Hands-on: Style meets function in the new Honor 400 mid-ranger

Phone Arena

22-05-2025

Honor officially launched its 400 series at a special event in London on May 22. The Royal Academy of Arts hosted the announcement, and under the works of Rembrandt and Gauguin, we got to experience the phones for the first time.This was a fitting scene for the 400 series launch, as the stylish models in this lineup not only look great but also feature some AI camera magic that's very impressive. We won't dare to compare it to the aforementioned fine arts grandmasters, but it's impressive nonetheless.We already covered the Honor 400 Pro, which is a flagship in disguise really, but the vanilla Honor 400 is also very interesting and quite different from its Pro sibling. The vanilla model in the Honor 400 portfolio is a very different animal compared to its Pro sibling. For what it's worth, it looks and feels much more "western" and modern, mainly because of the flat design and the camera layout. It's a bit of a contradiction, as it's the more affordable model of the two, but here we are.The Honor 400 comes in a slightly more compact form than the Pro model, courtesy of the 6.5-inch display. The phone is flat all around and looks very classy, especially the Desert Gold color variant. At just 7.3 mm thickness, the Honor 400 feels great in the hand, even though there's no curvature to wrap your palm around. The smooth surface of the frosted back glass is also great, with a satin feel to it. The phone weighs around 180 grams, which is just perfect—not too light, not too heavy.
As far as aesthetics are concerned, we like the Honor 400 more than the Pro, not only because its flat design results in a more modern look, but also because the camera bump is much more understated compared to the Pro.
The camera housing of the Honor 400 looks quite stylish | Image by PhoneArena It has the same rounded trapezoid shape, but the two cameras are vertically positioned with the LED flash offset in a smaller circle. It's a stylish and unique look.The 6.5-inch display is very bright, at least that's how it feels. Honor says it can output up to 5000 nits, and we're going to test this pretty soon. But subjectively, our first impressions are very positive—the image is bright and vivid and also smooth thanks to the 120 Hz refresh rate. We really should put this hands-on in some context here, and in order to do this, we need to compare the Honor 400 to its Pro sibling. First, the vanilla model starts at £399.99, compared to £699.99 for the Honor 400 Pro.This is almost half the price, so let's see what sacrifices had to be made to achieve this much more attractive price tag.
The Honor 400 features the same main and ultrawide cameras but ditches the 50MP telephoto. All the zooming is done via crops from the main 200MP sensor and some AI magic. And the results are pretty good (samples will appear here shortly). The processor inside is the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, which is a proper midrange chip compared to the 8 Gen 3 found in the Pro model. The Honor 400 also comes with 8GB of RAM as opposed to the 12GB inside the Pro model. And finally, the charging support caps at 66W wired on the Honor 400, while the Pro can do 100W.Everything else is the same: the battery capacity is the same, the two main and ultrawide cameras are the same, and the display metrics (apart from the size difference) are also the same. The same software magic with AI sprinkles is present on the Honor 400 as well, and put side by side, both phones work identically well—fast and smooth.
A great package in a stylish enclosure | Image by PhoneArena Stay tuned for the full review, as it will be interesting to test the 5000 nits brightness claims, as well as see how the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 performs inside the Honor 400. But our first impressions are very positive.
At £399.99, the Honor 400 offers a lot of bells and whistles, and it also looks quite classy. In our opinion, this model has the potential to persuade more people to reach out and grab it instead of a Galaxy A56, for example.
Honor is making a statement with its Magic series already, and now the 400 series offers a great package at a very reasonable price.