Honor’s 400 phones are midrangers built to last

Honor has introduced the 400 and 400 Professional, two midrange telephones that launch at present within the UK and Europe. They’re capable-looking handsets in loads of respects, however stand out principally for the assure of six years of software program help, bested solely by Google’s Pixel 9A for the value.

In equity, at £699.99 / €799 (round $900), the 400 Professional is mostly a flagship in its personal proper. It’s powered by 2023’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and boasts a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, IP68 and 69 scores, and sizable 5,300mAh battery (with an excellent bigger 6,000mAh cell outdoors Europe). The triple digicam is spectacular too, with a 200-megapixel predominant shooter, plus an ultrawide and telephoto.

I’m a much bigger fan of the common 400 although, and never simply because at £399.99 / €499 (round $560) it’s considerably cheaper. It has straight sides, reasonably than the curved edges of the Professional mannequin, and mixed with a smaller 6.5-inch show it’s way more comfy to make use of.

The 400 ships with the identical predominant and ultrawide cameras because the Professional, solely giving up on the telephoto. Its IP65 water-resistance is rather less complete, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 received’t supply fairly as a lot energy, however the mixture of the identical giant battery and a smaller display ought to give this nice endurance. The primary draw back for me can be giving up the Professional’s wi-fi charging.

Importantly, Honor’s dedication to 6 years of OS model updates and 6 years of safety patches is identical for each telephones, and may see them via to Android 21 in 2031. That matches Samsung’s promise for its Galaxy A56, and falls only one yr wanting the seven years assured for the Pixel 9A. Each 400 telephones arrive operating Honor’s MagicOS and Android 15, and embrace a novel AI image-to-video feature powered by Google’s Veo 2 model, at the moment not out there on some other telephones.

Whereas I’m not solely offered on the 400 Professional’s near-flagship price ticket, the bottom 400 appears to be like like a compelling different to the Pixel 9A and Galaxy A56. It’s cheaper than both, ought to final for about as lengthy, and bests each on fairly a couple of specs.

Images by Dominic Preston / The Verge