HONOR 600 Pro review – it looks like an iPhone and it's also expensive like an iPhone

I was speechless when I saw the price of the new HONOR 600 Pro. €999?! Is this really a new number for a mid-range phone? Does the mid-range even exist? I know it's supposed to be disappearing from society, but I didn't know that this also applies to phones. I thought (or rather hoped) that the price hike for the Samsung Galaxy A57 was an isolated case, but apparently we can expect similar hikes from all manufacturers. Next on the agenda is the new Xiaomi T series and the new Redmi phones (sometime in the fall). I hope they surprise me and don't shock me with the price.

This price made me look at the HONOR 600 Pro completely differently even before the test started. Now it doesn't measure up to Xiaomi T series, but with Xiaomi 17, Samsung Galaxy S26, Google Pixel 10 Pro, which are true representatives of the premium class.

Is the HONOR 600 Pro also a top-of-the-line model, or is it just pretending to be?

Advantages	Weaknesses
Snapdragon 8 Elite	The high price spoils its value
Excellent display with high brightness	Rivals offer more for less
Good workmanship, excellent durability	They got rid of the depth sensor
Mostly good cameras	USB 2.0 is ripe for retirement
Long battery life

HONOR 600 Pro price and specifications

• HONOR 600 Pro 12GB/512GB: €999

This is the retail price, for example, you can get it at Mobileshop for €700, which is a much more reasonable price for a mid-range phone.

When you purchase the HONOR 600 or HONOR 600 Pro, you will receive an 80W fast charging adapter and a one-year warranty on the screen and back of the phone. The offer is valid from 7. 5. 2026 to 7. 6. 2026 or while supplies last.

HONOR 600 Pro – part iPhone clone, part original

Three different designs in three years. We are all different. Personally, I find it more interesting, more fresh, for a company to experiment with new shapes and colors than to just change the look a little every year (right, Samsung?). But on the other hand, I also don't want to see obvious copying from rivals. If the HONOR 600 Pro didn't have an elongated ultra-wide lens, it would be a 100% clone of the latest iPhone 17. I know that HONOR phones have had a reputation for being an "iPhone copy" for a few years now, and this year they've clearly embraced that nickname. If they were to add some "cool" colors, they've opted for neutral white and black. The regular HONOR 600 has an orange color, which is very similar to the one on the iPhone.

But at least they kept the trump cards that have become their trademark. The HONOR 600 Pro has a 5-star SGS certificate for resistance to drops and shocks, and IP68, IP69 and IP69K for water and foreign body ingress. You will be hard-pressed to find a more durable phone, at least on paper. For me, the durability of a phone is still often left to chance. It can be dropped 10 times in a row and be unharmed, but the eleventh time it will lose its soul.

For the first time, I got the feeling that the phone was chunky, as if it was stretched out in width. Not chunky in terms of thickness or weight (it's extremely light and thin), but as if it was somehow squeezed in the hand. But the dimensions don't confirm my feeling, maybe it's just a matter of habit.

They put glass on the front and back, and the body is made of aluminum. They also added a matte finish to the back, which is very good at preventing fingerprint smudges.

The screen is flat with really minimal black frames (HONOR says less than a millimeter). Another special feature is the AI button on the right side, which can be used for taking photos, quick shortcuts to UI functions, camera, flashlight, and the like. Relatively useful, for me mainly for taking photos and for quick access to the flashlight, especially since the previous shortcut (double-clicking the volume down button) has not been working for some time.

There's also a fingerprint scanner under the screen. It's okay, but not among the fastest.

I'm confused by the decision to remove the depth sensor, which was a faithful companion to the front camera. previous generationsIt doesn't affect the overall photography experience, but it's an incredible tool for unlocking your phone faster, more reliably, and more securely, especially when there's not enough light.

The USB standard, which is stuck at 2.0, could also be improved. The stereo speakers are fine. There's even a 200-% volume option if 100 % isn't enough for you. Wi-Fi 7 support is built in, but it can't connect to the 6-GHz channel if your network equipment supports it at all. It's a newer technology, so you won't even miss it.

The screen size is in the golden mean

There aren't many phones with a 6.57-inch diagonal. Whether they're giants (6.9 inches) or smaller midgets (6.3 inches), this in-between diagonal has never really caught on. Of course, it's an AMOLED with excellent sharpness, a resolution of 1264 x 2728 and a pixel density of 458 ppi. I don't know how they did it, but they increased the maximum brightness to 8,000 nits (candelas). A brutal number, but I hope you realize that this doesn't mean that the entire screen is lit at this brightness, usually only around 10 nits or less. Typical brightness is around 2,000 nits, which is fine or enough for use in the sun. I like that it can go all the way down to one nit. When I'm browsing my phone before bed in a dark bedroom, at least I know that I won't have my pupils burning.

The refresh rate is the classic 120 Hz, but without LTPO technology. Instead, it uses a “cheaper” version of LTPS, which means the refresh rate is stepped, for example 60 Hz, then 90 Hz, and then 120 Hz. Support for HDR content is also included.

Eye protection is ensured by PWM dimming with a frequency of 3840 Hz. If you don't already know, screens flicker and this flicker is mostly invisible, but can be extremely annoying for more sensitive eyes. With HONOR, you won't have these complaints.

This time it's the Snapdragon 8 Elite, great!

Given that it's more expensive, I expected them to not skimp on the chip. And they didn't. The Snapdragon 8 Elite may not be the latest and greatest, but it's still a damn good chip that will easily handle any task, game, or app you throw at it. Could you get a Gen 5 for that money? POCO F8 Ultra proves that yes, but it's not necessarily the case that you really need the extra capacity.

You also get 12GB of RAM (LPDDR5X), which is again to be expected given the choice of chipset. It's not the most I've seen for the money, but it'll be enough for now (and at least for a few years to come). Considering I've played Windows and Switch games and never ran out of memory, that's good enough evidence.

There is up to 512 GB of space (in our market, up to 1 TB elsewhere), and the standard is UFS 4.1, the fastest currently available.

Below is a list of the games I tested.

Temperatures behave predictably. During more demanding gaming, you quickly exceed 40℃ for the battery and around 60℃ for the chip, which is the limit at which the case also starts to get hot. It takes about an hour for it to get too hot to play, for example, The Witcher 3, depending on the settings in the game. If you have one, I recommend using an external fan or taking regular breaks. During everyday use (surfing the web, taking photos, etc.) the temperature is not a problem.

The battery is very good. Of course, this time we also got a smaller capacity (6400 mAh) than in China (7000 mAh). On average, I recorded 13-14 hours of screen on time (SoT) with mixed use. It charges with 80 W, and wirelessly with 50 W. You have to buy the charger separately.

MagicOS 10 is based on Android 16, just like the Magic8 Pro and 600 Lite. Visually, they made a lot of use of transparency effects, which you can see in menus, icons, etc. You can turn on the "dynamic" island, just like on the iPhone, to make it easier to monitor notifications, music... Just like on almost every phone, you have to remove some software clutter at the beginning (Booking, Amazon, Temu, unknown games...).

Of course, there are also quite a few UI features, from text editing, to sorting screenshots, to editing photos, to creating videos from photos, and there's even a tile for recommended apps on the desktop if that's important to you. My first order of business was to remove that.

HONOR is said to provide 6 years of Android upgrades and security patches.

A good photographer, but not at the level of the best

You get three cameras that are pure classics: main (wide), ultra-wide and telephoto. I don't know exactly which sensors they installed, but at least according to the specifications I would say that the main 200 MP remained the same as last year, while the telephoto has upgraded the optical zoom to 3.5x (previously 3x) and changed the aperture to f/2.85 (previously 2.4). The sensor resolution remains 50 MP. The ultra-wide camera also apparently remains the same at 12 MP.

The main lens takes very good shots, regardless of whether you're shooting during the day or at night. Of course, daytime is better, but overall I like what it does with colors and contrast. Images are captured at 12.5 MP by default, although you can also use the full 200 MP if you have enough light and want to play around with it later and maybe squeeze out some more detail. Skin tones are nice, and in portraits I also love the level of detail on faces. Edge detection around the subject is very good. I've often gotten very nice photos at night too, but of course the quality drops a bit and if you don't know how to take advantage of the light, digital noise will creep in.

The telephoto camera is also top-notch, with excellent detail and fairly saturated colors. Using it at night is the first example that the HONOR 600 Pro isn't quite at the top of what the best phones can do. Even when you stop using the optical zoom, the images remain usable up to about 10x, maybe more if you're not too harsh.

The ultra-wide camera is, as always, the worst of the three. You can still get reasonably sharp images, but only during the day and outdoors. Sharpness quickly drops off indoors.

The front camera also provided me with a positive experience, but I'm surprised it doesn't have autofocus. Apparently last year's HONOR 400 Pro didn't have it either, which I missed in last year's test.

Video capabilities stop at 4K and 60 fps (ultrawide at 30 fps), which is all you need. Daytime shots, both with the main and telephoto cameras, are very good. Colors are dynamic, sharpness is good, and stabilization also works well.

HONOR 600 Pro – price is a really big problem for me

The HONOR 600 Pro is a really good phone. If it had stayed at last year's prices, it would have been among the best in its class. I understand that there is a general shortage of RAM and other raw materials, and that this is most likely the main reason for the price increase, but still, the price is a bitter sight for the buyer. If all its rivals (especially the Xiaomi T series and POCO F) also increase in price, then I will also look at the HONOR 600 Pro differently, but we will see.

This year, I have to emphasize even more that buying the previous generation is a much better choice. The performance jump is not so big that it is worth paying the higher price (the HONOR 400 Pro is available for €450).

Also, in general, there are phones that will offer you more for the same or even lower price. HONOR Magic8 Pro, POCO F8 Ultra, Realme GT 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and S25 Ultra, Xiaomi 17, One Plus 15 … These are just a few phones that sell on the open market between €600 and €1000 and all of them are better than the HONOR 600 Pro in most areas. If you buy from a carrier, then you are at their mercy.