Honor 400 Pro Review vs Magic7 Pro

I reviewed the superb Honor 200 Pro back in June 2024 and found it to be an excellent option for anyone wanting a flagship phone without the flagship pricing.

The chipset wasn’t quite as powerful as the Honor Magic7 Pro,and the camera spec was slightly reduced, in particular, the ultrawide lens was not as good, but  in general, the overall user experience was mostly the same, yet it launched at around £400 less than the Magic6 Pro.

Honor launched the 300 Pro back in December, but this wasn’t launched in Western markets.  

However, they have now launched the 400 Pro. Similar to last year, you get a phone that provides almost flagship performance at a significantly lower price than the RRP of the Magic7 Pro and is one of the best options on the market at its launch price of £700.

Related Reviews

• Honor 400 Lite 5G Review
• Honor Magic7 Pro Review
• Honor Magic V3 Review
• Honor 200 Pro Review vs Honor Magic 6 Pro
• Honor Magic6 Pro Review

Specification

Design

The Honor 400 Pro has an attractive premium-looking design, that is similar to the 200 Pro, but with a more angular camera bump compared to the oval design on its predecessor.

The phone is built to withstand daily wear, with SGS 5-star Drop & Crush Resistance certification. However, I managed to crack the glass back of my review sample, it slipped out of my pocket when I sat down and landed on concrete.

It is not entirely unexpected to crack a phone this way, and I am not going to mark the phone down for this, but back in January, Honor was demoing the durability of the affordable Magic 7 Lite, which included running over it on a quad bike.

Beyond that, the 400 Pro has an IP69 rating for dust and water resistance.

The frame is slim at 8.1mm and weighs 205g, available in Midnight Black and Lunar Grey.

Display

The phone features a 6.7-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2800×1280, delivering a pixel density of 460ppi. The display supports 1.07 billion colours and 100% DCI-P3 coverage, with HDR peak brightness reaching 5000 nits for clear viewing in direct sunlight.

Honor has included several eye comfort technologies:

• 3840Hz PWM dimming for flicker reduction
• Hardware-level low blue light
• Dynamic Dimming and Circadian Night Display to reduce eye fatigue and promote better sleep
• AI Defocus Display, inspired by myopia-control lenses, to reduce strain
• Ultra Dark Mode for comfortable use in low-light environments
• Sunlight Display Enhancement for improved readability outdoors
• Motion Sickness Relief, which uses visual stabilisation to reduce discomfort when using the device in moving vehicles
• Super Rainproof Touch, allowing the screen to remain responsive even when wet

In terms of performance, the display is superb. It has been very sunny recently, and I have had no issues using this outdoors in bright sunshine. Colours look excellent, and the 120Hz refresh rate provides a responsive experience.

Camera

The Honor 400 Pro places a strong emphasis on photography, led by its 200MP AI main camera with a large 1/1.4-inch sensor, f/1.9 aperture, and both optical and electronic image stabilisation. This setup is designed to deliver high clarity, even in challenging low-light conditions. The camera system is rounded out by a 50MP telephoto lens (3x optical zoom, OIS), a 12MP ultra-wide and macro camera (112° field of view), and a 50MP portrait selfie camera with Honor’s portrait algorithm for detailed, lifelike selfies.

AI features are central to the photography experience. The Honor Imagine Engine powers tools such as:

• AI Super Zoom (up to 50x digital zoom)
• AI Portrait Snap and Enhanced Portrait for sharper, more natural portraits
• All Focal Lengths Portrait and 135mm aspheric focal length for versatile framing
• HD Moving Photo, capturing three-second snippets for sharing
• Film Simulation and Harcourt Portrait modes, offering cinematic effects and studio-style lighting with three distinct Harcourt styles (Vibrant, Colour, Classic)
• DSLR-level night scene bokeh for improved low-light portraits

In terms of performance, the phone excels in photography. I would have liked a better ultra-wide camera, but then the phone would be a bit too close in spec to the Magic7 Pro.

The primary camera produces consistently good shots both in good light and low light. It also handles moving objects with ease, with rarely having an issue with motion blur.

AI Editing Tools

The Honor 400 Pro introduces a comprehensive suite of AI editing tools:

• AI Image to Video (co-developed with Google Cloud), which transforms still images into dynamic video clips
• AI Eraser, AI Erase Passers-by, and AI Remove Reflection for cleaning up images
• Moving Photo Collage, allowing users to stitch together 2–9 live photos into a single animated collage
• AI Outpainting, which extends image backgrounds for more creative compositions
• AI Upscale to improve the quality of older or low-resolution images
• AI Cutout for repositioning objects within a photo
• AI Face Tune, which can correct closed eyes in group or portrait shots

The AI features are generally excellent. I was quite impressed with the AI outpainting feature. As long as you have realistic expectations and don’t try to extend the image too far, it produces surprisingly realistic results. If you try to extend the photo too far, it struggles with the usual quirks of AI image generation.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Honor 400 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform and Adreno 750 GPU, paired with 12GB RAM and up to 512GB of storage. This combination supports smooth multitasking, gaming, and media consumption.

You shouldn’t get confused with this chipset and the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite on the Magic7 Pro. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is not quite as good, but I have found that the high-end Qualcomm chipsets are so good nowadays that I rarely notice a difference in day-to-day performance.  

Benchmarks

• Antutu:
  • Honor 400 Pro: 410,563 CPU, 770435 GPU, 360,214 Memory, 321,325 UX, 1,862,537 Total
  • Honor Magic7 Pro: 574,863 CPU, 1,204,386 GPU, 346,554 Memory, 387097 UX, 2212900 Total
  • Xiaomi 15: 566,163 CPU, 1,053,018 GPU, 448,141 Memory, 363,836
• Geekbench:
  • Honor 400 Pro: 2011 single core, 5995 multi-core
  • Honor Magic7 Pro: 3088 single core, 9291 multi-core
  •  
  • Xiaomi 15: 3052 single core, 9335 multi-core
• 3Dmark Wildlife Stress Test:
  • Honor 400 Pro:
  • Honor Magic7 Pro: 23271 Best, 15367 Lowest, 66% Stability
  • Xiaomi 15:
• 3Dmark Wildlife Extreme:
  • Honor 400 Pro:
  • Honor Magic7 Pro: 6265
  • Xiaomi 15: 5832

Battery Life and Charging

Most phones nowadays have a good battery life and many of the Chinese brands excel in this aspect.

For the Honor 400 Pro, the battery is a 5300mAh silicon-carbon cell, supporting 100W wired SuperCharge (claimed charging to 51% in 15 minutes, full in 39 minutes) and 50W wireless charging.

The battery is designed to retain over 80% health after four years of use. Honor claims up to 15 hours of online video streaming, 33 hours of calls, and 27 hours of offline video playback on a full charge.

In terms of real-life performance, I have no complaints at all, it easily makes it through the day of moderate to heavy usage with enough battery to spare that I don’t feel anxious about it towards the end of the day.

The phone is capable of 100W wired charging but does not include a charger. I was concerned that to achieve this charge speed, you would need to use an Honor SuperCharge power adapter. However, when testing with the Ugreen 500W GaN Desktop Charger, the phone reported a max charging speed of 100W. However, not every high-powered charger will charge at these speeds. The Anker 737 Power Bankdidn’t get past 10W, and with the Anker 140W Charger, the phone didn’t report Supercharging, but it did hit around 55W.

The phone also supports 50W wireless charging, but this would need an Honour wireless charger. I attempted to use a Xiaomi 50W wireless charger, and unsurprisingly, it only achieved around 5W.

Android and MagicOS 9

Running MagicOS 9.0 (based on Android 15), the Honor 400 Pro incorporates a range of AI-driven features:

• Magic Portal 2.0 for context-aware app shortcuts and content sharing
• AI Writing Tools for drafting, rephrasing, and grammar checking
• AI Recorder for real-time speech-to-text, translation, and summaries
• AI Translation and AI Live Translation for multi-language communication, including real-time call translation processed on-device
• AI Deepfake Detection for video call security
• Magic Capsule for quick access to notifications and controls
• Magic Lock Screen with customisable layouts and dynamic information

Additionally, Honor have promised multi-year Android security and software updates (6+6 years). 

As always with Honor, I am familiar with MagicOS, so I quite like it. Like most phone brands, there is a certain amount of bloatware on top of the useful additional features Honor adds to the phone. It is not the worst offender, but not as clean as Pixel phones.

Price and Alternative Options

The Honor 400 Series smartphones will be available in the United Kingdom from 22nd May at honor.com/uk. The Honor 400 Pro 5G is priced from £699.99 and comes in Lunar Grey and Midnight Black. The Honor 400 5G starts at £399.99 for the 256GB version and £449 for the 512GB model, with colour options including Desert Gold, Lunar Grey, and Midnight Black.

From 22nd May, customers in the UK can purchase the Honor 400 Series from major retailers and network providers including EE, O2, Three, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, Argos, Currys, Amazon, and Very. In the Republic of Ireland, the Honor 400 Series will be available in Spring 2025 from Three, Harvey Norman, and Tesco Mobile.

The Honor Magic7 Pro officially launched at £1100 but, currently, Honor lists the phone at £950. At the time of writing (15^th of May), Honour has an additional £150 discount, taking it down to £800, which includes 12GB RAM and 512GB storage.

When comparing to other brands, the price point looks good.

Although I haven’t used it, the OnePlus 13 is likely the best alternative if you can afford it. This can be picked up for around £800, so the same price as the Honor Magic7 Pro.

The OPPO Reno13 Pro is an excellent option at a lower price point. It is officially priced at £650 but available for £600. At £650, I’d pay the extra for the Honor, but at £600, I’d say it is well worth considering.

The Xiaomi 15 is reasonably priced at around £900 and it has been as low as £800. I’s say the main selling point to this phone is the flagship spec in a smaller form factor.  

The 6.3” Pixel 9 Pro is £1000 or the XL is £1100. It is a great phone but looks like poor value for money in comparison.

Overall

The Honor 400 Pro is another superb offering from Honor with an outstanding camera, more than enough chipset performance for anyone’s needs and a superb battery with ultrafast charging.

While I think the £700 price point is reasonable for a phone with this level of performance, it is hard to ignore the Honor Magic7 Pro which is, or has recently been, available for just £100 more.

There is not a massive difference between the two phones, but my personal opinion is that the superior camera system of the Honour Magic7 Pro is worth the extra money, as you then get a better chipset plus a few other minor improvements.

Overall, though, if you have a strict budget of £700 or less, in my opinion, there are no other phones that stand out as a better option than the Honor 400 Pro. It is a great phone, but I’d recommend double checking the price difference between this and the Honor Magic7 Pro before committing to buy.

James Smythe( Editor-in-chief )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing. This advanced study also included Cisco CCNA accreditation, further demonstrating my commitment to understanding and staying ahead of the technology curve.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.