Honor 200 Review: Unrivaled Portraits in the Mid-Range

For the past two weeks I have been using the Honor 200, a mobile phone whose main attraction is its camera system, tuned by photographers from a French studio. Harcourtportrait specialist. In short, it is a smartphone aimed at those who want to take this type of photos. During the presentation of the Honor 200 and Honor 200 Pro, Mexican photographer Andrea Hernandez Vega of Studio Harcourt, who was invited by Honor to take a series of portraits of Mexican celebrities using both smartphones, said that she really enjoyed the experience because “all the technical stuff was there”, just a touch of the screen. It seemed like a sales pitch to me, but I have to say that the Honor 200 really makes creating artistic portraits easy, even for those of us who don’t have photographic talent.

Honor 200: Features and Specifications

Honor 200: screen and design

The Honor 200’s display is simply fantastic. While you can find phones with more pixels in terms of resolution, the Honor 200’s 436 pixels per inch seems more than enough to make any content, especially portraits, look incredibly sharp. I’m not a big fan of watching movies and TV shows on my phone, but I did watch the opening credits for Season 2. Rings of Power And damn, it looks good: low-light scenes show some pretty outstanding blacks. The brightness, reaching 4,000 nits in HDR scenes, is fantastic, and I never had any issues viewing WhatsApp in the sun. In short, the Honor 200’s display is fantastic.

In terms of design, the Honor 200 is a beautiful phone, although I wish it had an aluminum frame, which I think is a good thing in its lineup. If you choose not to use it with a protective case (it comes in the box), the camera module will make it rise a bit. The back cover is plastic, but it has a nice touch and is good at repelling fingerprints. Honor says the Honor 200’s design was inspired by the Casa Mila (designed by Antonio Guadi). This link is located in the oval-shaped photo module. and this is unusual for smartphones.

Honor 200: A camera that lets you shoot like an expert

While the Honor 200’s camera system offers experiences that range from adequate to outstanding in various aspects, the portrait mode is undoubtedly the most notable section, and I dare say that in this regard we are dealing with the best phone in its range, and that it does a great job even when compared to the iPhone 15 Pro (which is twice as expensive).

Portrait mode has three different settings: vivid, which enhances the colors and makes them more saturated; color, for a kind of typical portrait; and classic, black and white portrait. Working with this mode, especially the classic style, is essentially about playing with the subject to create a very artistic photo. The cameras and retouching algorithms (in this case, a collaboration with Studio Harcourt) are responsible for adjusting the blur, contrast, and dynamic range to create beautiful images. I compared the portraits with photos taken on the iPhone 14 Pro, and I definitely prefer the photos from the Honor 200. Not only do they look less artificially focused, but they also have a high level of detail.

As for the rest of the photographic experience, I think the cameras do a good job in most typical situations, with the exception of the wide-angle lens, which I don’t think is particularly outstanding and which I used the least. However, in good lighting you will get photos with a good level of detail. The telephoto lens (2.5x optical zoom) works well even in difficult lighting conditions and is especially good for macro photography (check out the attached image of a plant).

Perhaps my only complaint is with the video section, which, while outstanding and has everything you would expect from a phone in this range (you can record up to 4K at 30 fps), there is a noticeable jump in image when changing lenses. This did not happen with the iPhone 14 Pro, which offers a much more natural transition. And while the comparison is not entirely fair for the price range, I think the Honor 200 offers a very similar experience and even surpasses it in some areas.

Honor 200: Power and Battery

The Honor 200 has a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. It performed fantastically in almost all the tasks I did in my daily life, but it’s not the best chipset for gaming. Sure, you can run titles like war zone with average quality graphics and a frame rate of 30 frames per second, but if gaming is your determining factor, you won’t find what you’re looking for here.

As for the battery, I have to say that after the portrait mode, this is the aspect that I find most outstanding about the Honor 200. Its 5200 mAh battery has always lasted me up to a day and a half with average use, and with fast use, the 100W charging is simply a unique distinction. With a stopwatch in hand, I went from 20% to 80% in 26 minutes. By the way, a 100W charger is included in the package.

Far more than unrivalled in mid-range portraiture.

The combination of features that the Honor 200 has makes it a fantastic option in the premium segment and unbeatable for those looking for a high-performance camera system, especially in terms of portrait photography.