Honor 200 Review: First Impressions

First Impressions

It’s too early to deliver a full verdict, but based on my hands-on time, the Honor 200 could be a strong mid-ranger that makes the right compromises to deliver truly high-end tech. 

Introduction

The Honor 200 is an impressively priced mid-range smartphone with a focus on portrait photography, complete with a Studio Harcourt portrait mode that matches that of the top-end Honor 200 Pro.

It’s a phone that certainly looks the part, with a unique textured rear and a range of bright colour options, and with features like a bright 6.7-inch 1.2K OLED screen, a 5200mAh silicon-carbon battery, 100W charging and Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 power, it could very well be your next purchase.

While I’m not yet ready to deliver my final thoughts on Honor’s latest mid-ranger, here’s what I think so far based on hands-on time at the Honor 200 launch event in Paris this week.

Design and screen

• Similar design to Honor 200 Pro
• 6.7-inch 1.2K OLED screen
• No dust- or water resistance

The Honor 200, like the Honor 200 Pro, is quite the looker, complete with that unique rear camera housing that’s said to be inspired by the atrium window of Barcelona’s Casa Mila. 

It sports a similar design to its top-end sibling, though without the unique two-tone effect that feels great in the hand. Still, with a unique textured pattern that catches the light and a matte finish on the rear that’ll no doubt help negate those messy fingerprints, it doesn’t look or feel like a phone that costs £499. 

It doesn’t sport a glass rear for that truly high-end build, but with an aluminium frame and a plastic back, it allows the phone to weigh in at a rather lightweight 187g – and at 7.7mm thick, it’s pretty thin too. This translates to a phone that sat nicely in my hand during my limited hands-on time, with a quad-curved design that you don’t often see at the mid-range price point. 

It’s also one of the more colourful mid-rangers around, with colour options including Coral Pink and Emerald Green alongside Moonlight White and Black. Yep, just Black. The Emerald Green phone, pictured here, is a personal favourite of mine, but there’s something to be said for the white rear and its pearlescent finish. 

That premium experience extends to the 6.7-inch 120Hz 1.2K OLED screen, sporting an impressive 4000nits peak brightness that matches that of the 200 Pro and bests even top-end screens like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which caps out at 2600nits. Safe to say it was bright enough to be legible in a hands-on area with bright spotlights all around, and with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, swiping around MagicOS felt responsive. 

It’s not quite perfect though, lacking any kind of official dust- and water resistance, and when you consider similarly priced options like the Google Pixel 8a offer IP67 and cheaper options like the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion offer full IP68, it feels like something that this phone needs at this price point. 

There’s also no word on what, if any, kind of screen protection is on offer, suggesting that this may not be the most durable phone on the market in 2024. 

Cameras

• Triple camera setup
• High-res telephoto lens with Harcourt Portrait mode
• 50MP selfie camera

Honor has really come out swinging with the Honor 200’s camera setup, especially considering the price point with a combination of a 50MP main lens, a 50MP 2.5x telephoto and a 12MP ultrawide. 

It’s not the exact same main lens as the Honor 200 Pro, which uses the high-end H9000 sensor, but the 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX906 sensor is still larger than much of the competition, and when paired with an f/1.95 aperture, it should deliver strong low-light results – though that’s not something I could test in a bright hands-on area.  

Crucially, it does sport the same 50MP telephoto lens as the Honor 200 Pro, complete with the same AI-powered portrait mode developed in conjunction with high-end photography firm Studio Harcourt. While I didn’t get to test the Harcourt mode during my hands-on, I’ve recently waxed lyrical about how the Honor 200 Pro – with the same sensor – can outshoot the S24 Ultra in Portrait mode, so I’m expecting good things here.

The 12MP ultrawide is arguably the weakest point of the camera setup, but if that’s the sacrifice needed to bring a high-res 50MP telephoto to the mid-range market, it’s a trade-off I’m happy to take.

Flip the phone over and you’ll find a matching 50MP selfie camera, though rather disappointingly, it doesn’t utilise the same Harcourt Portrait Modes as the rear lens. 

Specs and performance

• Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 power
• 5200mAh battery with 100W charging
• MagicOS 8.0

If you peel back the premium exterior, you’ll find a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor alongside a healthy 8- or 12GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage depending on the option you go for. It’s a pretty decent setup for a £499 phone, matching the spec of the Motorola Edge 50 Pro that costs £100 more. 

Like with the Edge 50 Pro, I didn’t really notice any kind of lag or stutter when scrolling through the device during my hands-on time, though I suspect it won’t be quite as powerful in the gaming department with a lot of pixels to power. 

The good news is that the Honor 200 shouldn’t struggle to last all day with the energy-efficient Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 on board, especially with a 5200mAh Silicon-carbon battery powering the experience. That’s slightly larger than the 5000mAh we’ve seen from most competitors, and if the Honor Magic 6 Pro is anything to go by, the Honor 200 should have no issue lasting all day – though I’ll confirm that in my testing. 

Regardless, once the phone does run out of charge, Honor’s 100W SuperCharge tech should get you on the move pretty quickly – though you’ll have to pick up a 100W SuperCharge charger separately as it doesn’t come in the box.  

I suspect that, for many, the biggest hurdle will be MagicOS 8.0, Honor’s custom Android 14 skin that, like other Chinese manufacturers, takes quite a different path to the stock Android experience preferred by companies like Google and Motorola. 

While the latest software update means that mid-range users can access the GenAI-powered Magic Portal for quick sharing, the general MagicOS 8.0 experience is much like Marmite – you’ll love it or hate it. 

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