Honor 600 Pro Review

The Honor 400 Pro was one of those phones that was easy to overlook. It did not have Samsung or Google-level brand recognition in Australia, but underneath that relatively anonymous exterior was a surprisingly capable Android phone with strong performance, decent cameras and aggressive pricing.

The Honor 600 Pro takes a slightly different approach. It is smaller, faster, tougher and packs an enormous 7,000mAh battery into a body that still weighs just 200 grams. Honor has also pushed further into flagship territory with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 512GB of storage and a 200MP main camera backed up by a proper periscope telephoto.

There is one rather large catch: the price. At $1,499 in Australia, this is no longer an obvious value alternative to the big brands. The Honor 600 Pro now has to compete directly with some seriously good phones, and that makes its software support, camera compromises and MagicOS quirks much harder to ignore.

Design and Build Quality

Honor has gone in an interesting direction with the 600 Pro because, rather than making the screen even larger, it has actually shrunk the phone slightly. The 6.57-inch display is down from the 6.7-inch panel on the Honor 400 Pro, and I think that was the right call. It is still nowhere near what I would call a compact phone, but at 156mm tall and 74.7mm wide, it feels much more manageable than some of the enormous Android flagships currently pushing towards seven inches.

The corners are particularly rounded, while the sides remain relatively flat. Combined with the extremely narrow display bezels, the design makes the 600 Pro feel quite modern without becoming awkward to hold. Honor uses an aluminium frame with glass on the front and a composite rear panel, while the phone is available in Black, Golden White and Orange.

One thing I noticed is that the camera bump is relatively shallow. That makes the phone easier to slip into a pocket than some camera-heavy flagships, although it also means there is not much of a ledge to rest a finger against when using the phone one-handed. With the smooth rear finish, the 600 Pro can consequently feel a little slippery.

Durability is one of the stronger parts of the package. The Honor 600 Pro carries IP68, IP69 and IP69K ratings, meaning it is not simply protected against dust and immersion but also high-pressure water exposure. Honor also claims SGS five-star drop and crush resistance certification. I would still put a case on a $1,499 phone, but the underlying protection is reassuring.

The fingerprint sensor is less convincing. Honor uses an optical reader under the display and positions it quite low, so I found the thumb movement less natural than a higher-mounted ultrasonic reader or a sensor integrated into the power button. The supplied testing material also noted occasional recognition failures depending on finger moisture, which is not something I want to be thinking about every time I unlock a phone.

Specs at a Glance

The Honor 600 Pro is much closer to a flagship internally than its positioning might initially suggest. The Australian model combines high-end Qualcomm hardware with a huge battery and plenty of storage.

• Display: 6.57-inch AMOLED, 2728 x 1264, 120Hz
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
• GPU: Adreno 830
• RAM: 12GB
• Storage: 512GB
• Main camera: 200MP with OIS
• Telephoto: 50MP periscope, 3.5x optical zoom, OIS
• Ultrawide: 12MP
• Front camera: 50MP
• Battery: 7,000mAh
• Wired charging: 80W
• Wireless charging: 50W
• Reverse wired charging: 27W
• Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, eSIM
• Software: Android 16 with MagicOS 10
• Water and dust resistance: IP68, IP69 and IP69K
• Weight: 200g
• Australian price: $1,499 RRP

There is no microSD card slot, but with 512GB built in, I doubt many buyers will care. Some international markets may offer other storage configurations, although the 512GB version is the important one for Australia.

Display and Everyday Use

The 6.57-inch AMOLED display has a 2728 x 1264 resolution, giving it around 458 pixels per inch. In normal use, it is extremely sharp. Text looks crisp, images have plenty of detail and the smaller screen size actually helps the resolution feel slightly more concentrated than it would on one of the giant 6.8-inch alternatives.

Honor also supports 10-bit colour, the DCI-P3 colour gamut and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The refresh rate matters much more in daily use than an enormous resolution number because scrolling through webpages, moving between menus and playing compatible games all feel noticeably smoother at 120Hz.

Brightness is one of the headline specifications. Honor advertises a peak figure of 8,000 nits, but it is important to understand what that actually means. You are not going to stare at an entire screen producing 8,000 nits while replying to messages. The figure applies to small areas of the panel, such as HDR highlights, while a dedicated sunlight mode helps maintain visibility outdoors.

HDR10+ is supported, although Dolby Vision is not. During pre-release testing, Netflix did not initially report full HDR streaming compatibility, so that may be something worth checking once retail software has settled. The actual panel itself has the brightness and contrast required to make HDR content look very good.

Honor continues to put more effort than most brands into display comfort features. There is high-frequency PWM dimming for users sensitive to OLED flicker, along with multiple eye-comfort settings and a motion-sickness reduction mode designed for using the phone in a moving vehicle. I like that these options are presented as actual usability features rather than being buried three menus deep.

MagicOS 10, Android 16 and AI Features

MagicOS 10 runs on top of Android 16, and this is probably the area where the Honor 600 Pro divides opinion most sharply. There are plenty of useful features, but Honor’s interface still borrows heavily from iOS in places. Even the Magic Capsule notification system around the front camera clearly follows the same basic concept as Apple’s Dynamic Island.

I do not dislike MagicOS, but it would not be my first-choice Android interface. Oppo’s ColorOS and Google’s Pixel software generally feel more cohesive to me, while Honor still has a few odd decisions. One example is the always-on display, which is not really always on in the conventional sense and relies on interaction rather than simply remaining visible according to a proper schedule.

The amount of preinstalled software is another annoyance. There are useful apps mixed with social platforms, shopping services and games that I would rather install myself. Most can be removed, but spending the first ten minutes with a new $1,499 phone deleting things such as random games and promotional apps is not a great introduction.

AI is everywhere, because apparently no phone is allowed to launch in 2026 without mentioning AI every thirty seconds. Some features are genuinely practical:

• AI Translation and subtitles for conversations and media.
• AI Text Extraction for pulling information from images and documents.
• AI Deepfake Detection aimed at identifying manipulated video or cloned voices.
• AI photo editing for removing or altering objects in images.
• AI writing tools for drafting and rewriting text.
• Image-to-video tools that generate short AI clips from existing photos.

There is also a dedicated button on the right side of the phone. A double press can launch the camera, while other presses can call up AI tools and screen suggestions. I like having the hardware shortcut, but I would have preferred Honor to make it completely programmable so I could assign any app or action rather than choosing from a fairly narrow selection of Honor-approved functions.

Some of the AI features encountered errors during pre-release testing, so I would not judge their long-term reliability entirely from early software. The bigger concern in Australia is software longevity. Honor says the Australian 600 Pro receives only two major Android OS upgrades and three years of security patches, while European buyers are promised significantly longer support. On a phone costing $1,499, that Australian policy is difficult to defend.

Performance and Gaming

Performance is where the Honor 600 Pro starts making a much stronger argument for itself. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite may no longer be the newest chip in the Snapdragon line, but it remains extremely fast. Combined with 12GB of RAM and the Adreno 830 GPU, there is more than enough power here for normal daily use and demanding mobile games.

Geekbench 6 testing produced a 3,050 single-core score and 9,040 multi-core result, while the OpenCL GPU score reached 18,000. Those numbers put the Honor comfortably ahead of several similarly priced Android devices in CPU performance, including the Google Pixel 10 Pro and Oppo Reno 15 Pro in the supplied comparison data. More expensive phones using newer flagship hardware can go faster, but I reached the point very quickly where the benchmark difference stopped having much relevance to normal use.

Gaming is more interesting. Testing with demanding titles at high settings and 60fps showed the Honor generally holding frame rates in the mid-to-high 50s, with occasional drops into the high 40s or low 50s during longer sessions. That is not perfect locked-60 performance, but it is good enough that I would happily use the phone for serious mobile gaming.

Honor has also increased the vapour chamber cooling system. The phone becomes warm after roughly 20 to 30 minutes of heavy gaming, but the testing material did not report major performance throttling even after sessions extending beyond an hour.

That matters more to me than a slightly higher peak benchmark because sustained performance is where some powerful phones fall apart. There is little benefit in having an incredibly fast processor if it has to dramatically pull back after fifteen minutes because the chassis cannot remove the heat.

Battery Life and Charging

The 7,000mAh battery might be my favourite part of the Honor 600 Pro.

Phone manufacturers spent years making handsets thinner while battery capacities hovered around 4,500 to 5,000mAh. Newer silicon-carbon battery technology has finally allowed manufacturers to fit significantly more capacity into relatively normal-sized phones, and Honor is taking advantage of that here.

Despite the smaller body, the 600 Pro jumps to 7,000mAh. Under lighter use, supplied real-world testing managed around two days between charges. Even during demanding days involving lots of screen time and heavier use, getting through a full day with plenty left in reserve was not an issue.

Continuous gaming produced just over five and a half hours in one demanding test scenario using maximum performance settings and high graphics. That is an excellent result considering how quickly high-end mobile games can drain a battery.

Charging reaches 80W over a cable and 50W wirelessly. Honor has technically stepped backwards from the charging speed of its predecessor, but with a battery this large, I am not particularly bothered when a full charge can still be completed in around an hour under suitable conditions.

The bigger annoyance is that the required fast charger is not included in the box. If a company wants to advertise 80W charging as a feature, I would rather see the hardware needed to actually achieve it included, especially once we are talking about a $1,499 device.

There is also 27W reverse wired charging, effectively allowing the Honor to operate as an emergency power bank for accessories or another phone. With 7,000mAh available, this is one of the rare phones where reverse charging feels like something you might realistically use rather than a specification included for the sake of the product page.

Cameras: 200MP Main, 3.5x Telephoto and Ultrawide

The rear camera system looks serious, although the specification sheet needs a little unpacking.

You get a 200MP main camera using a large 1/1.4-inch sensor with optical image stabilisation. Sitting alongside it is a 50MP periscope telephoto with OIS and 3.5x optical zoom, followed by a much less ambitious 12MP ultrawide. Honor advertises zoom extending all the way to 120x using hybrid processing.

The 200MP number inevitably grabs attention, but sensor size, processing and stabilisation matter far more than the megapixel figure by itself. Fortunately, the main camera appears to be the strongest part of the system. Images retain plenty of detail, colours are vivid without constantly looking radioactive and the large sensor helps in more complicated lighting.

Honor defaults to a more vivid look, although you can switch to more natural processing. Even then, darker areas can sometimes be lifted more aggressively than I would like. It produces a photograph that is easy to share immediately, but not necessarily one that perfectly reflects how the scene looked.

The main camera also performs well after dark, although Honor occasionally pushes exposure too far. One supplied night test showed the phone lifting a genuinely dark evening sky until it looked brighter than reality. Samsung and Apple were able to handle that particular scenario more naturally.

The 50MP periscope is probably more useful than another high-resolution ultrawide would have been. A genuine 3.5x optical focal length gives you much more flexibility for portraits, buildings, cars, animals and subjects you cannot physically approach.

Image quality remains strong at moderate zoom levels, with testing showing useful detail around 7x before digital processing becomes increasingly obvious. The advertised 120x mode is fun and can reveal surprising amounts of information from distant subjects, but I would treat it as an occasional tool rather than something that replaces an actual long lens.

At extreme zoom, autofocus also becomes less dependable. The camera can hunt repeatedly rather than locking onto the intended subject, occasionally leaving you with a blurry image after spending several seconds trying to frame it.

The 12MP ultrawide is the weak link. During daylight it is perfectly usable and the drop in quality from the main camera is not disastrous, but low-light results fall away more quickly. On a phone at this price, I would have liked Honor to use a higher-quality 50MP ultrawide and create a more consistent three-camera setup.

Video, Selfies and Audio

Rear video recording reaches 4K at 60fps, including HDR, although camera availability changes depending on the recording mode. The main sensor produces bright, detailed footage in good conditions, with stabilisation doing a good job of keeping handheld clips under control.

The main camera also remains surprisingly useful as light levels fall. Noise does begin to appear, as expected from a smartphone sensor, but it copes better than the telephoto and ultrawide once conditions become properly dark.

One area that has apparently improved compared with the previous generation is microphone performance. Wind noise is handled more effectively without destroying the rest of the recording, which is useful if you actually shoot video outdoors rather than only recording clips indoors for social media.

Up front, Honor gives you a 50MP selfie camera. The previous depth-sensing hardware is gone, so the cut-out in the display is smaller, but the camera itself lacks autofocus. That feels strange on a phone positioning itself this high in the market, particularly when some competitors offer more sophisticated front-facing systems.

Selfies are at least relatively restrained in their default processing. I would much rather a phone preserve some actual skin detail than automatically make me look as though someone has applied a beauty filter at maximum strength.

Front video reaches 4K at 30fps with HDR, or up to 60fps without it. Stabilisation and microphone quality make it a perfectly usable option for video calls, social content and quick vlog-style clips.

Connectivity, Speakers and Daily Usability

Connectivity is extremely well covered. There is sub-6GHz 5G, dual nano-SIM support plus eSIM, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Honor also supports a huge selection of wireless audio codecs, including LDAC, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless and multiple generations of LHDC.

The phone technically has stereo speakers, but they are not equally matched. The lower speaker does most of the heavy lifting while the top channel is considerably weaker. Maximum volume is high and clarity remains decent, but the stereo separation is not as convincing as what I have heard from phones using two stronger speakers.

There is no 3.5mm headphone jack, which is no surprise in 2026, and the USB-C connection is limited to USB 2.0 speeds. That latter point feels slightly out of place on an expensive phone with 512GB of storage because transferring large video files over a cable can be considerably slower than on phones with faster USB standards.

Day to day, though, the overall combination works well. You are getting a phone that is easier to hold than many modern flagships, has excellent wireless connectivity, enough storage for years of apps and photos, and a battery that dramatically reduces charging anxiety.

Honor 600 Pro vs the Competition

This is where things get complicated for Honor.

If the 600 Pro were significantly cheaper, its compromises would be easier to accept. At $1,499, buyers are going to compare it against established devices from Apple, Google, Samsung and Oppo, along with aggressively priced performance phones from brands such as OnePlus.

The Oppo Reno 15 Pro is one of the more obvious alternatives in the supplied comparison material. It does not match the Honor’s raw processor performance, but it provides a stronger 50MP ultrawide camera, autofocus on the selfie camera and much longer local software support. Oppo also includes a fast charger, which makes Honor’s omission harder to justify.

Google’s Pixel 10 Pro is another option if photography software and AI integration matter more than maximum benchmark performance. The Honor comfortably wins the raw-performance contest against the Pixel in the provided Geekbench results, but buying a phone is not the same thing as buying a CPU.

Then there are devices using newer generations of Snapdragon flagship silicon. If maximum gaming performance is your priority, there are phones around similar money capable of posting higher numbers. What keeps the Honor relevant is the combination of strong performance and its unusually large battery rather than outright benchmark supremacy.

The problem is that Honor is asking Australian buyers to spend flagship money while providing software support that does not match the phone’s hardware lifespan. A Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage could remain perfectly usable for years. Limiting Australian buyers to two major OS upgrades undermines that longevity before the hardware itself has become remotely obsolete.

Price and Value in Australia

The Honor 600 Pro costs $1,499 in Australia, compared with $999 for the Honor 400 Pro when that model arrived locally. The skipped 500 Pro generation makes the numerical jump look slightly less dramatic, but from a buyer’s perspective the important number is still an extra $500.

There are obvious upgrades. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is much faster, the battery has grown to a massive 7,000mAh, you have a useful 3.5x periscope camera and the overall design feels more refined. Wireless charging remains available at up to 50W, and getting 512GB as standard is generous.

I simply do not think those improvements automatically make the 600 Pro a bargain at $1,499.

Its value depends heavily on discounts. At a lower street price, the combination of flagship performance, huge battery life, 512GB storage and a strong main camera becomes extremely attractive. At full Australian RRP, I start expecting details such as better long-term support, a stronger ultrawide camera, an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and possibly a charger in the box.

That is the difference between being a great phone and being an obvious recommendation.

Verdict

The Honor 600 Pro gets a surprising amount right.

I like that Honor resisted the temptation to make it bigger. The 6.57-inch screen feels easier to manage, yet it remains sharp, bright and smooth. Performance from the Snapdragon 8 Elite is still properly flagship-level, gaming performance holds up over extended sessions and 512GB of storage gives you plenty of room without immediately pushing you towards a more expensive configuration.

Then there is the battery. Fitting 7,000mAh into a 200-gram phone that is only 7.8mm thick fundamentally changes how relaxed you can be about charging. Even heavy users should be able to comfortably get through a day, while lighter use can push the 600 Pro well into a second day. Add 80W wired and 50W wireless charging and this is easily one of the strongest areas of the phone.

The cameras are slightly more mixed. The 200MP main sensor is capable, the 3.5x periscope is genuinely useful and moderate zoom results can be very good. The 12MP ultrawide feels like the obvious cost-saving measure, while the missing autofocus on the 50MP selfie camera is difficult to understand at this price.

MagicOS 10 also remains something of an acquired taste. There are useful AI tools and plenty of customisation, but there is too much preinstalled software and some interface choices still feel unnecessarily influenced by iOS. More importantly, Honor’s Australian update commitment is nowhere near good enough for a $1,499 Android phone, especially when the same hardware receives substantially longer support elsewhere.

That ultimately defines the Honor 600 Pro for me. The hardware is good enough to compete with much better-known flagship phones, but the price means Honor can no longer rely on being the interesting outsider that gives you almost everything for less.

If battery life, performance and a useful telephoto camera are your priorities, the 600 Pro deserves to be on the shortlist. I would just be far more enthusiastic about buying it on sale than paying the full $1,499 RRP.