Honor 200 Pro review: best budget phone for portraits?

The Honor 200 Pro sits above the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Lite. The 200 Pro offers a few extra features compared to the 200, while still priced at just under £700, making it an intriguing budget phone that brings a lot to the table for its price point, particularly for portrait photographers.

Amateur Photographer verdict

The Honor 200 Pro packs a capable camera system plus extra goodies for portrait photographers – all while remaining under £700.

Pros

Beautiful portrait mode capabilities
Elegant design
Good battery life
Quick shutter

Cons

Inconsistent camera performance
Not available everywhere

Key features at a glance:

50MP main camera, f/1.9, PDAF, OIS
12MP ultrawide, f/2.2, AF
50MP telephoto, f/2.4, AF, OIS, 2.5x zoom
50MP f/2.1 selfie camera + 2MP depth
6.78-inch screen, 120Hz with 4000nit peak brightness
5200mAh battery
12GB+512GB
MagicOS 8.0 (Based on Android 14)
163.3 × 75.2 × 8.2 mm
199g

We review smartphones from the perspective of choosing one for its photography and camera performance. We look at what the Honor 200 Pro offers, and the features included for photography and video, paying particular attention to the cameras on the phone, photo editing capabilities, as well as the output from each different lens.

Features

The Honor 200 Pro has three cameras: a 50MP main camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and f/1.9 aperture, a 50MP 2.4 telephoto camera with OIS, and a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide angle camera with AF. On the front sits a 50MP front camera with f/2.1 aperture and is fixed focus.

Among the phone’s features, the 200 Pro’s “Honor AI Portrait Engine” is a stand-out, which is said to make the most of shadow of light to help you get a ‘perfect shot every time’ according to Honor.

Honor 200 Pro cameras close up — The Honor 200 Pro has a unique-looking triple camera system on the back. Photo: Isabella Ruffatti.

Additionally, there is a Harcourt Portrait mode developed with French Photo studio Studio Harcourt to replicate the professional studio photography look. There are three different options you can choose from: Harcourt Classic (for black and white images with very dramatic lighting), Harcourt Colour (similar to Harcourt Classic but in colour), and Harcourt Vibrant.

The 200 Pro also has features like Aperture (which allows you to adjust the aperture and just the aperture), Night (and Night Video), Pro Mode, and High-Res.

You can choose what aspect ratio and resolution you want to shoot at as well as if you want the HDR turned on or off. it’s worth noting that there is also an option allowing you to turn the 200 Pro’s AI-powered tools on and off for shooting photos and video. Overall, turning it on tended to make photos/video footage brighter.

Honor 200 Pro's Portrait mode in use — The 200 Pro’s Harcourt Portrait mode in use. Photo: Isabella Ruffatti.

Macro mode can be turned on and off and there is an option to shoot in Super Macro. The 200 Pro can shoot up to 4K video in 30fps and 60fps. As when taking photos, AI-powered tools can be turned on and off when shooting video.

Handling and Design

The Honor 200 Pro comes in three colour options: Moonlight White, Ocean Cyan, and Black. The phone I received was the Moonlight White colour option.

Honor 200 Pro side view — The Honor 200 Pro in Moonlight White. Photo: Isabella Ruffatti.

This phone’s design is very minimalistic and sleek. Honor has said that the unique oval design of their phone’s camera was inspired by the view should you be standing right in the middle of the Casa Mila in Barcelona and look up. The camera unit at the back makes this relatively lightweight phone feel weighty when compared to other phones.

It is powered by a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset and is IP65 dust and water resistant. The 200 Pro has a 6.78-inch FHD AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate that is slightly bigger than the Honor 200’s. The phone runs on MagicOS 8.0, which is based on Android 14, and supports up to 66W Wireless SuperCharge.

Image quality and performance

The Honor 200 Pro’s main camera puts in the best performance overall – delivering vibrant, well-lit results. However, lens flare was a problem when taking photos on sunny days, as well as photos and video footage showing up with little contrast. Bits of clouds were rendered white on occasion.

Image taken at the Crescent Wood Tunnel with Honor 200 Pro main camera — Image taken at the Crescent Wood Tunnel in London with the Honor 200 Pro’s main camera.

I brought the Honor 200 Pro with me to a studio shoot and while some of my photos (taken with the phone’s AI-assisted Portrait mode and using the main camera) were at times overexposed, other came out quite well and I was very happy with the results. So happy I’ve added them to my portrait photography portfolio.

The 1x lens, out of all the cameras, works best, with the telephoto camera delivering a nice amount of detail at up to 5x. The 200 Pro’s main camera and telephoto cameras both struggled with objects in motion. A few ducks swimming in a lake and a man doing push ups, for example, were rendered blurry.

The Honor 200 Pro excelled at taking portraits, — Portrait taken using the 200 Pro’s Harcourt Portrait mode, Harcourt Colour option. Photo: Isabella Ruffatti.

The ultra-wide camera gave good results, though I could not see much difference in terms of detail when comparing photos taken with the ultra-wide camera on the phone’s Automatic Macro mode and photos taken slightly further away a second later with the main camera. Colours, however, were rendered inconsistently when comparing photos taken with the ultra-wide and photos taken with the main camera.

Photos taken using Night mode were on the whole brightly lit, even if not particularly detailed.

Photo taken with Honor 200 Pro main camera — Photo taken with main camera vs ultra-wide camera.

Photo taken with Honor 200 Pro ultra-wide camera — Photo taken with main camera vs ultra-wide camera.

As you’d expect from a high resolution 50MP selfie camera (helped along by the phone’s Portrait Mode), you also get nice looking selfies. Only drawback is that it doesn’t have autofocus and I got a few blurry results. I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t access any of the Harcourt Portrait options from the front camera, which is a head scratcher.

The 200 Pro shoots up to 4K video at 60fps. On the whole, my video was well-stabilised as well as very, very bright. This did result in a low contrast look in my footage taken on sunny days. I personally prefer more contrast (particularly when zooming in) so I had to manually lower the exposure when shooting.

Value for money

While the Honor 200 Pro offers quite a lot for its price point, there are too many other good options on offer to make the Honor 200 Pro particularly competitive.

Take the Honor 200 for instance. While there are differences between it and the Pro version, you get pretty much the same specs in terms of cameras but at around £200 less.

Photo taken with Honor 200 Pro telephoto camera at Louvre museum in Paris. Photo: Isabella Ruffatti.

Then there’s other mid-range and budget phones like the Motorola Edge 50 Pro (which also features a little something extra in its Portrait mode for portrait photographers) and Google Pixel 8a which offer similar specs for less. Additionally, the 200 Pro isn’t available in countries such as the US and Australia, which is something to consider.

Verdict

The Honor 200 Pro is a good under £700 phone with a capable camera system and some pretty great features for portrait photographers. For anyone who doesn’t need a flagship, wants decent telephoto zooming and is really into taking portraits, this phone is a good option for its price point.