HONOR is a smartphone company that is quickly rising in the ranks in the Philippine smartphone market, ranked as the No. 4 smartphone company in the country. With this growing momentum comes more devices to populate all segments and demographics, and its latest offering that caters to the midrange is the HONOR 600S 5G.
It comes with a whole slew of AI features such as a dedicated assistant button and an AI Image-to-Video generator, but this will be focusing mostly on how this phone performs outside of those two features.
The HONOR 600S 5G is a midranger with two configurations: a 6GB+128GB that’s priced at Php 18,999 and is an online exclusive, while the 8GB+256GB memory configuration at a price of Php 19,999. Colors include Misty Purple, Velvet Black, and Desert Gold. And if you pre-order it from October 1 to 9, 2026, you get freebies like an HONOR Bluetooth Speaker II for the 256GB variant, or the HONOR Choice Watch 2i for the 128GB variant.
BUILD
Big phones are the trend now, and to fit the absolutely massive 8100mAh (7900mAh rated) battery, the phone measures 168.45mm tall, 78.54mm wide, 8.3mm thick, and weighs 216.5g. This iPhone Pro Max-sized device houses a fairly large 6.8-inch display, which we’ll get to later.
Being a midranger, the priority for build is durability. However, despite using plastics in its construction, it feels very substantial and solid in the hand, feeling quite premium when used without the included clear silicone case in the box. It’s also rated for IP68/69/69K water and dust resistance, with a 2.5m drop resistance rating too.
The back panel is quite similar in layout to an iPhone 16 Pro, featuring a raised, glass-like camera plateau with polished rings, housing an LED flash, and two cameras, but they’re not what they look like (which we’ll get to later).
The trend goes for smartphones nowadays having flat edges all around, with a fairly familiar set of buttons and ports all around: microphone ports up top, volume and a capacitive fingerprint scanner/power button combo on the right side, the bottom speaker grille for the stereo speakers, USB 2.0 Type-C port, Dual NanoSIM card slot (no eSIM support).
What sets itself apart is the single button on the left side of the phone, and that’s the remappable AI button. By default, it brings up a menu of quick tasks that you’d most likely do– but it’s remappable to a handful of actions for single press, double press, and long press in a very Action Button-esque inspired menu. It’s always nice to have a configurable button on any device.
DISPLAY AND MEDIA
In this day and age of OLED displays, the HONOR 600S 5G goes in the opposite direction and uses a TFT LCD with a resolution of 1592×720, a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and a peak brightness of 1020 nits. Colors and white balance are adjustable, but it doesn’t match the visual pop from OLEDs (no pure blacks), and there’s a fairly large display chin at the bottom of the screen bezel.
Apart from being a more affordable display tech which helps bring the costs down, HONOR touts this as a very eye-friendly display due to the nature of LCD panels using DC dimming to control the backlight, preventing the fast strobing that OLED panels utilize to dim the brightness that causes eye strain.
The stereo speakers at least get plenty loud, with an additional 400% volume boost to help out in loud environments. This also makes taking phone calls an easy affair, but you can always use Bluetooth connectivity
In fact, it’s quite enjoyable to consume media on this device, with the bright screen and the loud stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos upscaling. Of course, don’t expect much bass from this device, but they’re clear and get plenty loud, with a built-in volume booster.
CAMERA
Remember what I said about the camera affair being a bit confusing? Despite having two lenses on the rear, it only actually has one lens. This has a 50MP, 27mm f/1.8 equivalent wide lens and an auxiliary lens. The camera has the capability to punch into a 2x zoom (or roughly 54mm), but from my testing, that extra small lens beside the main sensor doesn’t really do anything– whether it’s a depth-sensing camera, an additional sensor for extra detail, or even an optical zoom.
Photo quality from the single lens is fine in daylight and fairly bright indoor lighting, but once it starts getting dark, you’ll have to hold still for around half a second to a whole second after you press the shutter; otherwise, you’ll introduce motion blur as the automatic night mode kicks in and tries to help out with the serviceable low-light quality. Video resolution and framerate also cap out at 1920×1080 at 30fps, and as it is, it’s simply serviceable.
The selfie shooter is a 5MP, 26mm f/2.2 equivalent lens, and photo quality is fine. This is best used for the occasional self-portrait or for video calling, but don’t expect the highest quality photos out of it. This is where sacrifices had to be made to bring the price down.
However, one of the biggest features (or gimmick, depending on how you see this) that HONOR is touting here is the AI Image-to-Video 2.0 generation. It’s built into the Gallery app and gives you the ability to turn any photo on your phone into a short video clip, with a variety of parameters. It’s a cute gimmick, but this is all done in the cloud, meaning you’ll need an active (and fast) internet connection and around 3-6 minutes before you get your resulting image.
Some examples are attached below:
BATTERY
The combination of the large 8,100mAh battery and the midrange processor in this phone allows for some pretty insane run-time. Despite using this primarily as a media consumption device that’s a bit heavier than usual (watching YouTube, doomscrolling on social media, playing Honkai: Star Rail), I haven’t been able to kill this device in a day– and it’s going to easily be a two-day device with heavy usage.
Wireless charging isn’t supported, but with up to 45W of fast charging, topping up that large battery shouldn’t prove to be a chore, and you can also share the battery with reverse wired charging via the USB-C port, turning your phone into an emergency power bank if needed.
PERFORMANCE AND OPERATING SYSTEM
A Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen4 octa-core processor chugs under the hood of this device, and it runs HONOR’s MagicOS 10 based on Android 16. Thanks to the 8GB of RAM and MagicOS being one of the more fluid, optimized skins from a Chinese manufacturer, using this device feels snappy and responsive, despite having a whole lot of iOS influences in its software.
Though you have to remember that this is a midrange device, where once you start multitasking with more than three apps or playing a 3D game, you’ll have to either temper your expectations or decrease the graphical fidelity. There’s also a handful of AI applications that, like I mentioned earlier, can range from being genuinely useful to a gimmick. However, MagicOS seems to be a bit liberal with how often it labels everything with “AI”.
However, I’d have to give marks to how well the phone handles pre-installed bloatware. Sure, there’s a lot of it, including redundant apps, but the majority of them are removable, and I haven’t seen any intrusive ads get in the way of using basic functions. The software also proves to be stable and reliable enough to use day-to-day.
VERDICT
Despite HONOR’s focus on AI features, the 600S 5G is a genuinely solid midranger that can get through an entire day (and then some) quite easily, offer a durable and premium-feeling build, and also have a solid base storage and RAM configuration in today’s day and age of overinflated pricing thanks to (ironically) high demand and shortage caused by AI.
Sure, some corners were cut, especially in the camera and screen department, but once you consider its starting price of Php 18,999, it’s a surprising value in today’s crowded smartphone market.
