Honor 200 vs Honor 200 PRO - Why Spend More?
/Here are two solid mid tier Smartphones from Honor. The 200 and 200 pro. There's a £150 price difference between them and they have a lot of similarities. So one question you might have is should you save the £150, or spend the extra 150 for the Pro. Because you know decisions like this are sometime good, sometimes bad.
So Let's look into it. Let's start with size and weight. The pro model is 1.8mm taller, 6mm wider, 5mm thicker and 12 grams heavier. Now I'm not fat shaming the 200 Pro. It's not fat, it's power. You'll see why. Both have stereo speakers and iR blasters and USB C 2.0 ports.
Displays
The display on the 200 is 6.7 inches and the pro is 0.07 inches larger on the diagonal…and this gives the Pro model 1 additional pixel per inch.
Both displays are 120hz Amoleds with 4000 units of peak brightness. With 10bit colour depth. On Paper they are close but to my eye the regular 200 models display has a more blueish tint to it. I prefer the more neutral tone seen on the pro straight out of the box. This can be tweaked in the settings though.
Both phones have curved edges on all four Sides and use the same aluminosilicate Glass. It's not branded Gorilla glass but it's scratch resistant enough and Honor do equip both phones with screen protectors before shipping. Both phones also use under display optical fingerprint readers.
Camera
Now here is the biggest visible difference on the Pro. It has Dual selfie cameras. While they do have the same 50MP sensors up front but the additional 2MP sensor on the pro gives it's selfie photos more depth and detail information. Here's the difference it makes.
The rear camera specs at first glance seem to be identical to the untrained eye. Although if you dive into the specs you'll discover the primary 50mp sensors are in fact different.
The Pro model's sensor has larger pixels and a lens with a slightly wider aperture. Which simply put means light intake should be better on the Pro. See if you can notice the difference.
Now the other two lenses and sensors are exactly the same on both phones with a 50mp telephoto with 2.5x optical zoom. 50x digital zoom. And the same 12mp ultra wide. If you're seeing a difference here, despite the hardware being identical It's likely due to different image signal processing on the different Qualcomm chip sets. Which brings me nicely onto a very big difference between these two phones.
The Chipsets
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 on the 200 and Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 on the 200 pro. These are kind of like Qualcomms lite versions of the original chips. To go give you some context here's where they stack up versus other phones and chips in terms of benchmarks. Here are some real world results. The 200 pro is undoubtedly more powerful, however the Honor 200 seems to have a more stable performance over time.
Now something worth noting here is that the pro model not only has a better chip but also has the addition of a kind of signal turbo booster. Honors have equipment the Pro with their own RF enhanced C1+ chip. Which means better you'll get improved connectivity in lower signal areas in comparison to the 200.
Battery & Charging
Battery life is identical with both using a large 5200mAh battery and Honors 100W super charge speeds being supported on both. However there is no charger in the box with these European models. The Pro does have an additional charging trick up its sleeve though. Remember it's not fat, it's power and it does support reverse wireless charging on the back…and they both can reverse 5 watt charging via a wire.
Software
The software like I mentioned before is identical with Magic OS 8.0 on Android 14. Which does include Honors Ai magic portal. Which does give you that circle to search feature as well as Ai contextual suggestions when you highlight and drag things to the portal.
You get 3 years software updates taking these devices up to Android 17 and 4 years security updates. So that's 4 years of not having to worry about.
Making the decision
So my advice for you is that you got to weigh up the pros and cons. The pros for the Pro model is reverse wireless charging, the better display, better selfie and main cameras, better connectivity, plus the upgraded graphical performance…is that worth the 150 to you?
If the camera quality is good enough on the regular 200 and you don't really do any gaming or heavy tasks, and never reverse charge anything and signal is not a problem where you live, well then…maybe you should save the money…and maybe send some of it to me.
Now, if you want the best of the best. A true flagship. Then I can highly recommend the flagship Magic 6 pro. That phone is top tier and I believe you can get it for around 150 more than 200 pro. I did review that one and the thumbnail is on the screen. It's certainly worth taking a look at, it's a beast.
