still nice to have in a phone that doesn't cost four figures. Honor has brought back its secure face recognition, via an iPhone-esque pill-shaped screen cutout, and also offers fingerprint biometrics from an under-display sensor. I liked having both configured, so I could quickly skip the lock screen regardless of lighting conditions or the angle I was holding the phone. Both worked quickly and accurately enough. The 400 Pro's bright and colourful AMOLED screen isn't a huge step down from the flagship Magic 7 Pro's. It's ever-so-slightly smaller at 6.7in, but has the same 2800×1280 resolution, and Honor has carried over the subtle 2.5D glass as well. This doesn't reflect light anywhere near as much as a properly curved-edge screen would, yet feels more in keeping with modern phone design trends - without being a carbon copy of any flat-screened rivals. Viewing angles in general are fantastic, and given its an OLED panel underneath contrast is understandably rather brilliant. Black levels are suitably deep and inky, and the 120Hz refresh rate ensures scrolling is as smooth as silk. Streaming content was a pleasure to kick back with, particularly shows shot in HDR. Those really let the 400 Pro's extreme peak brightness shine. 5000nits is about as good as it gets in the phone world, although that figure only counts a tiny portion of the screen at a time. The phone doesn't get anywhere near as bright in everyday use, but I couldn't fault it for outdoor visibility. Even on especially sunny days, I could clearly see what was onscreen. It fared well against the impressively potent Google Pixel 9 XL, which costs considerably more. It's great to see all of Honor's usual eye comfort tech included here. As well as dialling out extra blue light, the phone supports high frequency dimming and automatically adjusts its colour temperature to lower eye fatigue. The defocusing mode softens the screen edges to help here too, which is something you won't find on rival Androids. I liked how dark the extra dim settings gets for night-time reading, too. The Honor 400 Pro's speakers put in a strong showing, with the earpiece tweeter and down-firing main driver delivering more than enough volume for headphone-free listening. Sound is generally clean and clear, with the usual lack of bass I expect from any phone speaker setup. On pixel count alone, the Honor 400 Pro looks formidable. There's a 200MP lead snapper (with optical image stabilisation, naturally), backed up by a 50MP telephoto (also with OIS) equipped for 3x optical zoom. The 12MP ultrawide leans more mid-range, but also doubles as a macro shooter with a very short 2.5cm focus distance. A 50MP selfie can up front completes the set. Sensor cropping expands the camera's reach from 0.6x to 6x before digital zoom properly comes into play, and you're offered a trio of colour modes. These either give your snaps authentic, natural-looking hues, more vivid and highly saturated shots, or an analogue film-style treatment that ups the vignetting and strips out a little warmth. I liked experimenting with them on the Magic 7 Pro at the start of 2025, so it's great to see them return here - even if a lot of owners are likely to pick one of the three and rarely stray from it. Most of my shots were taken in Vibrant mode, which is selected by default. Honor's partnership with Studio Harcourt has also returned for the portrait mode, for moody black-and-white snaps that do a pretty decent job of preserving loose hairs and finer edge details. Algorithms are just as important as pixels, of course, and for the most part the Honor 400 Pro delivers. The lead lens captures a glorious amount of detail as you'd expect, along with convincing and vibrant colours. Colour and exposure consistency between it and the other two lenses is rather great too, if not quite up there with the class leaders. Dynamic range isn't quite as wide as some rivals can manage, leaving some of my most brightly-lit scenes looking a bit washed out as HDR processing exposed for both highlights and shadow detail. Outside of extremes, though, it held up rather well across all three lenses. The ultrawide definitely shows a detail drop-off compared to the other two, and the edges of the frame aren't super-sharp, but its narrow minimum focus distance meant I got some rather tidy close-up shots. I was genuinely impressed with the clarity of the zoom at 6x, too. In some cases I thought the colours were more convincing and the contrast more true-to-life than 3x shots taken from the same spot, despite cropping the sensor to achieve them. It quickly became my favourite 'lens' for travel snaps, so long as my subjects were far enough away from me. I'd sooner reach for this than a Galaxy S25. Honor's AI Super Zoom can take over beyond 30x, as it could on the Magic 7 Pro flagship. Your shots are optionally sent to the Cloud for processing, and come back either looking like someone took a decent stab at adding detail the sensor couldn't capture, or more like a poster illustrated version of what you saw in the viewfinder. Even without AI, there's clearly a lot of smoothing and noise reduction going on to create a usable image. There's still a bit of work to do in low light, where the colour disparity between lenses seems stronger and the ultrawide quickly runs out of pixels to preserve fine detail. The other two hold up well for contrast and exposure, though, and aren't far off the class leaders. Honor is also all-in on AI image editing at this point, and is first in line to bake support for Google's Leo Cloud processing straight into its gallery app. On top of the generation image expansion, smart subject cutouts, reflection and background object removal it could do previously, you now get AI image to video. There are a few limitations, like using single subjects and it rejecting blurry snaps, but it needs just a few minutes to turn a single static image into five seconds of video. These aren't basic clips, either: as well as animating your subject, it adds camera pans, zooms, and drone-like aerial climbs. Naturally you'll have to pay for this functionality at some point - it's labelled as a 'free trial' on my review unit. Honestly, it's freaky stuff at times: some of my test snaps looked incredibly convincing. A few were clearly AI slop, with nonsense creations and artifacts appearing mid-scene. You've also got no input over the camera movement or what your subjects are animated to perform. There's a fun side to it, but I can't ever imagine forking over cash to be able to use it. Honor usually saves big updates to its Android skin for flagship phones, so the 400 Pro arrives running the same MagicOS 9 software as the 400 Lite and Magic 7 Pro I tested at the start of 2025. It's based on Android 15, though a lot of the styling feels very iOS-inspired. All your apps get spread over multiple home screens by default, notifications and quick settings are on separate pull-down menus, and a few of the icons look pretty familiar. There's the usual extensive selection of own-brand apps, with dupes for most of Google's defaults (which are hidden away in a folder). I was also a little disappointed my review unit had so much pre-installed third-party bloat; it's a pretty common move on budget models, and was excusable on the sub-£250 Honor 400 Lite, but less so on a phone that costs a fair bit more. Your mileage may vary as the phone will be set up differently for different regions, admittedly, and it's only the work of a minute or two to erase them if you're not a fan. With a whopping 512GB of onboard storage, it's not like you're short on space right out of the box either. Magic Portal is quickly becoming an Honor standout, letting you drag images or text to the side of the screen to bring up contextual actions and relevant apps. Highlight an address and Google Maps shows up at the top of the sidebar that appears. It's a handy way for opening two apps in multi-window, too. I'm in two minds about the Apple-like Magic Capsule, which puts music controls, call timers and alarms around the pill-shaped camera cutout. Yup, it's Dynamic Island - except far more limiting, with no third-party app support. I'd love Honor to open up the API to app developers, or at least integrate more of its stock apps. The firm gets a thumbs up for its long-term update support, though. Honor flagships get seven years of Android versions and seven years of security updates now. The 400 Pro isn't quite a flagship, but six years of each is still a great showing, and puts it just behind the likes of Google's Pixel 9 and the Samsung Galaxy A56. Of course it's all the AI additions that Honor is putting the biggest emphasis on this year - and why not, given everyone else is doign the same. A lot of the various tools use Google Gemini, so of course you get Circle to Search, the Gemini voice assistant, and Gemini Live conversational AI. The writing tools, live language translation, voice transcription and subtitles are all par for the course, too.I wouldn't say they're better or worse than any rival offering, currently. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside the Honor 400 Pro isn't quite cutting edge today, but you don't have to go too far back in time to the point where it was Qualcomm's class-leading silicon. Paired with a healthy 12GB of RAM, it means this phone feels every bit the high-end hero, with a near-unflappable Android experience for the most part. Apps open in a blink, multitasking is no sweat, and even demanding apps run smoothly. It's not quite so fast in synthetic benchmarks, as single- and multi-core scores of 2046 and 6463 in Geekbench 6 show; flagship rivals with Snapdragon 8 Elites are some 2000 points quicker on the multi-core test. Single-core grunt is greater than Razr 60 Ultra flip phone, though - showing what a difference effective cooling can make on performance. At no point in real-world use did I feel like I needed any extra oomph. Gaming was a similar story. The 3Dmark Solar Bay test churned out a score of 7665, again putting it some distance behind the fastest phones on sale today - but not so much that games from the Play Store weren't nigh-on flawless. Horror fishing adventure Dredge isn't asking an awful lot of the GPU, so it was no surprise I saw perfectly smooth gameplay, but Genshin Impact was also stutter-free. You're in no way getting a sub-par processor for your money here. I like that the 400 Pro continues Honor's streak of offering plenty of on-board storage, too. You get 512GB as standard here, while rivals only offer 256GB - or in some cases just 128GB. Honor also puts its competition on blast when it comes to battery capacity. Admittedly the Pixel 9 and Galaxy S25 are both physically smaller phones, but there's a big gulf between their meagre cells and the 400 Pro's 5300mAh unit. Chinese brands have been quick to adopt silicon-carbon tech, and it has made a big difference to this phone's staying power. I comfortably lasted through full days of heavy use without having to plug in, and two days was achievable with lighter use. That's an excellent showing for a phone that's otherwise so capable everywhere else. I was never waiting around for the phone to charge, either. The 400 Pro supports 100W top-ups from a compatible power brick, so I could complete a full refuel in under ah hour. Wireless charging is impressively speedy at 50W, too, though compatible charging plates are a little rarer. In just a few short years, Honor has transformed its upper-midrange phones into true mainstream flagships. The 400 Pro can comfortably rub shoulders with Google and Samsung's mass market models, thanks to its capable rear camera trio, high capacity battery, and impressively wide-reaching software smarts. Not everyone wants their photo galleries filled with AI-adjusted images, and Honor still needs to remember customers paying this sort of cash have a lower tolerance for pre-installed bloat. But the colourful screen, modern (yet still unique) styling and slightly more affordable price make it a genuine alternative for those who aren't obsessed over brand names.

I tested Honor's latest 400 Pro model against the flagship Magic 7 Pro series

Honor's new AI smartphone is seriously impressive, but how does it measure up to the flagship Magic 7 Pro series in terms of image quality? If you aren't familiar with Honor, then it's about time this company made it onto your radar. It not only manufactures some of the best camera phones that I've ever used and tested, but it also aims to be innovative with each new product launch, while establishing itself as an affordable rival to Apple and Samsung. I've been a fan of Honor tech for several years now, and I quickly fell in love with the Honor Magic 7 Pro when I was given the opportunity to test it out earlier this year by shooting in Slovenia (it gave my Samsung S24 Ultra a run for its money). This month, Honor has launched its latest camera phone, the 400 Pro model, and I have to say that as a photographer - I'm seriously impressed with its camera quality. There's a bit of a price difference between the Honor Magic 7 Pro (£1,099.99) compared with the latest 400 Pro (£699.99), so what's different? The Magic 7 Pro has much better specs on paper, with a more powerful chipset and GPU, fancier camera upgrades with a 50MP ultra-wide lens, and the display is 0.1 inches bigger too. But there are a lot of similarities between these models, especially in the camera department, making the 400 Pro a strong mid-range contender as one of the best budget camera phones (under £1K) that you can buy right now. Take a look at the image sliders and galleries below to see how the new Honor Magic 400 Pro stacks up against Honor's previous Magic 7 Pro flagship. Or you can take a look at our picks of the best iPhones for photography if you're an Apple devotee. Also, check out my camera phone shootout where I pitted last year's Honor 200 Pro (2024) model against my S24 Ultra during a sunny afternoon in London. During today's camera phone shootout, I headed to the beautiful Botanical Gardens in Bath, Somerset, to specifically test out the zoom, aperture, and super macro capabilities of these two Honor smartphones. It was hammering down with rain for most of the shoot, but I didn't mind one bit, as this gave me a better opportunity to shoot raindrops on leaves, without too much natural light interfering. To keep things fair, I stood in the same spot, used the same aspect ratio (16 by 9), and the same les/ settings for each test image shot. I found that to make the most out of the Honor 400 Pro for most shooting scenarios, I needed to be using the High-Res mode for the sharpest results. For macro and landscape shots, I absolutely loved using the Aperture shooting mode, as this let me experiment with the depth of field, and add a tilt-shift style focus to otherwise boring images. The main focus of this camera phone shootout has been macro, wildlife, and landscape imagery, but check out Rankin's 8 steps to Smartphone Photography Success (using the Honor 200 Pro) if you're seeking some excellent tips on shooting portraiture with a smartphone. The new Honor 400 Pro comes equipped with an impressive 200MP f/1.9 main camera, a 50MP telephoto with 50X digital zoom, and a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. In comparison, the Honor Magic 7 Pro boasts a 50MP f/1.4-2.0 Main camera with an H9000 ultra-large Sensor, meaning it can take in a lot more light, as well as a mega 200MP periscope telephoto lens with 100X digital zoom, plus a 50MP f/2.0 ultrawide camera. Both cameras are equipped with Honor's impressive AI super Zoom technology, which uses upscaling to fill in any missing details to create a quality image result. I found that this AI feature definitely needs a bit of work, but being the first of its kind, I applaud Honor for being innovative and attempting to include it. While the Honor Magic 7 Pro has the better camera system out of the two, a lot of the time it was very difficult to tell the images captured on both devices apart, and the mid-range 400 Pro model comes very, very close to the image quality produced by the Magic 7 Pro flagship. For smartphone shooters who care more about photography than having better hardware tailored to gaming and editing, the Honor 400 Pro is a superb and more affordable choice that helps cut costs without compromising on camera performance. If I had to pick a winner, it would be the Magic 7 Pro, but I really didn't notice any major differences between these two camera phones, and as you can see from the image galleries above, the 400 Pro captured some excellent macro shots. The Honor 400 Pro still gets a 9/10 from me for its performance, image quality, AI tools, and general use - and I'd highly recommend it for those needing a quality camera phone. My full review of the Honor 400 Pro is in progress, so stay tuned.

I've been playing around with the latest Honor 400 Pro - and I think this AI camera phone is next-level

It's made an amazing first impression, and I only unboxed it two hours ago. As a photographer, I've tried and tested at least 60 of the best camera phones over the last few years, and it usually takes quite a lot to impress me. With that said, I've been a fan of Honor tech for several years now, and this company should seriously be on your radar if it isn't already. Honor's latest camera phone (announced today) is the Honor 400 Pro 5G, and I'm really excited about this series and its industry-leading AI photography innovations. (Psst - Honor is offering a limited time £150 discount on the new Honor 400 Pro - just use code A400PUK150 at checkout to bring the price to £549.99. Not for you? Take a look at our guide to the best budget camera phones for more options). In complete honesty, I only unboxed this phone a few hours ago, but in the short time that I've spent shooting with the Honor 400 Pro, I'm convinced it's set to be one of the best camera phones of 2025. I had pretty high expectations already for this latest flagship, given that the last Honor camera phone I used gave my Samsung S24 Ultra a real run for its money, in a camera phone shootout capturing stunning Slovenian Alps. That's not the first time an Honor camera phone impressed me either, as the Honor 200 Pro series (which is endorsed by world-famous photographer, Rankin) also put up a great fight against my Samsung when photographing museum artefacts and London landscapes. Take a look at the sample images I captured below using the Honor 400 Pro, which you can purchase directly from Honor right now for £699.99 (512GB model). Let's talk a bit about what makes this AI camera phone so impressive. The Honor 400 Pro comes equipped with a quality 200MP Ultra-clear AI main camera right out of the box, and just like its siblings, this phone makes use of an advanced portrait algorithm, plus Studio Harcourt filters to help you capture professional-looking portrait shots with no editing necessary (I actually saw a live demo of Rankin shooting with these filters using the Honor 200 Pro series). In addition, you get amazing macro and super macro quality thanks to the 12MP ultra-wide and macro camera settings for shooting close-up shots of insects, flowers, or in this case, cactus spikes, as you can see in the examples above. For things a bit further away, Honor has developed an industry-leading AI super zoom feature that lets you zoom in up to 50x, and it uses AI to enhance the clarity and fill in any gaps to produce a clear telephoto shot. Honor is clearly trying to compete with bigger smartphone rivals like Apple and Samsung with these camera features, and I love that it's aiming to make tech more affordable too. I'm also the proud owner of the Honor MagicPad 2 tablet (the first product I ever purchased after reviewing it), and the main reason that I love this tablet so much is not only its beautiful OLED screen, AI features, and excellent performance, but the shockingly budget-friendly price at only £399. I even preferred this tablet over the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, and for me, that's really saying something. The Honor 400 Pro seems to be kicking things up a notch, and has features I've never used before - including a new 'AI Image to Video ' feature utilising Google Cloud, which explores different possibilities of image generation when using the HD Moving Photo (live photos) feature. There's also a super cool 'Moving Photo Collage' feature, which is a first-of-its-kind tool that allows users to combine 2-9 moving photos and seamlessly stitch them together into a video collage. Hang tight for my upcoming Honor 400 Pro review, which should be landing in the next few days. For now, take a look at the Honor deals I've rounded up below.

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is one of the best camera phones I've ever tested

Why you can trust Creative Bloq Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. I'm excited to finally be sharing my thoughts on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, which is one of the best camera phones I've ever tested. I should mention that I first got my hands on the Magic 7 Pro earlier this year, when Honor invited me on a press trip to the stunning town of Bled in Slovenia. The company cleverly selected excursions for us to partake in that really showed off the uniqueness of this phone (like shooting from the peak of a mountain and running over the phone with a quad bike to prove its durability). However, after returning home from Slovenia and handing the phone back, I requested to have another review sample sent over and to spend a little extra time with the Magic 7 Pro to fully review the camera hardware and offer a completely unbiased verdict on this latest flagship. In short, it offered exceptional all-around performance and produced high-quality photos with a few tricks up its sleeve. I quickly fell in love with the 50MP main camera, as well as the 200MP telephoto camera on this phone, and as a diehard Samsung fan, it's been hard to ignore the similarities between the Honor Magic 7 series and the Galaxy S24 series. The performance is pretty close, and I even tested the Magic 7 Pro against my current Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in a fun camera phone shootout while in Slovenia. Stick with me during this review as I dive into my experience testing the Honor Magic 7 Pro, with a focus on its camera performance above all else. If you're interested in some more camera phone recommendations, see my picks of the best budget camera phones (all under 1K) for some affordable suggestions, or take a look at our guide to the best iPhones for photography if you're loyal to Apple. * £1,099.99 in the UK * Not available in the US or Australia The Honor Magic 7 Pro is kind of competitively priced, yet still falls into the premium flagship category. I do think the £1,099.99 price tag is a little high, but we occasionally see this drop to £999 during promotional sales periods, which is instantly more fitting. Considering that Honor is still a relatively unheard-of brand to a large chunk of consumers, it seems ambitious to be charging a premium price like this. For comparison, the Samsung S25 Ultra is priced at £1,249 (only £150 dearer), and the iPhone 16 Pro has an RRP of £1,199 (only £100 more), so given the choice, consumers unfamiliar with Honor may opt for more household names instead. I do think the Magic 7 Pro is good value and offers a lot for its price, with great performance and a superb battery life. The AI features are just as advanced as you get with Samsung alternatives, and I have no complaints in the camera department either. Value score: 3/5 * Excellent camera quality in general * Advanced suite of AI editing tools * AI Super Zoom feature is innovative * Ultra-clear AI-enhanced Studio Harcourt Portrait styles If you're a photographer or content creator, then you won't be disappointed with the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera system. It has a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera, a 200MP telephoto camera, and a high-res 50MP selfie camera (with autofocus). The feature that I've absolutely loved testing on this phone is the super macro and aperture camera modes, which can capture impressively sharp macro images with a beautiful bokeh and blurred depth of field that gives my Sony A7III and 90mm Macro G lens a run for its money. I tested this out very recently by pitting the Magic 7 Pro against the new Honor 400 Pro model in a macro camera phone shootout. As I mentioned earlier, my first experience shooting with the Honor Magic 7 Pro was in Slovenia, and I managed to capture one of the most beautiful photos I've ever taken on a smartphone using this camera phone. It was a landscape shot of Lake Bled shot as the sun was setting for the evening, and I used RAW mode to ensure that every detail was captured true to the scene. One thing about the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera quality is that it can sometimes get too overpowered and overprocessed by AI. There is the option to fine-tune this or turn it off completely in the phone settings, but I think it's a great benefit for those seeking Instagram-ready shots with minimal effort, while smartphone shooters who prefer to make their own adjustments in post can still benefit from shooting RAW and in High-res mode. The standout feature of the Honor Magic 7 Pro is arguably the new 200MP telephoto camera combined with AI Super Zoom features. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this feature, as some examples are extremely impressive while other attempts can be a complete flop with an AI result that resembles a watercolour painting. I tested this feature out the most from my hotel balcony in Slovenia, and found that it didn't quite hit the mark the first few times I experimented with it. In any case, I applaud Honor for even trying to implement this as an AI feature, as I don't see Samsung or Apple trying anything this innovative with its camera modules. Take a look at the sample images below to see the results from testing the Honor Magic 7 Pro's 200MP telephoto camera all the way to 100X digital zoom. The last camera feature of the Honor Magic 7 Pro that I want to highlight is the Studio Harcourt portrait filters and styles that were first introduced with the Honor 200 Pro series (I attended the launch event for this phone in Paris last year). If you like shooting portraits of others, then this feature will be a game-changer for you. In fact, it's so good that world-famous photographer Rankin hosted a live session demonstrating how to use this feature on the Honor 200 Pro series, and also shared his 8 steps to smartphone photography success with us too. I could go on all day about how amazing the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera unit is, but this review would get too long. I think I'd also rather let the image gallery below speak for itself. All of these images have been uploaded straight from the Magic 7 Pro with no editing or post-processing applied (except for the cases where I used Studio Harcourt filters, which are edited and enhanced at capture). The Honor Magic 7 Pro is more than just a pretty smartphone. I was sent the Lunar Shadow Grey model for testing, and while it has a gorgeous marble-style casing that shimmers in the light, it's also pretty indestructible. It can not only withstand extreme temperatures (including the freezing -30 conditions atop Vogel mountain in Slovenia), but has also been certified as 5-star drop resistant and IP-rated to withstand water and dust. This Honor device is not marketed as a rugged phone, unlike others I've tested, such as the Doogee S200, but it could be an excellent choice for more adventurous types or those with active lifestyles who like to jump off cliffs and swim with sharks. The Honor NanoCrystal shield coating on the Honor Magic 7 Pro makes it virtually indestructible, and a group of us witnessed it survive being run over by the wheels of a quad bike, multiple times, while screen-down on a concrete path. This phone is so well-protected that you could use it worry-free without a case or screen protector. It's not just the standard Honor Magic 7 Pro that looks gorgeous either, but the company also produced a Magic 7 Pro RSR model in collaboration with Porsche (see above). This phone looks insanely elegant in person, with a hexagon-style camera design on the back. I had the chance to sit down and interview Tobias Hüttl, the Head of Design over at Porsche, to learn all about this unique Honor smartphone collab. Most of the testing I've done with the Honor Magic 7 Pro has been less gaming-related and more general use, browsing, AI assistance, content creation, and photo editing - so these are the points I'm going to be focusing on in this performance review section. For starters, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to use new Honor features like the Magic Portal, which lets you bring across information from one app to another, such as locations, text, links, and photos. I didn't think I'd get much use out of this tool, but I've also been using it with my Honor MagicPad 2 tablet as well, and it can come in really handy. Honor has what it calls its Magic Ring ecosystem, which I've also been using to share files and photos from the Magic 7 pro to my MagicPad 2 tablet. It's quick, easy, and feels very familiar. As a Samsung user primarily, I've noticed a lot of similarities between the Honor Magic 7 series and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and both device families now share AI features such as live translations, AI transcribing, and note assisting, which came in very handy while I interviewed people at a keynote in Slovenia. The Magic 7 Pro also relies on Google Gemini as an AI voice assistant and benefits from functions like Google's Circle to Search feature (first introduced with the S24 series). While I don't necessarily think I could jump ship from Samsung to Honor tech altogether (excluding my MagicPad, which is one of the best purchases I made last year), I'm really surprised by how easy it is to get adjusted to Honor's Magic OS 9 as an existing Android user. However, Apple devotees may struggle a little at first. No matter what task I did on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, it handled everything perfectly. Video editing with CapCut was a breeze, the battery life was impressive, and only needed charging once a day, if that. The sound quality was great too when watching YouTube, and the included NPU chip assisted performance when running multiple apps so I never experienced any lag. I think the performance may have even been better than my Samsung S24 Ultra at times, which suffers from poor battery life and lag on occasion (this also seems to be reflected in benchmark scores below). Feature score: 4/5 Performance score: 5/5 * Android users who like things a little bit different * Photo and video enthusiasts The Honor Magic 7 Pro is an excellent smartphone for those who like to get really stuck in with photo editing and image adjustments, thanks to Honor's advanced AI editing suite. You know that statistic that floats around that most people only use 20% (or something similar) of their smartphone capabilities, especially the camera features? It's a lot like that with the Honor Magic 7 Pro, and you could spend hours tweaking every single setting and playing around with each imaging tool to really get the most out of this phone camera, which some will thoroughly enjoy. If you're looking for an Android smartphone that offers something a little different, with fun widgets, a Magic Portal for connecting apps, and plenty of unique features compared with Samsung and other brands, then I think you'll love what the Honor Magic 7 Pro has to offer.

Portraits, productivity and price: Why the new AI-powered HONOR 400 Series appeals

Images: Supplied In a fast-evolving smartphone market where devices are often indistinguishable at first glance, the newly launched HONOR 400 Series is taking a distinctly different path. Debuted in Dubai under the theme 'HONOR AI Wonderverse', the launch subtly signalled the phone's broader ambition -- to merge heritage with advanced intelligence. At first sight, the HONOR 400 and 400 Pro appear refined, with design choices inspired by natural elements and available in a palette that includes Midnight Black, Meteor Silver, and Desert Gold for the standard model, and Tidal Blue and Lunar Grey for the Pro. But beneath the surface, the devices stand out not for just how they look, but for how they allow users to interact, create, and connect differently. A smarter, cooler way to create The heart of the HONOR 400 Series lies in its AI-powered creative suite. The standout is the AI Creative Editor -- a set of tools designed not just for enhancing photos, but for rethinking how they're used. For instance, "AI Image to Video" converts still images into short dynamic videos, while "AI Erase Passers-by" eliminates background distractions in crowded settings with a single tap. For anyone used to manually editing their images or relying on external apps, these features streamline the process without sacrificing control. Other tools like AI Upscale, AI Cutout, and AI Eyes Open offer thoughtful solutions to everyday challenges, whether reviving old, pixelated photos or fixing closed eyes in group shots. These aren't just cosmetic tweaks -- they offer users a fresh, efficient approach to image editing that aligns with how people now share and consume content. Designed for real life using AI The HONOR 400 Pro's 200MP Ultra-Clear AI Camera System sets a benchmark for mobile photography. The AI-powered portrait tools and up to 50x zoom (30x on the HONOR 400) cater to users who want more precision and clarity -- whether shooting landscapes or spontaneous portraits. Features like AI Portrait Snap aim to make it easier to capture moving subjects with accurate focus and natural background blur. This focus on creative flexibility is supported by MagicOS 9.0, HONOR's latest operating system, which builds on Android 15. It integrates tools like AI Subtitles, AI Translation, deepfake identification and AI Magic Portal 2.0, creating a more intelligent and personalised user experience. For users managing devices across ecosystems, HONOR Connect enables seamless syncing between Android and iOS, making device transitions less of a chore. Honor 400 Series: Practical performers The innovation isn't limited to AI. The series also brings solid hardware creds. A 6000mAh battery powers both devices, while the HONOR 400 Pro includes 100W SuperCharge, reducing downtime dramatically. Both models are water and dust resistant, with the Pro variant rated IP68 and IP69, good features for users on the move. As part of HONOR's ongoing partnership with Google, the 400 Series will also be among the first to receive Android updates for six years, including security updates through 2030, an offering that gives users longevity without the pressure to upgrade too soon. Early access and added value Pre-orders are now open, starting at Dhs1,399 for the HONOR 400 and Dhs2,499 for the Pro model. Buyers receive a package of added benefits, including free earbuds, phone cases (including Louvre Abu Dhabi collaborations), and 12-month HONOR Care plans covering accidental damage and regional warranties. The series will be available across major retailers like Amazon, noon, Sharaf DG, Emax, Carrefour, Etisalat by e&, and more. Read: How Laurance Li on how Honor is redefining the smartphone experience