Honor 400 Pro review

Potent triple-camera setup with 200MP sensor

Although the Honor 400 Pro is a mid-range phone, it features a flagship-level camera setup. The main sensor is a fairly big 200MP unit aided by a 50MP camera with 3x optical zoom and an ultrawide shooter with autofocus support.

The selfie camera is once again 50MP with an additional 2MP depth sensor.

• Wide (main): 200MP 1/1.4", f/1.9, 24mm, PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Ultrawide: 12MP, f/2.2, 16mm, PDAF; 4K@30fps
• Telephoto: 50MP Sony IMX 856, f/2.4, 68mm, PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Front camera: 50MP, f/2.1, 21mm, fixed focus; 4K@30fps

Sadly, we couldn't retrieve all the camera sensor models except the telephoto.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The camera app provides three global color presets - Natural, Vivid and Authentic. The Vivid one is the default, and we took all photos in Vivid.

Overall quality is excellent. The binned 12.5MP photos are sharp, detailed and offer punchy colors. Maybe even a bit too saturated for our taste.

We are also not fans of the HDR processing. It looks like the dynamic range is somewhat limited, with highlights often looking too bright, sometimes even clipped. Notice the pavements, clouds, white building facades and even the grass. Also the windows in the indoor shots.

Main camera photos

The full-resolution 200MP mode offers some extra detail, but sharpness drops and the dynamic range is even more limited.

200MP main camera photos

The phone takes excellent portraits as well, with or without the faux bokeh.

Portraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode

2x crop zoom

The 2x crop zoom photos are very close to the 1x photos in terms of quality. There's minimal loss in quality for the most part, but we found it to be inconsistent. Some pictures come out soft and out of focus. Look at the fourth, fifth and sixth scenes in the gallery below.

2x crop zoom photos

And here are the portraits.

2x zoom prtraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode

3x telephoto camera

Honor did a pretty good job matching the auxiliary cameras' post-processing with the main one. There's almost no difference in color, contrast and exposure.

The photos are generally nice, leaving little to ask for. Just like in the main camera photos, the 3x zoom ones produces highlights which are borderline overexposed, but the level of detail and sharpness are very good regardless whether it's outside or indoors.

Our only nitpick here is how foliage and grass get rendered - they don't always look nice and crisp when you examine them from up close.

3x telephoto camera photos

The portraits from the telephoto camera are also solid.

3x zoom prtraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode

6x crop zoom

The viewfinder offers a dedicated 6x zoom toggle. In this mode, the system crops from the 3x telephoto sensor, achieving 6x hybrid zoom. The results are surprisingly good. We struggle to find any loss in quality compared to the standard 3x photos, even indoors. The pictures are just as sharp and detailed.

6x crop zoom photos

The portraits at 6x zoom aren't ideal but pretty good for a hybrid zoom.

6x zoom prtraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera's processing is ever so slightly different. It retains the vibrant look, but the highlights seem more balanced. Instead, the contrast is slightly higher. We are also happy with the overall quality. Sharpness and detail are flagship-level in the context of ultrawide cameras. The camera doesn't struggle indoors either.

Ultrawide camera photos

The ultrawide camera supports autofocusing, which helps produce sharper images and nice close-ups. Aside from the tendency for a higher exposure, the macro photos are generally sharp and detailed.

Macro photos

Selfies

The selfie camera produces solid pictures with plenty of detail, good dynamic range and lively colors. Under bright sunlight, the camera struggles to get the right exposure, which seems like a recurring theme with the Honor 400 Pro's cameras. But aside from that, we are happy with how the selfies turned out. We wish Honor had added autofocus, which has become a standard feature in this price range for the last two years.

Selfies

Main camera

The low-light images from the main camera come out impressively clean, sharp, detailed and with punchy colors. There's obviously some aggressive post-processing like artificial sharpening and brightening the shadows, but the nighttime photos are excellent at the end of the day. Light sources are well-contained too.

Subjectively speaking, we wish the shadows were slightly darker as the current rendition takes away the natural look of the scene, but this aspect is highly subjective, of course.

Low-light main camera photos

Even though the camera software doesn't explicitly say it uses Auto Night mode, we found it to be active all the time when there's insufficient lighting. We also forced Night mode through the dedicated camera mode, but aside from the fact that it takes forever to take one shot, it didn't improve image quality one bit. Our recommendation is to skip the Night mode altogether. The standard Photo mode does the job fine without taking too long for a single photo.

2x crop zoom

The 2x crop zoom photos are excellent as well. They are clean, detailed and somewhat sharp. Sure, they are not as sharp as the 1x photos, and if you look closely enough, you will notice the artificial sharpening, but the zoom shots are still good.

Low-light 2x crop zoom photos

3x telephoto camera

The nighttime 3x telephoto look amazing too. They are comparable to the main camera's processing in most aspects - clean, sharp, and detailed. You can see deterioration in quality in darker scenes, but we wouldn't expect otherwise.

Low-light 3x telephoto camera photos

6x crop zoom

The crop from the telephoto sensor is pushing the boundaries of the hardware. The pictures are a bit soft, and the noise-suppression algorithm works overtime, which smears away some fine detail. The 6x zoom shots are not bad per se, but far from ideal too.

Low-light 6x crop zoom photos

Ultrawide camera

Computational photography to the rescue! The nighttime ultrawide photos are pretty good, albeit not very sharp. The post-processing adds a ton of artificial sharpening, bringing out plenty of detail, but the photos are considerably softer than those from the main and telephoto cameras. Still good for an ultrawide camera, though. We are also impressed by the wide dynamic range, which isn't usually the case with ultrawide units.

Low-light ultrawide camera photos

Video recording

The Honor 400 Pro can record 4K videos at up to 60fps using its main and telephoto cameras, while the ultrawide and the selfie units are capped at 2160@30fps. EIS is available in all camera modes.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

Starting the main camera footage, we get vivid colors, nice contrast, plenty of detail and crisp rendition. Dynamic range is good too.

At night, video quality quite good as well with some great colors, while detail and sharpness are more than decent.

The telephoto unit produces videos with near-identical rendition regarding colors, contrast, exposure, etc. Surely, the video isn't as sharp, but it's still very detailed and definitely one of the nicest 3x zoom videos we've seen in this price bracket. In fact, we think this telephoto camera punches above its weight class. There's a little bit of noise and shimmer in the distance, but nothing deal-breaking.

Naturally, the ultrawide footage is the softest of all cameras, but still pretty good for its class. Color saturation is still generous, contrast is good, and the level of detail is excellent.

Lastly, stabilization is pretty much ideal. There's no jitter or distortion, just smooth video recording in 4K.