Honor Pro 400 review: Overdue debut

Originally a sub-brand under Huawei, Honor was spun-off from the controversial Chinese smartphone maker back in 2020. In the years since then, the brand has found a foothold in other markets like Europe. Now, it’s looking to pick up where its predecessor left off and make a lasting impression on Australian consumers.

While the flashiest product in Honor’s initial Australian lineup is surely the Honor Magic V5 foldable, courtesy of the affordable asking price, Honor 400 Pro 5G is more likely to be the first taste of what the brand has to offer Aussies. The hardware here is priced to move but flaunts all the usual flagship perks. 

Angled around the alluring pitch of being a cheaper alternative to the likes of Google and Samsung, the Honor 400 Pro 5G gets enough right that I didn’t hate it. All the same, there’s a cruft and carelessness to the details here that make it a little harder to recommend than some of the other options. I think Honor has done a decent job carving out a lane for itself in the local market, but it didn't take long for me to come away leery of the likelihood that all too many consumers will join them in within it.

To the eye, the Honor 400 Pro 5G is unoriginal but inoffensive. I wouldn’t say the overall design looks as gaudy as something like the Huawei Mate flagships of old, but it definitely feels descended from the same family tree. 

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but there’s just not much that stands out here, even in the face of the increasingly homogeneous competition. The silver accents on the back do catch the light in a striking way from time to time, but that's about it. Likewise, the 6.7-inch AMOLED display that adorns the front of the Honor 400 Pro 5G is more to spec than anything truly special. It’s clocked at 120Hz and flanked by thin bezels and curved edges that are nice to have but not quite revolutionary. 

All told, the Honor 400 Pro 5G feels about 10% nicer than most midrangers but about 20% less premium than something like the Galaxy S25. That niche might find its fans but to me, it's an awkward one to occupy even for a short time.

Still, the Honor 400 Pro 5G is lightweight to handle and packed with plenty of premium perks. There’s IP69 rater-resistance, a 5300mAh battery, and a dual-lens selfie camera. 

In fact, to the manufacturer's credit, the one area where the Honor 400 Pro 5G does a surprisingly good job of distinguishing itself is the camera hardware. This rear camera setup is comprised of a 200MP primary lens, a 12MP ultrawide lens, and 50MP telephoto lens.

In practice, I was pretty impressed with what these components could offer. Daylight snaps were sharp and in-focus and while the night mode isn’t as accommodating as what you’ll find with a Google or Apple device, it mostly got the job done. 

When it comes to performance, the Honor 400 Pro 5G mostly meets the mark but is sometimes down by the software involved. Under the hood, the device is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 12GB of RAM. In terms of storage, you’re kitted out with a generous 512GB - which is more than you can usually find for the asking price. 

All told, these components add up to an appropriately snappy everyday experience - at least until the MagicOS gets involved. Similar to the OneUI skin seen in Samsung’s smartphones and tablets, Honor has its own flavour of Android called MagicOS. While a quick Google suggests that this particular Android skin has its fair share of fans, I found MagicOS created a lot of friction for me from the get-go.

There are a lot of strange design choices, as well as bizarre bells and whistles that are enabled by default. For example, the ‘Copy’ button you’d usually get when you highlight a piece of on-screen text has been subsumed by a generic ‘Share’ prompt instead.

This confusing attempt to fix what isn’t broken is particularly egregious, but it’s far from the only such sin to be found when it comes to the software powering the Honor 400 Pro 5G. Even by the standard of sub-$1000 smartphones, the amount of bloatware that this device ships with is genuinely staggering. For something that is trying to sell itself as pseudo-premium, the first impression it gives isn’t necessarily the best one it could be. 

I think if you really committed to it, you could probably get used to MagicOS (or tinker with it enough that it isn’t in your way as often). However, when we’re talking about a smartphone that costs this much, I don’t think that’s additional work that you as the user should have to put in. 

In any case, if you can get past all that and for what it’s worth, the performance offered by the Honor 400 Pro 5G is fairly solid. When it came to more visually involved titles like League of Legends: Wild Rift, Diablo Immortal and Destiny Rising, the Honor 400 Pro 5G didn’t miss a beat. 

Meanwhile, when it came to battery life, I found myself regularly getting about a full two days of usage off a single charge - though your mileage may vary depending on your own usage patterns.

Burned down via streaming video from YouTube over Wi-Fi, the Honor 400 Pro 5G took 18 hours and 39 minutes to go from a full charge to zero. That's an okay result, but well short of where some of the competition sits. For instance, the Galaxy S25 Edge lasted 25 hours and 2 minutes in the same conditions.