Honor 200 Series: Here's What You Need To Know

In July 2023, Chinese smartphone major Honor refreshed its smartphone lineup with the Honor 90 series. The lineup featured two devices — the Honor 90 and the Honor 90 Pro — both targeted at people seeking affordable, value-for-money smartphones. Fast-forward to June 2024, and Honor has just confirmed the launch of the Honor 200 series, which essentially succeeds last year's 90 series lineup. The newly launched Honor 200 Series currently includes two smartphones: the Honor 200 and the Honor 200 Pro. And in case you haven't already guessed, the "Pro" model is the pricier and more feature-loaded of the two models.

Like its predecessors, Honor touts devices from the Honor 200 lineup as camera-centric smartphones that will let users capture excellent photos and videos. Both devices feature the latest camera hardware and get some of the best image sensors currently available for smartphones. The devices also feature a bevy of AI features — including an AI Portrait Engine — which should result in good-quality portrait shots.

Honor's seriousness about the imaging capabilities of the Honor 200 series could be judged by the fact that the company has also tied up with Paris-based Studio Harcourt — a famed photography studio — to ensure these devices always capture excellent photos. The collaboration has helped Honor co-engineer the Honor AI Portrait Engine, which, according to the company, lets the devices take "studio level" portrait images. Let's now take a closer look at the rest of the details of the Honor 200 lineup, starting with the Honor 200 Pro first.

Thanks to its "Pro" moniker, it is easy to deduce that the Honor 200 Pro is positioned above the vanilla Honor 200 and that it gets a better set of hardware. The phone also gets a 6.78-inch, 120 Hz, 2700 x 1224 pixel AMOLED display that claims a peak brightness of 4000 nits. This display supports advanced features like adaptive dimming, PWM dimming, an updated version of Natural Tone, and reduced blue light emission.

Powering the Honor 200 Pro is the flagship-grade Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, which offers a level of performance somewhere between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The Honor 200 Pro comes in a single 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant and features a 5200 mAh battery that supports 100W wired fast charging and 66W wireless fast charging using the company's proprietary fast charging standards.

The camera setup on the Honor 200 Pro includes a 50MP portrait main camera that uses a Super Dynamic H9000 image sensor. The secondary camera also gets a 50MP sensor (Sony IMX 856), and is paired with a telephoto lens. Both these cameras also support Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) as well as Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS). The third rear-facing camera on the Honor 200 Pro uses a 12MP sensor for ultrawide shots while also doubling up as a great tool for macro photography. The Honor 200 Pro runs the latest version of Honor's AI-powered MagicOS 8.0, which is based on Android 14.

Though positioned well below its "Pro" sibling in terms of price, the Honor 200 is a feature-packed smartphone on its own. The 6.7-inch AMOLED display used on the Honor 200 is near-identical to the one used on its more expensive sibling, and even features similar resolution and refresh rate numbers (120Hz).

Where the Honor 200 falls short is when it comes to the chipset and camera hardware. Unlike the Snapdragon 8s series chipset on the Pro, the Honor 200 Pro is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, which is quite powerful but cannot match the performance offered by Qualcomm's higher-tier chips.

While the Honor 200 gets a 50MP + 50MP + 12MP combination for the rear-facing cameras, just like the "Pro" model, the primary camera uses a different sensor (Sony IMX906) and also supports OIS. The other two cameras are identical to the ones used by the Honor 200 Pro and include a 50MP telephoto camera with OIS and EIS support, as well as a 12MP macro + ultrawide camera.

The Honor 200 gets the same battery capacity (5200 mAh) as the Pro model, and it also supports 100W wired fast charging. It does not, however, support wireless charging. Unlike the sole 512GB variant offered on the 200 Pro, the vanilla Honor 200 models come in three RAM/storage configurations: 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB, and 12GB/512GB.

Both devices — the Honor 200 and the Honor 200 Pro are up for pre-order starting today — June 12, 2024, and will be on sale in Europe starting June 26. Prices for the devices start at 799 euros (approx. $866 as of this writing) for the Honor 200 Pro and 599 euros (approx. $649) for the Honor 200.