HONOR 200 Pro review: Studio-level portraits in the palm of your hand

There’s so much hype surrounding the HONOR 200 Pro and its portrait photography capabilities. This is the newest member of the HONOR N Series, which has a stellar reputation when it comes to photography and performance. 

Tagged as the tech brand’s “AI Portrait Master,” we’re expecting its smarts to provide us with studio-level shots. After all, HONOR made some noise with the recent display picture blasts on social media showcasing Parisian-themed portraits. Is it worth the hype? Find out in this review. 

Design and build

First off, we have a very soothing, nature-inspired design for the rear. This one is in Ocean Cyan featuring subtle wave-lake strokes and a dual-texture profile, adding a unique and elegant touch. If you want a more minimalist design, you have Black and Moonlight White at your disposal.

Meanwhile, the camera layout makes a great accent as it’s inspired by patio windows of Casa Mila in Barcelona.

Another thing commendable about the build is its slim and light form factor, measuring 8.2mm and 199g, respectively. The curved edges make it comfortable to hold even after long hours of use. At the same time, it feels very premium with its smooth, matte finish. 

Display

On the flip side, you have a 6.78-inch Quad Curved Floating Display with 120Hz refresh rate and 90.8% screen-to-body ratio. Upon booting up the device, it was clear that the display is one of the HONOR 200 Pro’s fortes. 

It was while watching action-packed and animated films wherein I witnessed how smooth, crisp, and vibrant the visuals were. HONOR came up with the perfect recipe for a visual feast. I’m all set to have an immersive viewing experience on the go. More so, given that its visibility outdoors is not bad either with 4000nits peak brightness.

Aside from flaunting stunning visuals, it’s equally important that the display is loaded with eye-comfort features. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of that in the HONOR 200 Pro as well. It features 3840Hz risk-free PWM dimming, AI Circadian Night Display, Adaptive Dimming, Natural Tone 2.0, and Low Blue Light hardware. It also has TUV Rheinland Flicker Free and Full Care Display Certifications. 

Camera

We’re down to the main event: the HONOR 200 Pro’s triple camera system that’s loaded with AI features. You have the 50MP (f/1.9) main camera with H9000 Sensor, 50MP (f/2.4) telephoto camera with Sony IMX 856 Sensor, and 12MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide and macro camera. 

We’re all hyped up because of the Studio Harcourt Filter. HONOR collaborated with the iconic Parisian studio to recreate the timeless portraits the studio is known for. You have three filters to choose from: Colour, Classic and Vibrant.

Each shot faithfully emulated the charm and elegance of portraits taken at Studio Harcourt. The AI worked its magic to give depth to photos through the AI Shadow and Light Enhancement. The AI Artistic Style Enhancement adds the final touches to help achieve dramatic photos. 

It’s able to balance exposure so all details are clear, not washed out. You can see how it’s able to highlight the subject while the background fades away seamlessly. 

Even while capturing shots in motion, it still exhibited sharp details without blurred edges. It’s almost as if you were taking photos of a static subject. You can thank the AI Motion Sensing Capture. 

In photo mode, it was effortless to take beautiful shots. Colors and details really pop. It’s consistently good, and it doesn’t matter if you use 1x, 2x and 2.5x zoom. You can also change the photo profile if you want it to be natural, vibrant, or authentic. 

Shooting at nighttime surprisingly wasn’t a tedious task. The details remain sharp. In fact, you can barely see noise in the photos. This is perfect for girls’ night out at Poblacion. 

When using the ultra wide and macro camera, it’s impressive that they followed suit in terms of quality. Want to capture vast landscapes using the ultra wide camera? You can do so without the quality taking a hit. Likewise, the macro camera proved its capabilities by showcasing the intricate details of closeup shots. 

If you frequently shoot videos for Instagram reels or TikTok videos, you can depend on the Honor 200 Pro to give you stable footage.

For selfie enthusiasts, you’ll love the 50MP front camera. I didn’t struggle taking selfies amidst harsh lighting. The background isn’t overexposed; you can see how sharp the details are. This makes me excited to take it on a beach trip.

Performance

The HONOR 200 Pro also has something to flex under the hood. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor, paired with 12GB of RAM (expandable up to 12GB) and 512GB of storage. 

That said, I expected great things in terms of day-to-day moderate usage and occasional heavy loads. And I’m happy to report that I wasn’t disappointed.

I tried running titles like Asphalt 9 at the highest graphic setting and I didn’t encounter frame drops and lags. My gameplay was a breeze from start to finish. Good news for content creators as well since the HONOR 200 Pro sustained its superb performance even while editing short form videos on CapCut.

If you’re guilty of running multiple apps and opening several tabs all at once like me, that’s not going to be a problem because of its generous memory. And if you have a habit of spamming the shutter button to get the best shot or you have tons of safety footage for your content, the large storage will definitely come in handy.

Operating System

The Honor 200 Pro runs on MagicOS 8.0, which leverages AI to provide users a personalized and highly intuitive experience. 

You have the familiar-looking Magic Capsule that gives you easy access to notifications such as calling, timer, alarm, screencasting, and music playback just by simply tapping. 

My favorite is the Magic Portal. It’s during moments when something really nice catches your attention on Instagram and it’s haunting you in your dreams because you couldn’t figure out how to cop it. It could be a pair of sneakers, a top, a necklace, or a bag. 

With the aforementioned feature, you can easily search and shop for that item with a single drag. Here’s what you have to do: take a screenshot of the outfit you liked, drag it towards the left or right edge of the screen then drop it on Search Image. 

You can crop it if you only want a specific item from a person’s outfit. Once that’s done, Google will load e-commerce sites where you can purchase it. Finally, I can sleep better at night. You can also use this feature to drag texts and images to send it to your friends and workmates easily. 

Battery and Charging

What’s surprising is how much battery it packs given its light form factor. It’s built with a 5200mAh battery, which lasted for more than a day even with heavy use. For me this looked like a busy day answering several emails, shooting content for long hours, editing videos, posting and scrolling through social media, and catching up on series on Netflix.

When you run low on juice, the 100W HONOR SuperCharger will power it up from 0 to 100% in just 50 mins.

Verdict

I’ve lost count of the times that the HONOR 200 Pro has impressed me. It certainly lives up to the hype.

It has aesthetics that will turn heads, display that will wow series-bingers, performance to keep up with gamers and creators, and all the smarts for user convenience. Above all, it shines in portrait photography. It really deserves to be called an AI Portrait Master. 

With the price of PHP 29,999, its versatility is enough to entice all types of users, but with its photography skills, it’s worthy to be on every budding and professional photographer’s list.