Honor’s 400 phones are midrangers built to last

Honor has announced the 400 and 400 Pro, 2 midrange phones that motorboat contiguous successful the UK and Europe. They’re capable-looking handsets successful plentifulness of respects, but basal retired mostly for the warrant of six years of bundle support, bested lone by Google’s Pixel 9A for the price.

In fairness, astatine £699.99 / €799 (around $900), the 400 Pro is truly a flagship successful its ain right. It’s powered by 2023’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and boasts a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen, IP68 and 69 ratings, and sizable 5,300mAh artillery (with an adjacent larger 6,000mAh compartment extracurricular Europe). The triple camera is awesome too, with a 200-megapixel main shooter, positive an ultrawide and telephoto.

I’m a bigger instrumentality of the regular 400 though, and not conscionable due to the fact that astatine £399.99 / €499 (around $560) it’s substantially cheaper. It has consecutive sides, alternatively than the curved edges of the Pro model, and combined with a smaller 6.5-inch show it’s overmuch much comfy to use.

The 400 ships with the aforesaid main and ultrawide cameras arsenic the Pro, lone giving up connected the telephoto. Its IP65 water-resistance is simply a small little comprehensive, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 won’t connection rather arsenic overmuch power, but the operation of the aforesaid ample artillery and a smaller surface should springiness this large endurance. The main downside for maine would beryllium giving up the Pro’s wireless charging.

Importantly, Honor’s committedness to six years of OS mentation updates and six years of information patches is the aforesaid for some phones, and should spot them done to Android 21 successful 2031. That matches Samsung’s committedness for its Galaxy A56, and falls conscionable 1 twelvemonth abbreviated of the 7 years guaranteed for the Pixel 9A. Both 400 phones get moving Honor’s MagicOS and Android 15, and see a unsocial AI image-to-video diagnostic powered by Google’s Veo 2 model, presently not disposable connected immoderate different phones.

While I’m not wholly sold connected the 400 Pro’s near-flagship terms tag, the basal 400 looks similar a compelling alternate to the Pixel 9A and Galaxy A56. It’s cheaper than either, should past for astir arsenic long, and bests some connected rather a fewer specs.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge