So I have been lucky enough to have had the new OnePlus Nord 4 for a couple of weeks and I have been able to test it in a variety of different environments from being back in good old Blighty to being on holiday as well. What I really want to try and understand is where this phone fits in the world of smartphones. I have used a few of the Nord series devices over the years and spoiler alert this one is the best I have had the pleasure of using so far.

I have already covered the hardware extensively in my unboxing post that went out the day the phone was announced. If you missed this or want to refresh your memory then I would recommend checking it out.

So now that you are all caught up let’s dive into the key features that distinguish this phone from the masses.

Hardware

There are some elements of this phone that I feel I need to highlight in the hardware department as they not only separate the phone for the wealth of midrange devices on the market but they also make this phone unique in the industry for the moment.

The first one I want to talk about is of course the materials that have been used to make the phone.

The phone is unique in this first aspect as it is (at least at the time of release) the only 5G-enabled smartphone that has a metal back panel which has been made possible by the use of a new antenna design.

This makes for a phone that has stood up well over the last month or so while it has been getting used. I have in fact suffered from the fate that every phone user fears. I dropped the phone when working on a server rack and it fell from the middle of the rack so about 3 to 4 feet onto a concrete floor. Now if this had been my Pixel 8 Pro then this would have potentially been a disaster as it hit the floor quite hard on one of the corners, not only that but it hit a few different levels on the way down. I am certain it would have broken the screen on the Pixel and done significant damage to the back. I dread to think what I would have done to my Pixel Fold!

The Nord 4 though came out of the ordeal relatively unscathed. It had a few dents and one significant indent on the upper left-hand corner which can be seen in the image below.

The next aspect of the hardware is the new antenna design I mentioned above. Now whilst this is not visible as it is under that glorious metal body it works very well. It is claimed that the design actually allows the casing to be utilised as a means to boost signal strength. Whilst I can’t actually test I’m this for certain I have found that I do get better signal strength than the Pixel devices I regularly use as my daily drivers. It also seems to be quicker to regain the signal when I do lose it which is something that OnePlus were very keen to talk about at their press event.

Next up is the display, this display is very very good and gets plenty bright in direct sunlight with a maximum brightness of 2150 nits when using auto brightness. It was perfectly usable under the glaringly bright Greek sunshine and when using it with sunglasses on everything was still perfectly legible.

I have not been able to test the touch response when the screen is wet as was shown in the keynote by a friend of the site JP. I do not doubt that this tech works but I will be honest I have not needed to test this yet as it has not rained very much in the last month. I also don’t want to deliberately put the phone in that scenario despite the IP rating that the phone has of IP65. The one thing I can say is that it works with sweaty fingers absolutely fine but it can get a bit slippery when things get sweaty!

Another hardware plus is the way that the phone feels in the hand. I just love how slim this device is. I also love the squared-off edges and the confidence that the metal construction offers when in the hand. The phone just feels well-built without feeling like a tank(which it is as seen above). When you pick it up and the back is cold you appreciate the feeling of the cold back. However, when it is being used intensively this can be a negative as it can get a bit hot especially when the camera is being used a lot. I did also find that the phone will absorb the ambient heat very quickly and it can take a bit of time to cool down. Whilst this made things a bit toasty I was not experiencing any significant drop in performance during these times, it’s just harder to hold on too! I have to say that back in the UK, I have not had these issues but then again I have not been pushing the phone with continuous camera use etc.

The phone’s speakers are also surprisingly good and more than adequate for playing YouTube clips and listening to podcasts. I have predominantly been using the phone with OnePlus Nord Buds 3 Pro though but when I have not had them to hand I have been very impressed. The speaker setup is your traditional bottom-firing loudspeaker with a front-facing earpiece. Whilst it is not as advanced as some setups it works well and there is okay separation on both channels.

That brings me into the alert slider which is a very handy feature and one that I love to see. Whilst it is no longer a unique feature to OnePlus as it has now been seen in some form on other devices (Vivo X Fold 3 Pro), it is something that I think every phone should have and credit to OnePlus for keeping it there as it is so easy to use to quickly change your sound profiles. It also makes for a great thing to fidget with!

Moving away from the hardware to the area always blurs the line between the performance.

Performance

A lot of this is driven by the hardware and I don’t follow the use of benchmarks as I prefer to experience the way the phone works day to day and gauge it on that.

In terms of battery life for me at least this is easily a two-day phone in my normal use case. If I was really hammering it then I could get the Nord 4 to dip below 20% before bedtime but that was very rare.

In terms of daily performance and app opening speed, I have not found there to be any real issues here at all as the apps work exactly as expected with no slowness that I could perceive especially when I have compared this to the likes of my Pixel devices and other phones that I have around me at the moment. I have been able to test it using the GPS for sustained periods and it was perfectly adequate for this even when using it on battery.

The ability of the phone to hold multiple apps open in RAM is very impressive which is again hardly surprising given that the phone comes with 16GB of RAM in the version I have. Even if you were to go for the version with 12GB of RAM, I don’t think you would ever be left wanting more as the Oxygen OS is very good at keeping on top of RAM demands. I was able to keep more than enough apps open in the background without them reloading for my normal use. I think the most I had open at one time that I was able to count was 40+ after which I stopped counting! This included a mix of games, streaming services, weather, maps and heavy hitters like Google Photos. So I think it is fair to say that you can have a substantial app load out if required. The RAM extends to more than just that though as it is a core component of the ability to multitask. Whilst this is not something I tend to do much on slab phones you can of course take advantage of some split-screen action if you want to. An example of this is shown below where I have had the Calendar app and the Booking .com app open at the same time. You have the apps sit one on top of the other as you would expect and you can also swap the app’s position by tapping the three dots in the middle. Whilst I have stated this is not something I tend to use on slab-style phones (I use it a lot on tablets and folding phones) it is helpful to have and to know that the phone can cope with it.

So we have covered the battery and multitasking the other big areas are gaming performance and heat build-up. Let’s cover the heat first.

This is one area where I have found that the phone did present some issues. I do want to add some context here though. I was predominantly using this phone in ambient temperatures of more than 30 degrees while I was doing the majority of my camera testing as I was away from the UK at the time. When I was using the camera intensively I did find that the phone was getting a tad warm. Now whilst this is not unusual for phones to get hot when using the camera it got uncomfortably warm. It was not only while I was using the camera though. I was finding that even using the phone for web browsing and doom scrolling on social media it was getting a bit toasty. The good news is that when I have been back here in the UK I have not had the same level of heat build-up, however, if I am being totally honest I have not been using the camera as intensively either. I think the issue is that the metal casing of the phone effectively becomes the phone’s heat sink and is being used to dissipate the heat. This can cause it to be uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong I have experienced similar heat build-up on other devices (mainly my Pixel Fold), but I was just wanting to make you aware that if you are in a warmer climate than the UK then you may see this issue yourself.

That leads me to performance. I did not have the occasion to do any gaming testing whilst I was on holiday but if I have been using it for some light gaming in the evening since I returned from holiday and in the games I tested the max frame rates were being reached with ease and the phone did remain reasonably cool during longer sessions as well. I was playing Asphalt Unite for about 20 mins without any significant overheating and the games were running on max settings throughout.

It looks like the new Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip and the associated Adreno graphics are well-suited for this level of device. To be honest these days you will be hard-pressed to find a modern chipset that struggles with much of what can be done in terms of gaming performance on Android. Until we start seeing the Triple AAA games that Apple are introducing to the iPad/iPhone then we won’t need to worry about gaming chops yet.

Next up is the software.

Software

I have already indicated that the phone is running a skin over the Android core and this is called Oxygen OS. The version is 14.1 and the underlying Android version is Android 14. OnePlus has promised updates for the phone’s core OS for 4 versions of Android and security updates for 6 years Whilst this is not the same level as we are now starting to see from Samsung and Google this will take your devices up to Android 18 which is pretty good going. To be honest, by that stage, the phone will probably need to be replaced due to component wear and tear. That being said another claim being made is that the battery will maintain its peak health for 4 years as well due to the Battery Health Engine. OnePlus has also tested under TUV Rheinland conditions that the Software will remain fluent for up to 6 years. This is all part of OnePlus’s Fast and Smooth promise, only time will tell how long this will stay true but the fact that they have backing on the test performed by TUV Rheinland gives me some hope for the accuracy of the claims.

In terms of the software being Fast and Smooth now, I have to say I have not had any reason to find any fault with it. I do like what OnePlus has been able to do with the Oxygen OS UI. Now for those of you who read my reviews often you will know that this is not my normal stance on UI’s and normally I find them to be bloated and annoying. Now don’t get me wrong there is of course some bloat and app duplication here it wouldn’t be a UI from a Chinese manufacturer without it.

Apart from the apps shown in the screenshot above there is not too much other bloat that has been forced onto the device. There are also a few apps that I didn’t end up relegating to the folders of shame as they have actually proved to be useful. An example of this is the new Photos app from OnePlus. This now allows you to pull your images in from Google Photos (my go-to app for images) and view them within the app. In addition to this, it is also where some of the phone’s new AI features are hiding. So we have two new additions to the photos app.

AI Best Face is the first one and this will allow you to correct images from a photo where some of the subjects have perhaps blinked or have their eyes closed. This is an app that sounds like it was made for me and my family as I am constantly having to retake photos of my wife and son when they have their eyes closed or they have blinked at just the wrong moment. Unfortunately, it is an app I have been unable to use as it requires three faces to be seen in the photo for it to work its magic. I guess I just need to get some more friends to be able to test this. I just wanted to add that I have also never been able to use this feature on my Pixel devices either so this is not an issue specifically with OnePlus. Here are some sample images of what should happen.

Next up is AI Clear Face, this will allow again in a groufie image to improve the image by removing blur from the faces in that image. Again this is something I have not been able to test for real as I don’t take many “groufies” but here are some examples again to allow you to see what it looks like.

The last thing that AI will do in the photos app is AI Eraser, which will allow you to remove photo bombers and unwanted actions of an image, it will then fill that missing section with a fresh background to match the rest of the image.

Now this is something I was very keen to try on my photos from my holiday but I was stymied by the phone. So it turns out that AI Eraser will not work on PRO XDR images which is what the camera will default to using to take photos. This meant that whenever I tried to use AI Eraser on an image I had taken it wouldn’t let me unless I had remembered to turn Pro XDR off which needed to be done every time I took a photo! This was very annoying and it meant that I just didn’t edit the photos until I got home and did the edits on my Pixel. The good news is that this now seems to have been resolved since a software update as I am now able to use AI Eraser on any image I wish to.

Pretty impressive I am sure you agree. That is not all the AI will do though as it has a few more tricks up its sleeve but these two are some of the most visible ones. The AI will also allow you to summarize audio recordings from the Recorder App capturing the key points from that recording and transcribing them for future use. This is called the AI Audio Summary.

Another trick is an AI Article Summary which will scan a webpage pull out the relevant and important details from the page and present it in an easier-to-read format.

Next up in the AI arsenal is AI Smart Cutout, You can simply press and hold on an item from an image and it will allow you to use that section of the image somewhere else. For example, I could extract the watch from this image and use it in a document such as a review article!

This is a pretty neat feature and one that I think I may use more going forward.

There is one other big feature that I will mention now even though this is not a phone-based feature it uses the phone. If you are lucky enough to also have a OnePlus Pad or Pad 2 then you can set up a wireless connection between the two devices and drag and drop items between the phone and tablet. This allows for very quick and easy file transfers from one device to the other. It is so easy and quick it is exactly what I just did to move the files above from my phone to the tablet just now.

This is all part of the greater OnePlus Ecosystem and allows the software of different devices to share the same architecture behind the scenes. It is something that Apple and Samsung have been doing for a long time and I am pleased to see that OnePlus have joined the party.

In terms of other things that the software has you have the usual features of a floating sidebar which will house some of your AI functions and this changes depending on what app you are using. This is an example of AI Writer from the Gmail app

You also have the other normal features expected for a OnePlus Android 14 device, such as screen off gestures and Air gestures neither of which I have or intend to ever use as I just don’t find them helpful, with the notable exception of double tap to wake. Honestly, I just thought this was a standard OnePlus feature and couldn’t understand why it didn’t work until I turned it on in the settings menu!

I am quite impressed with the software of the OnePlus Nord 4 so much that I have been jumping in between this and my Pixel Fold almost daily as I really like how it works and feels to use daily.

Next up is the camera

Camera

The camera system on the OnePlus Nord 4 is a relatively simple affair as we have two rear cameras and one front-facing camera. The rear-facing units comprise a 50 MP Sony LYTIA Camera as the main camera which is supported by an 8MP Sony Camera. The front camera is an unbranded 16MP sensor.

In terms of specs these are as follows

Rear Cameras:

•  50 MP Sony LYTIA Camera, f/1.8, 24mm (wide), 1/1.56″, 1.0µm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS
• 8 MP, f/2.2, 112˚ (ultrawide), 1/4.0″, 1.12µm

Front camera

• 16 MP, f/2.4, 24mm (wide), 1.0µm

Both cameras can support a wide variety of shooting modes and both will record at up to 1080p at 30fps if you want higher than that you will need to use the main rear camera which can go up to 4k at 60fps.

I have found that in good lighting conditions, the camera produces some very good images as shown below.

The video is also pretty darn good as well

Here are some close-up shots showing its close-up skills

When things get dark it becomes a little bit tougher for the sensor but it still works remarkably well all things considered. you do start to lose a little bit of detail but the below images were taken in a very dark environment so the camera has down well to pick up what it could.

As for Selfies I have included one with Portrait mode on and with it on at the strongest aperture settings and one without any modes on just normal camera settings.

Here is some low light video as well

You can see that there was some slight distortion there from motion blur but again not too bad a result.

You can see that the portrait mode is quite effective at blurring the background out without messing with the lines of my face too much. It has clipped a few of the extraneous hairs from my very messy bear which may be seen as a good thing to some.

Overall if your expectations are for a good point-and-shoot and you are not going to be using it too much in low light then the Camera setup will be fine for you however if you want a higher-performance camera then I would look at the like of the similarly priced Pixel 7A as it will include the use of Google Advanced Camera Algorithms for in my opinion the best camera experience that is available at the moment.

That wraps my review all that is left now is to draw some conclusions.

Conclusions

First and foremost this is a damn good phone and were I not a specs whore and addicted to Folding phones then I would be more than happy to daily drive this phone. It is solid it is nice hold and is well made. The software has some very nice features and touches and works very well with the rest of the OnePlus ecosystem. There is just enough sprinkling of AI on board to keep it relevant but most of it can be ignored if you want to and from what I can see all of it is included in the price no extra subs are required (unlike Google).

Is it the best value for your money though given its current asking price of £429 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage version or£479 for the 16GB RAM and 512GB storage version? Yes if you want the OnePlus experience and all that comes with that, SuperVooc charging at 100w, inter-device connectivity with OnePlus Pad/Pad 2/Go the Alert Slider and the only metal unibody 5G phone currently on the market.

However, if none of these things bother you then, there are other potentially cheaper options available. I am not going to list them here but I have mentioned one in the article above.

If you haven’t considered a OnePlus Nord 4 then it is a phone that is worth taking a look at as I have been very pleased with it and there are always some good deals to be had at the Oneplus website. For example, you can currently get the phone for the prices above which is £50 off RRP and you can choose from either a OnePlus SuperVooc 100W charger or Sandstone Case for free.

Check out the OnePlus Nord 4 at the link here

The post OnePlus Nord 4 – Review – The metal midrange king? is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.

Honor has come in strong with their new devices in the Honor 200 series. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to use the Honor 200 Pro for the past few weeks and it is now time to start the Review process so without further ado let’s get right into it.
I have already covered a hardware tor and comparison in my Unboxing post.

Hardware
before we get into the individual specs for the device it is time that we pull up a specs list for the phone,

Specs

It is a pretty impressive specs list for a non-flagship tier device. I do however want to single out a few key points on the hardware for further review.

Battery

This is the first thing I wanted to highlight as what Honor is currently doing with its battery technology is incredible. They are managing to squeeze bigger batteries into smaller spaces through the use of their first-generation 5200mAh Silicon-carbon. Not only will this be enough to get you through a full days usage, but it is also capable of recharging very quickly when used with the 100W wired charger. If you are not a fan of wired charging then you are still covered as the Honor 200 Pro can also be charged wirelessly at up to 66W again with the correct wireless charging stand.

I have been able to get through at least a full day of using the phone without the need to charge it up but I have to emphasise this is now the case for most phones I use as a daily device as I am very light on phone use during the day due to the demands of my day job.

Display

The next section I wanted to discuss was the display. Honer seems to be one of the few mainstream OEMs that are still using the curved style display on the edges of the screen. This practice has now been dropped by Google Samsung and OnePlus (at least they have with their Nord 4 devices anyway). I am a fan of the flattened screen edges as it means that you can use it right up to the edge of the display without having to worry about your finger not registering your tap. It also makes fitting a screen protector on the display easier. The screen does come fitted with a screen protector out of the factory and while I would normally remove this in favour of a glass one, that has not been the case here due to the curved edges. It is very hard to find a good quality glass screen protector for curved displays.

Before I leave the display I do want to give a nod to the dual camera array and the associated cut-out that this creates. It has been once again very carefully used for the Magic Capsule function we first saw on the Magic 6 Pro. I know this is a rip-off of Apple’s similar tech but I like it and the fact that it is still offering some limited functions such as media playback info etc.

Back Panel

The next one is a bit strange but I am just loving the back panel for this Honor 200 Pro. I have the Moonlight White variant here and it is glorious to look at however I was lucky enough to see the Ocean Cyan one in person and that is the one I would personally buy with my own money were I going to buy one. I love the texture of the back panel as it gives just the right amount of roughness to provide grip without feeling like sandpaper. The way it catches the light at various different angles, it almost has a mother-of-pearl sheen to it. Added to the fact that the materials used are conducive to allowing wireless charging through the panel, you can see that a lot of engineering has gone into the development of the back panels and this is something I appreciate.

Rear Camera

I am not going to go into the camera software here but I do quickly want to talk about the hardware and more importantly the layout of the cameras within the module. The three cameras used on the Honor 200 Pro are all high-end cameras in their own right. However, when they have been combined in the array in just the correct way allowing for the focal lengths to meet up correctly is one of the key aspects being utilised in the Studio Harcourt software algorithms to allow this phone to produce some stunning portrait shots.

What Honor has had to do is arrange the cameras in a very specific pattern to allow them all to work in harmony. Starting at the top camera we have a 50MP Portrait Main Camera with the following specs:

-1/1.3-inch H9000 ultra-large sensor
-OIS
-4-in-1 with equivalent 2.4 μm large pixel
-2-in-1 motor with 8-wire SMA AF + OIS
-f/1.9 aperture
-7P Lens

Below this is the 50MP Telephoto Camera
-HONOR x Sony IMX856 ultra-large sensor
-2.5x optical zoom
-up to 50x digital zoom
-OIS
-f/2.4 aperture

Finally on the bottom is the 12MP Ultra Wide and Macro Camera
-2-in-1 with wide angle & macro lens
-112° ultra-wide angle
-2.5cm ultra-short focus

All of these cameras work harmoniously with the AI-based algorithms learnt by Honor analysing Studio Harcourt photos in their thousands. using machine learning the AI then learned how to use the individual cameras to create the perfect portraits for three distinct camera modes Harcourt Vibrant, Harcourt Colour and Harcourt Classic.

Each mode has its character and subtlety about the produced image. I will delve into these images further in the camera section of the review though.

Air Gesture

Another camera-driven function is one that I had skimmed over initially but having now set it up I can genuinely see how it would be useful for me. The ability to use your phone via air gesture for basic navigation is very cool albeit a bit gimmicky. This uses the front-facing cameras (yes there are two) to construct a rough 3D image of your hand and the phone can then interpret certain gestures to allow tasks like scrolling up or down or switching a page in an ebook. You can also use it to go through your images in the Honor Gallery app if you use this.

An elegant feature to have but not an everyday one I think.

The above things are the key highlights for me in terms of the hardware that you can see and interact with however I do also want to quickly mention the Chip that is being used to power this portrait shooting phone. Inside the phone we have a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, this is the first time I have had the chance to use one of these chips and I am impressed. To the average user, you would not know that this is any different from the flagship chip in the form of the 8 Gen 3. I myself would have struggled to tell you of any significant differences. The key difference between the two chips is that the 8s is dialled back a bit from the 8 and that it uses a slightly slower CPU clock speed of 3000Mhz in the 8s Gen 3 vs 3300Mhz in the 8 Gen 3.

What this means in reality is that the phone is slightly slower across the board and if you are using it for graphically intensive activities such as gaming or video rendering then you will notice a slight drop in performance over its more powerful brethren. In the testing i performed i saw no such issue but hen i am also not the biggest gamer in the world so it is hardly surprising that I didn’t notice anything. (ED Note I have also used the latest SD 7 Gen 3 in the OnePlus Nord 4 and saw no significant issues there either).

In summary, unless you are trying to edit hours worth of 4K video and doing hours of AAA gaming without taking any breaks then you will not have any problem with this phone in terms of processing power at all. That takes me nicely to the next section which is the performance

Performance

Measuring the performance of a phone means many different things to different people. For me, I like to gauge it by a few metrics. How long can I use it before I have to charge? How warm does it get in normal usage? Are my calls clear and crisp? Can I use the phone on my normal day without compromising on anything?

As you can see these are quite subjective, particularly the last one. A typical day for me means that the phone comes off an overnight charge and will then be used for a combination of email and social media. I will normally also add in a bit of light web browsing. I then head out for work and for the most part, the phone will be sat in the van and unused save for notifications that are pushed through to whatever smart watch I am using (currently a Garmin Epix 2). At lunch there will normally be about a half hour of light YouTube use in a layby or car park in the middle of nowhere so the mobile signal is sometimes sketchy.

In the afternoon it goes back into its dormant state while I finish the rest of the day off. During the main parts of the day, it is rare for me to get or indeed make any calls but it can occasionally happen. I also sometimes use the phone for SatNav but this will be via wired Android Auto so it is charging anyway. In the evening it will be again used for surfing the web more social scrolling and YouTube (over Wifi). It is not unusual for me to end the day with more than 50% battery in most phones these days. I will then rinse and repeat this cycle for the next day until at the end of that day I will then need to charge my device up.

The TLDR version is I am a light user 99% of the time. When I attend a press event that changes to an intensive user I can normally chew through a full charge before dinner time!!

So with that in mind am I able to use the Honor 200 Pro without compromising my normal day, Absolutely yes I am, the phone will get me through a normal day of use with plenty left in the tank and I have been known to stretch this out to two full days especially when working. I was recently on holiday and even then I was able to get a full day’s usage out of it and that was whilst using it for a lot of photos, videos and sat nav use even with the ambient temps being in the 30 deg+ ranges.

That brings me to the next performance concern. Will it overheat and become too hot to handle? I am pleased to say that even whilst using it as a sat nav and roaming the phone was never a temperature where I would call it uncomfortable. Slippy yes, but not uncomfortable! I was able to capture the photographic delights of the Lindos Acropolis in Rhodes without any issue which is more than can be said for my son who gave up once we had climbed to the top and missed the best view of the pillars.

In answer to my final question as I have already mentioned I have been able to get through a normal day with the phone lasting over 16 hrs sometimes with no real issues. If you wish to find out more about the battery drain and how it compares to other devices then please watch this video by Ben from Lover of Tech as he is best at what he does for battery testing vids. Also if you like this sort of testing then give Ben a Like and Subscribe as I am sure he would appreciate it.

That concludes my performance assessment of the Honor 200 Pro. This is a phone that will perform perfectly adequately in all but the most extreme of conditions. I am hardly surprised given the components that have been utilised on the device as they are all sitting just below the flagship tier and they are certainly premium components.

Camera
What Honor has done with the 200 Pro is truly an exemplary example of what can be done when AI and machine learning are applied correctly. The use of machine learning to analyse the Studio Harcourt process. Capturing unique and classical style portraiture has taken what is capable of AI to another level
As a result, the end user is now able to utilise, the three Studio Harcourt photography modes available, by the toggle in the camera settings. To emulate what can be done by a DSLR camera.

How you enable this mode is extremely simple. Enter the camera, select portrait and then select the Studio Harcourt mode that you require You then point and shoot and the AI will work its magic in the background to help create a unique style of portrait shots that previously would have taken some real skill to create.

I am extremely impressed with the portrait shots that this camera has been able to catch.

However, This camera is more than just a portrait shooter. For close-up photos, the macro mode works to a satisfactory level. And for anything under 10 times zoom you can get good photographs. With good colour representation and accuracy.

Unfortunately, once you go beyond 10 times, things get messy and the digital cropping. Unfortunately, as a negative effect. The further away zoomed shots. This is shown in the photograph of the cathedral here in Milan where I have tried to zoom in on the Statute at the very top and all I was able to get was a bit of a blurry mess.

In terms of video quality, I have captured a few shots of video. You can see the results for yourself these were unusual for me to capture in portrait as opposed to landscape. But I think, I guess the message across Overall, I have been pretty pleased with the camera performance.

And, I think this will serve as a good camera for the intended Market which is in my opinion is 20 to 30 somethings. Who are interested in using their photography for the likes of social media and some vlogging capabilities. This is again, showcased by the fact that you have the Dual video functionality built into the camera as has been the case with every Honor number series device since the Honor 70 was released a few years ago.

Here are some shots that I have taken with the camera over the last few weeks on my travel both to Milan and Rhodes.

Software
In terms of software. The Honor 200 Pro is very similar to what we have seen before from the likes of the Honor Magic 6 Pro S and also the previous, the preceding Honor devices, Honor Magic UI is a middling skin, it isn’t too aggressive but it also does add certain functionalities.
One thing I do, find slightly annoying that it does add is there is a lot of app duplication here which, Creates an unnecessary deluge of apps.

I have enclosed a screenshot below showing the amount of pre-installed apps that come from the factory. These can all be deleted, but it is annoying that you have to do that.

In terms of AI Honor has enabled some AI functionality. However, there is a distinct lack of Google’s inbuilt AI functions.

On this phone. For example, there is no Circle to Search which is something that I do tend to use when I’m using my Pixel devices most days and The recording to notes function of Google’s recorder app on Pixel devices is another function that I am missing. However, that being said, If you are comfortable using Honors UI, then there will be no drastic changes here.

Some people have criticised Honor in the past for having a cartoon-like element to their user interface. But, That is something that I think is just being super critical. The interface is pleasing to the eye and it can be themed via the owner theme store. And there is a good selection of free themes in there if you don’t want to pay for them.

For the most part, Honor has improved their UI over the years. But, I would still like to see less bloatware and app duplication than we are seeing here. I think that will create a much cleaner and more user-friendly experience overall.

Conclusion

The Honor 200 Pro is a great device that has focused heavily on it’s camera skills, which is a good thing as it does work very well as. Camera particularly in close quarters. That being said it is by no means a one trick pony as it is a component phone for gaming and never let me down on the performance side of things. Whilst it is not quite flagship tier, it is so close that it is actually difficult to class it’s position in the brands lineup.

I see it this way, if you want the top of the line flagship specs then you have the Honor Magic 6 Pro which is a great phone from the limited time I had with it. However if you don’t need the top of the line in terms of specs and want to focus on the camera and particularly portraits then the Honor 200 Pro is a solid buy.

Just remember that the Ocean Cyan one looks the best!

You can buy the Honor 200 Pro from the Honor store right now for £599 but make sure to check for discounts as these appear regularly.

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