HONOR 600 Pro Review

HONOR’s mid-range smartphones have built a reputation for having a tough body, great performance and features, sometimes even matching those of flagship phones, but without the flagship-level price tag.

It’s a similar story with the new HONOR 600 series. For this review, we’ll be looking at the top-spec HONOR 600 Pro. If you’re interested in the standard HONOR 600, you can check out review on the site as well.

The design of the HONOR 600 Pro might remind everyone of something different, but it packs a lot of features both inside and out. And considering how competitive the midrange smartphone segment has become, is the HONOR 600 Pro still the go-to choice?

Let’s find out in this review.

Design and Construction

I’m sure everyone will have their own opinion regarding the design of the HONOR 600 Pro. Our review is in the orange colorway too, which isn’t exactly subtle by any means.
It definitely reminds us of the redesigned iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Plus models.

Then again, HONOR isn’t the only one to adopt this design language. There are a lot of smartphones launched this year that follow a similar styling to Apple. However, the main difference with the HONOR 600 Pro and the others is that it feels very premium.

It features an aluminum frame together with what HONOR calls a translucent composite fiber back panel, both of which feel nice to the touch. Thanks to this material, the back panel is also mostly smudge-resistant. The only exception is the long camera island, which uses a gloss-like material instead.

The entire phone is quite sturdy too, featuring an IP68 and 69K ratings for dust and water resistance. It also has an SGS 5-star Premium Performance Certification of Drop and Crush Resistance. With that, it can withstand a tough beating, and users don’t need to worry about it getting wet.

Despite all the armoring, the HONOR 600 Pro is still a relatively lightweight and slim phone, measuring only 7.8mm thin and weighing 200g. The buttons are ergonomically positioned, with the power button, volume rocker, and dedicated AI button all easily within reach on the right side of the phone.

The left side of the phone remains clean, while at the bottom, users will find the USB-C port, one of two loudspeakers, and the dual-SIM card slot. At the top, there are a few more holes for the speakers and a secondary microphone.

Display, Multimedia, and Biometrics

The HONOR 600 Pro features a beautiful 6.57-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 8000 nit peak brightness, making it perfectly usable outdoors and in almost any environment.

Some might find the screen a bit small, especially for those used to larger devices, but we find it to be adequate. The bezels are very thin all around, further enhancing the premium look and feel of the HONOR 600 Pro.

With that, users will definitely enjoy watching their favorite shows and movies on the HONOR 600 Pro. The default Vivid color profile is already great out of the box, featuring colors that pop and deep blacks.

It also supports HDR, giving users a more enhanced viewing experience. The 120Hz refresh rate also gives the phone smooth animations when scrolling in apps and fiddling with the UI. It’s also great for gaming, but more on that later. Hint, yes, it can game very well.

As for the speakers, they’re average at best. Depending on the song playing, it can sound flat. There’s also a lack of bass, and the lack of separation between the mids and highs might make the song sound muddied.

Fortunately, the speakers are relatively loud, with the option to bump the volume up to 200%. However, at 200% volume, the quality ends up dropping further. With that, users will be better off pairing their favorite headphones to have better sound quality.

As for biometrics, users can choose between an under-display fingerprint scanner or face unlock. Both work fast with no problems for recognition.

Cameras

The cameras on the HONOR 600 Pro are some of the most capable we’ve tried so far in the mid-range segment. It features a triple rear setup highlighted by a 200MP main along with a 50MP periscope telephoto and a 12MP ultrawide. For selfies, there’s a 50MP front camera.

During the day, the cameras capture images in amazing detail. The saturation is dialed in just right, and there’s a nice contrast to give the photos a moody feel out of the box.

There’s a good balance of highlights and shadows too. Honestly, it’s hard not to like the photos the HONOR 600 Pro captures. Thanks to the periscope-telephoto lens, users will have no problem zooming in. Even up to 7.5x zoom, the images come out amazing.

However, there are limitations to the phone’s telephoto. Anything beyond 10x zoom, and there’s a very noticeable drop in quality, but the AI post-processing still does a decent job of enhancing the image.

The ultrawide is surprisingly decent too. However, the same can’t be said in less-than-ideal lighting conditions. In low light, the difference in quality is very obvious. The images captured by the ultrawide become less sharp, but at least the colors are still decent, and the grain isn’t that bad.

As for video, the HONOR 600 Pro records at a maximum of 4K@60FPS using the main and telephoto sensors, while the ultrawide and front camera max out at 4K@30FPS.

Interestingly, there’s no option to toggle stabilization, but it seems to be turned on all the time. With that, the videos came out very stable. Even when I was shooting handheld, the camera shake was very manageable. As for the quality, just as we suspected, it is very similar to the images.

In well-lit environments, the main camera and telephoto quality are superb. However, users will notice a slight drop in quality when digitally zooming from 1x up to 3.4x. Quality improves when users get to 3.5x zoom, because that’s when it shifts to the actual telephoto sensor.

As for the ultrawide, well, it seems to be doing its own thing. At night, it’s a similar case when recording video, with the main and telephoto doing decent. However, the ultrawide becomes close to unusable at this point, sadly.

Check out the gallery below to see what we mean.

Honor 600 Pro

May 5 – 12

Performance and Benchmarks

Moving to the performance, the HONOR 600 Pro packs a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. Yes, not Gen 3 or 4, just the regular 8 Elite. It’s a bit of an older chipset, but it still offers flagship-level performance. Our review unit also comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. No microSD slot here, but 512GB is more than enough in our opinion.

Considering the chipset it has under the hood, the HONOR 600 Pro is more than capable of running all the applications we threw at it. There’s no need to worry about leaving applications running in the background either. We could quickly switch apps and easily pick up where we left off.

Multitasking from browsing the web to playing games is fast and seamless. Similarly, playing games on this phone is very enjoyable. Lighter and even more graphic intensive titles like Genshin Impact could run on the highest settings without issues.

We even tried playing the new graphics-heavy game Neverness to Everness, and it ran smoothly with most graphics settings set to high. While it could handle the game with some settings on ultra, we were already getting FPS drops.

When playing NTE, the phone did heat up. It’s not concerningly hot, but the phone became very warm to the touch. More importantly, it didn’t affect gameplay.

As for the benchmarks, it scored well, as you can see the scores below.

OS, Apps, and UI

For the OS, the HONOR 600 Pro ships with Android 16 skinned with MagicOS 10. Despite it being a midrange model, the phone comes with nearly all the features we’ve seen from their flagship model.

Like its exterior design, it seems to be heavily inspired by the latest version of iOS, even featuring the frosted glass look. What we liked is HONOR’s heavy use of AI features. Of course, Google’s Gemini is still here, which can easily be activated by holding the power button.

Furthermore, users can also activate HONOR AI by hitting the AI button, assuming it is set up to open that app. The AI button is customizable too, allowing the user to choose which app they want to open.

Other AI features include AI Subtitles, AI Translate, and even AI Writing. But the feature we’ve been playing with the most is the AI editing of photos and videos in the gallery together with the Image to Video 2.0 feature. If you’ve seen our social media feed lately, you can tell we’ve been playing with these a lot.

Both features need an internet connection to use, but it’s pretty interesting to see what we could do with it. Although other times it can look like AI slop. Some might feel overwhelmed by the AI features, but just play around with them and you’ll eventually get used to it.

Battery and Connectivity

Powering the HONOR 600 Pro is a large 7,000 mAh Si/C battery pack. Considering the features and chipset the phone uses, I had my reservations at first. Surprisingly, the battery isn’t just a brochure figure.

It actually lasts a long time. Even when I used the phone for an entire day to capture sample shots, play games, and even watch YouTube, we still had more than enough battery to last another day of doing the same thing.

The benchmarks showed a similar story too. Using PCMark’s battery benchmark, the phone was able to score 17 hours and 32 minutes, which is an amazing score all things considered. We also ran our video loop test, and it scored 28 hours and 30 minutes. For reference, both tests were run on airplane mode, volume muted, and 50% brightness.

For charging, users can choose between 80W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging, assuming you have a fast enough wireless charger. There’s also 27W reverse wired charging and even reverse wireless charging, allowing the user to help their friends by turning the HONOR 600 Pro into a power bank.

As for connectivity, the HONOR 600 Pro features Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, GPS, NFC, and even infrared for using it as a universal remote.

Conclusion

With everything we’ve experienced with the HONOR 600 Pro, it’s got almost everything we’ve wanted. From near flagship performance to a beautiful display and even a rugged build, this phone nearly has it all.

Not to mention almost all the AI features it has that could potentially help make life easier. It could even play heavier titles like NTE, and the cameras are beautiful too.

No doubt it is a great all-around phone to use. The only concern I think people would have is the design. But again, style is subjective at the end of the day.

Now for the price. The Honor 600 Pro retails at PHP 49,999 for the lone 12+512GB variant, which is a lot of money. It’s already close to flagship-level pricing, but you do get near-flagship-level performance with this phone. Whether it’s worth it or not, we leave that to you.

Overall, what do you guys think of the HONOR 600 Pro? Is this the midrange smartphone to pick this 2026, or would you choose a different phone entirely? Whatever the case, share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:

• Beautiful display
• Powerful chipset
• Long-lasting battery
• Tough and rugged body

What we didn’t like:

• Speakers could be better
• Design isn’t to our liking

HONOR 600 Pro specs:
6.57-inch AMOLED Display
120Hz refresh rate, 1.5K resolution (1264 x 2728 pixels)
Snapdragon 8 Elite
12GB, 16GB RAM
256GB, 512GB, 1TB storage
Triple rear cameras:
200MP main sensor
50MP telephoto sensor
12MP ultrawide
50MP selfie shooter
Infrared sensor
Wi-Fi 7
Bluetooth 5.4
USB-C
dual speakers
IP68/69/69K rating
MagicOS 10
Android 16
7000mAh battery
80W SuperCharge fast charging
50W SuperCharge wireless charging
27W reverse charging
Reverse wireless charging
156×74.7×7.8mm
200g (HONOR 600 Pro)
Orange, Golden White, Black