PICTURE PER PICTURE | Honor 200 Review! [Part 1]

We finally got a hand into one of these!

Read Time: 10-11 minutes | Word count: 2117

It took us about 7 months before we got a hold on to the Honor 200. The Honor 90 is still our favorite vlogging phone and so the Honor 200 should be better in almost every regard.

The Honor 200 is introduced almost similarly to the Honor 90. It is a phone marketed for photographers and those who want to make a fashion statement. The photography angle is so much of a focus (pun 100% intended) that the brand even collaborated with the famous Harcourt Studio in France. The collaboration allowed Honor to tweak their portrait shot algorithms so it will feel like it was taken from a DSLR, and with their advice, each photo will turn out studio-worthy. One way or another, a phone maker collaborates with famous studios and photography brands around the world.

This time around, there would be no At a Glance featurette because we got it seven months after it got released. No need to tease what’s already there.

With everything out of the way, let’s… ROLL… THE… SPECS SHEET!

SPECS:

• 6.7″ 1.5K (2664x1200px) OLED, 120Hz refresh rate, 3840Hz PWM Dimming, 4000nits peak brightness
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 (4nm)
• CAMERAS:
  • 50MP (Primary), f/1.95, Sony IMX906, OIS
  • 50MP (Telephoto), f/2.4, Sony IMX856, OIS, 50x digital zoom, OIS
  • 12MP (Ultrawide), f/2.2, macro, 112° FOV
  • FRONT: 50MP, f/2.1
• Android 14 based on MagicOS 8
• 5200mAh, 100W fast charging
• USB-C, Stereo speakers, IR Blaster, In-display fingerprint scanner
• 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Dual-band Wi-Fi, NFC
• Moonlight White, Emerald Green, Black (our unit)
• PRICE:
  • 12/512: PHP 24,999

DESIGN: It is Premium as it is Elegant

Honor has always made its phones look premium and luxurious, even at their cheapest offering. Also, it strives to create designs that don’t feel like they came out of an ODM’s portfolio. They take the time to craft their own design so it feels unique, a trait they retained when they split from Huawei.

The Honor 200 is the same in that aspect. It features an asymmetrical camera island, not exactly oval, and when you look at the phone from a distance, you can tell it’s an Honor 200 even when there’s a case covering the back inserted. That’s how unique it is. The back is made of metal, but the frames are plastic. The back has a smooth matte colourway, at least for the Black variant. The back is also virtually smudge-free so it never looks dirty or used.

Meanwhile, the front has a flat display that wraps all around the phone’s edges, so it actually looks immersive.

The phone has a plastic frame that holds all important ports and buttons (excluding the fingerprint sensor which is embedded inside the phone).

Starting from the top frame, it’s quite busy here/ There is a speaker hole and a microphone. And… oh hello, what’s this? An IR sensor? Yes, with the Honor 200, you can control different appliances that also uses infrared sensors. A feature that was absent with the Honor 90

The bottom is where the USB-C port is found, alongside the dual SIM Card tray (with protective rubber), another speaker, and a noise cancelling microphone, since the phone does have noise-cancelling properties (now with AI!)

The left panel is flat and empty. Which means you can lay the Honor 200 flat on one side provided you have a support, and watch your favourite films.

Finally, the right hand side features the plastic power button and volume rockers. Nothing out of place here.

UNBOXING: Typical Contents

We unboxed the Honor 200, as tradition goes for any smartphone review, and what we found inside is not very interesting. Inside are just the usual stuff you’d get in a smartphone retail box, and this has even less than the Honor 90. That phone at least had a 3.5mm adapter to go with your headphones, in what appears to be a secret compartment inside the box. The Honor 200 only has the basics. This includes the phone of course, ours is in Black, the silicone case, warranty and manual, the charging cable, the SIM Ejector tool, and the 100W charging brick. Hey, at least it still has a charging brick. Some other brands would have not included it.

Oh also, the charging brick requires an adapter before you could use it, since it features a three-prong plug.

INTERFACE: MagicOS Offers A LOT

We aren’t new to MagicOS, since we have used the Honor 90 before. So, after all the realmeUI and ColorOS we have been reviewing, which frankly, can be exhausting since we already know its ins and outs, it’s nice to review a phone with a different coat of paint this time.

The Honor 200 we are using runs MagicOS 8.0, but according to our internal sources, MagicOS 9.0 may be available around March in the Philippines and we are highly anticipating it.

Just by taking a glance at the home screen, you can sense EMUI is part of MagicOS’ DNA. This makes sense since Honor was once part of Huawei and everything they gained from their former parent company, they will use it to make a distinct name for themselves. It’s pretty expensive to just start from scratch, and users who used prior Honor phones already know the gist of this UI. This is Ease of Use and there’s nothing inherently wrong with using what was already established to make yourself distinct.

When you boot up the phone for the first time, you’re greeted with a home screen with quick access to recently used apps and utilities. The left hand side is where the recently used apps are located (only four can exist in this folder at a time) and on the right are the utilities such as settings, notes, and file manager.

When you swipe right, you’re visited with some pre-installed apps. Unlike many phones we have reviewed before, at least the Honor 200 did not bombard you with ads and useless apps right on the home screen. We don’t like when phone manufacturers do this, especially if they are selling a premium phone of around PHP 20K and above (~USD >24K). We are paying for a premium phone and putting ads on the phone we specifically bought just makes it feel cheap. It kinda defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

All apps you see in the second image, which is the apps screen, can be removed. The phone also does not have the app drawer by default. You can have it activated but the process is needlessly complicated.

Speaking of, even opening the home screen is also complicated. See, most phones would have you long tapping the home screen to reveal the home screen settings. However, for the Honor 200, you have to pinch down from the home screen to reveal it. Pinching up reveals the “Parallel Space” feature, which is basically Honor’s fancy way of hiding apps.

The control panel of the Honor 200 gives us iOS vibes, or maybe even HyperOS. Meh, almost all of these Chinese UIs look the same anyway.

The volume and brightness slider are at the right-hand side while the music panel is at the left, beside them. Network options are at the top, and other quick settings are at the bottom. You will also curiously find “MagicRing” underneath the control panel, which is where Honor’s ecosystem is in place. For you to effectively use it

Curiously, we activated Parallel Space. Before using it, the phone asks the user to input in a passcode and enable biometric security. You can also use the passcode you currently have as the passcode for Parallel Space. The app is like an incognito mode alternative to your usual home screen. You can add and remove files, and add apps you don’t want anyone else snooping. It’s great for locking up a browser and asking stupid questions right out of Google. No need for incognito mode (but you may have to, so your browsing history will get nuked).

The Honor 200 features a load of customization options rivaling that of many typical operating systems like ColorOS and HiOS. However, we prefer MagicOS of making things personal as you can change even the font of your phone to truly make it a personal experience. We applaud Honor for going out of their way to make the phone feel personal to the user as possible. Well, as compensation for them as well locking the bootloader, and therefore, preventing any kind of custom ROM running it.

The fonts and overall theme can be changed. However, MagicOS still less customizable from the likes of FunTouchOS or even HiOS. At least for FunTouchOS, you can change the color of icons and the control panel, the Honor 200 does not have those options. It’s still a bit more limited, and to us, the UI felt like iOS 18 but Android.

You can change how the icons look by downloading a theme. Sadly no, you cannot download a OTP file to change fonts based on what you downloaded online or created yourself. The fonts and icon changes are limited based on what the Honor theme store can give you. As with other phones, high contrast and font size are available options. The phone, by default, uses Swiftkey as the default keyboard. We later swapped it with Google Keyboard because it’s more intuitive.

DISPLAY: Bright, Colorful, Immersive.

The Honor 200 features a 6.7″ 1.5K OLED screen with refresh rates ranging from 1-120Hz. Although the phone, when in dynamic refresh rate mode, prefers to use 60Hz for everyday tasks and 120Hz can only be felt in some gaming titles, like Call of Duty or PUBG. We will expand this later in Part 2, like always. The default is dynamic refresh rate mode.

The phone itself has rounded corners but features a flat display. There are people who prefer using flat displays because they are less fragile and are less likely to crack when the phone comes into contact with the ground. However, if you ask what we prefer… well, we generally prefer a display that can make movies pop out and is colorful.

And that’s where the Honor 200 gets a point. This is a pretty good display thanks to its resolution. It is quite immersive to watch 4K movies on it. Not to mention, the colour reproduction is also pretty good. You can tinker with the settings to change how the phone’s colours look depending on your preference. For this review, we kept everything at default.

For extra comfort, Honor introduced its Eye Comfort Display feature which allows you to reduce incoming blue light. This can be scheduled, particularly useful when you love to read with the lights out (which you shouldn’t be doing in the first place). Another feature is its dynamic dimming, which works almost similarly to auto brightness, although this is less annoying since the effects are subtle, if there are any. It could even be just placebo.

To help you sleep better, an option called “Cicadian Night Display” is available. The phone will learn of your body’s rhythm and calibrate the display’s color to make sleeping easier and more comfortable for you. We haven’t tried this feature yet so we can’t fully determine its “real” usefulness.

Speaking of reading, the phone has an eBook mode, which turns the display into an e-ink-like state. This makes colours look greyscaled, but, as the name suggests, it is intended for heavy eBook readers. This is a neat feature that even competing handsets don’t have (unless that competing handset is from TCL, which has that NXTPaper technology on almost all of their phones)

We also highly appreciate the return of the ridiculously high 3840Hz PWM Dimming. It’s less of an eyesore compared to the typical 1920Hz as seen with other competing phones. It’s quite annoying to see fast moving black bars when you’re recording which is way more visible on phones with a lower PWM dimming rate. It’s a feature we adored in the Honor 90 and it’s still a feature we adore now.

The display does have some shortcomings as we observed. While the Honor 200 is bright, like really bright, we felt like it could have been a bit brighter, especially when going out underneath the morning sun. Our OnePlus Nord 3 has more light at max brightness, and so we felt like the Honor 200 needs a bit of extra push in that department.

Part 1 is over! That took a surprisingly long time. We were just enjoying the phone way too much. Stay tuned for part 2, because in this part, we’re going to tackle the most exciting part of the Honor 200, its CAMERAS!